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It's funny. Laugh. Science

2004 Ig Nobel Prizes Announced 204

Posted by michael from the she-blinded-me-with-science dept.
ancice writes "The 2004 Ig Nobel prizes are out. Article by New Scientist. An 'invisible gorilla has scooped the 2004 Ig Nobel Prize for Psychology'. And 'dropped food is safe to eat if it has spent no more than five seconds on the floor' - Public Health. Finally, there's proof for the 5 second rule! And for Engineering, 'Patenting of the combover'. Official page with ceremony and lectures."
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2004 Ig Nobel Prizes Announced More

2004 Ig Nobel Prizes Announced

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  • Proper definition/clarification of 5-second rule (Score:5, Funny)

    by stecoop ( 759508 ) on Friday October 01, 2004 @08:35AM (#10403689) Journal
    The 5-second rule - if food product should land on the ground and if the dog doesn't eat said food product in 5 seconds than you can have it.

    In conjunction with:
    Read your town charter, boy. `If food stuffs should touch the ground, said food stuffs shall be turned over to the village idiot.' Since I don't see him around, start shoveling! - Homer.
    • That's right: help the village idiot build up his immune system!

      I'm no germ-freak idiot, and have no problem, say, eating a slice of pizza that fell topdown on the floor. Wipe the big crunchy dirt off and it's as good as new... unless your shit don't stink.

      I with Carlin and Kramer. :)

      --

    • Re:Proper definition/clarification of 5-second rul (Score:4, Informative)

      by Red Pointy Tail ( 127601 ) on Friday October 01, 2004 @10:14AM (#10404625)
      The 5 second rule has been covered by /. more than a year ago here [slashdot.org].
    • Yeah, right!

      Here's a scenario for you stecoop. You're standing in the crowded men's room - late into the evening - at your favorite local bar knowing these people can't pee straight sober much less drunk. You brought your beer with you; because, God forbid, someone steal your drink.

      As you're waiting in line to pee, some drunk opens the door into you causing you to spill your drink.

      Here's your question: Which puddle do you lick up? You have four seconds to decide.

      • Re:Proper definition/clarification of 5-second rul (Score:4, Funny)

        by stecoop ( 759508 ) on Friday October 01, 2004 @11:20AM (#10405361) Journal
        Hmm, that would fall under Section 1 paragraph II - heading A - The Village Idiot.

        The owner would be the village idiot for these reasons:
        1) You're standing in front of the door
        2) You brought your beer to the bathroom
        3) You didn't finish your drink *before* going to the bathroom
        4) You are walking in pee
        5) You're in crowded men's room

        Possible Remedies
        1) Pee in your beer bottle to rectify anyone from stealing your beer in the future
        2) Finish drink before going to bathroom
        3) Plan on going to the bathroom before ordering drink
        4) Don't walk in Pee
        5) Don't take drink to bathroom.
        6) Don't stand in front of a bathroom door
        7) Let the dog have it - or you're the village idiot.

  • Shurely shome mishtake ? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Space cowboy ( 13680 ) * on Friday October 01, 2004 @08:35AM (#10403693) Journal
    Not to be pedantic about the poster's phrasing, but I would have though the proof went *against* the five-second rule (although this is the first I've heard of such a rule - up until now I've always thought of food on the floor as being garbage-fodder... Catching it in mid-fall is the thing to do, thus managing to foil the buttered-toast rule :-)

    For me, the Coca Cola one is the most amazing one - there was a UK sitcom called 'Only Fools And Horses' about an East-London wide-boy ("Del-boy") and family, often hilarious, especially where 'Trigger' was concerned :-) One of Del's wheezes was to bottle the 'Peckham Spring' (IIRC) which of course was tapwater and sell to health-farm freaks - he couldn't believe people would pay *that* much for water :-)

    The fact that Coca Cola thought they could get away with for real makes me wonder what *other* "Del-boy" schemes have been put into practice!

    Simon

    • Re:Shurely shome mishtake ? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ericspinder ( 146776 ) on Friday October 01, 2004 @08:55AM (#10403871) Journal
      The fact that Coca Cola thought they could get away with [selling bottled water] for real
      I drink bottled water often, in particular, when I am out on the road. It's nearly impossible to find a public water fountain these days, and besides I wouldn't trust my health to most of them. For the most part, they are just decent well filtered tap water. Some are true 'spring water', with the 'minerals' intact, but most try to come close to just pure H2O.

      However, It does amaze me that some people buy the stuff by the case for their home, and/or the most expensive brand (it's just packaged water, damn it!). Nearly everyone can get the same quality water from home with the right filtration process.

      While sometimes over used by some people, pure packaged water makes a fine product and I believe that wherever you see a soda can vended you should have the opportunity to purchase the most important thing that humans need, clean fresh water.

      • Re:Shurely shome mishtake ? (Score:3, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward

        For the most part, they are just decent well filtered tap water. Some are true 'spring water', with the 'minerals' intact, but most try to come close to just pure H2O.

        I think that may be true in the US, but in the European Union water that calls itself `Natural Mineral Water' has to come from an accredited spring. Most of the big brands such as Evian, Vittel, Perrier, San Pellegrino, etc. fall into this category. There'a a long tradition of spas with putative health benefits, and no doubt the legislati

        • I'm not sure if this is local to France or European but there are three major terms :

          - "spring" water is *very* heavily monitored and has some very stringent restrictions on it's composition. Notably on included minerals. Very few springs actually qualify. You can drink this water daily without trouble.

          - "mineral" water is also monitored but without the restrictions on composition, therefore there *might* be too much sodium (or fluoride, or whatever) for regular consumption. Most waters fall into this cat
      • Totally pure H2O actually tastes surprisingly bad. It doesn't taste like anything at all, and that feels really weird, even if you're just used to tap water (as opposed to mineral water that they're deliberately flavoring).

        Most brands do tweak the mineral content a bit to tinker with the flavor, though far less than something labeled "mineral water".

        Personally, I drink a lot of tap water, and I'm always faintly embarrassed when I want something to drink on the road and have to run into a 7-11 to buy wate

        • Re:Shurely shome mishtake ? (Score:4, Interesting)

          by ill dillettante ( 658149 ) on Friday October 01, 2004 @10:03AM (#10404498) Homepage
          I agree that very pure water (Mill-Q) tastes unusual, but I wouldn't say it tastes bad. I drink it at work all the time (one of the "benefits" of being a scientist). The best way to describe how it tastes is like air- you know that you have put something wet in your mouth, but it doesn't seem heavy enough to be a liquid.

          I have always thought there would be a market for it - at least would taste different to all the other bottle waters.
          • I have always thought there would be a market for it - at least would taste different to all the other bottle waters.

            Gee, I've never gotten around to trying it. I'll have to pour myself a beaker this afternoon. :)

            On the other hand, have you seen what it does when you put it in a container that's covered with scale? (Calcium carbonate reside, mostly, from hard water.) It's a very good solvent for those minerals--just sucks them right off the glass. It's a great way to remove scale from a coffeepot.

        • I worked in a research lab with an ionized water source. I drank a lot of the water, thinking I was pulling a great stunt. Absolutely pure water sucks. It has no taste, and it burns just a little because it is so pure that the osmosis does weird things.
        • I like the flavor of Dasani.
          its funny, i really like the flavor of Danani too. My girlfriend informed me that CocaCola adds a small amount of salt or sodium(not sure which) in with the minerals to not only enhance taste, but dehyrdrate you slightly so you'll buy more Dasani
          In any case, it does taste better than other bottled waters for some inexplicable reason.

      • Re:Shurely shome mishtake ? (Score:5, Informative)

        by goodydot ( 749400 ) on Friday October 01, 2004 @09:45AM (#10404333) Homepage
        I have heard from three different dentists that the rate of cavities in adults is climbing, and they attributed it to increased consumption of bottled water over tap water. They tell me this is because tap water generally contains flouride, while bottled water does not. Additionally, my friend working at Boston Water and Sewer drinks his tap water over bottled water, because tap water is subject to far more rigorous testing than is bottled water.
        • What about attributing the increase to the massive quantity of sugars ingested by adults nowadays?
        • ... but here's another anecdote just the same
          A friend of mine grew up in Colorado (floridated tap water) and moved to Utah (not floridated tap water)
          As soon as she went to the dentist in Utah, he asked her where she grew up. She explained, and he said that he could tell by the health of her teeth that she wasn't local.


          --
          Free gmail invites [slashdot.org]
        • Our pediatrician told us to give our infant daughter tap water, rather than bottled or filtered water. Enough chlorine and flouride, not as much bacteria as can be present in water pitchers sitting around.

        • Additionally, my friend working at Boston Water and Sewer drinks his tap water over bottled water, because tap water is subject to far more rigorous testing than is bottled water.

          This was covered in an episode of Penn & Tellers "Bullshit!", and at least according to them your friend is essentially correct. While bottled water is regulated, it's regulated by the FDA which has less than one guy dedicated to enforcement/monitoring. Tap water is closely monitored and each city has to issue reports on

    • Re:Shurely shome mishtake ? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by tomhudson ( 43916 ) <barbara.hudson@b ... com minus distro> on Friday October 01, 2004 @09:03AM (#10403929) Journal
      The fact that Coca Cola thought they could get away with for real makes me wonder what *other* "Del-boy" schemes have been put into practice!
      Coca-Cola and Pepsi are "getting away with this for real".

      Both of them sell bottled tap water under their respective brand names world-wide.

      Aquafina == Pepsi municipal tap water
      Dasani == Coke municipal tap water

      So I guess people shouldn't complain that I let my dog drink out of the toilet - she's getting the same stuff you're paying a buck a bottle for.

      • Re:Shurely shome mishtake ? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by JDevers ( 83155 ) on Friday October 01, 2004 @09:09AM (#10403982)
        Yea, it's always amazed me that people will pay MORE (sometimes the water costs the same, but a lot of the times it is more) for Coca-Cola or Pepsi WITHOUT the flavoring, coloring, carbonation, sugar, etc added to it...basically just the water.

        • Re:Shurely shome mishtake ? (Score:5, Insightful)

          by tomhudson ( 43916 ) <barbara.hudson@b ... com minus distro> on Friday October 01, 2004 @09:14AM (#10404021) Journal
          Yea, it's always amazed me that people will pay MORE (sometimes the water costs the same, but a lot of the times it is more) for Coca-Cola or Pepsi WITHOUT the flavoring, coloring, carbonation, sugar, etc added to it...basically just the water.
          Especially since beer is cheaper.

          • Especially since beer is cheaper.

            This is especially true in Germany, where good beer is often significantly cheaper than bottled water or soft drinks.

            When in a restaurant there, I would often order beer because it was the cheapest drink on the menu. I actually like ordinary tap water, but often asking for water there gets you carbonated water, which I do not like at all. You have to actually specify that you want tap water (Leitungswasser), but sometimes they still don't seem to get it.

            For some rea

        • Except when its a monopolized commodity, like at any ClearChannel hot and dusty concert.. where dirty municipal water x is at least 5 bucks a bottle
        • It's always amazed me that people are willing to dring flavoring, coloring, carbonation, sugar, chemical additives, etc. and rot their teeth/spoil their waistline, when there's perfectly good and tasty water available. But that's just me I guess.

          (Actually I don't buy bottled water myself, as amazing as it may sound there are countries where tap water is perfectly drinkable and very tasty even, and if I want to I can take the ~2km hike to the nearest spring. But I realize this is not possible in every countr

          • I wasn't touting the benefits of sugary water, I was simply stating the economics of the situation of how people are willing to pay MORE for LESS. Personally I very rarely drink soda type drinks either, I'm a 75% tap water 25% tea kind of guy.
        • I have yet to see bottled water for more than soda. Generally soda is $1.29 for 20oz, water is .99, $1.59 for a 1L soda bottle, and $1.29 for water. If anything it's the same, I have not seen it ever cost more.

          Those prices are for Dasani/Aquafina, Evian and the other froo froo brands might be more.

      • Soda makers (and breweries, for that matter) spend a significant portion of their process on purification/standarization of their water supply.
        You can like soda or hate it, (you can like Bud Light or hate it) but wherever you go in the north american continent, a bottle of coke will always taste exactly like every other bottle of coke, and that's a phenominal feat.
        A glass of tap water from NYC will be different from tap water in Miami, different from Santa Fe, etc. But a bottle of Dasani each each of th

        • Re:It's not tap water (Score:3, Informative)

          by JDevers ( 83155 )
          It's not really as hard to standardize a "taste" for water as you might think. They all start off with different water sources, but when they send it through reverse osmosis they are pretty much left with pure H20, then they can add in their trace minerals that give it the mouthfeel they are after. I would actually be amazed if it DIDN'T all taste the same...

    • 5 Second Rule (Score:4, Informative)

      by Mr Guy ( 547690 ) on Friday October 01, 2004 @09:12AM (#10404000) Journal
      Not to be pedantic about the poster's phrasing, but I would have though the proof went *against* the five-second rule (although this is the first I've heard of such a rule - up until now I've always thought of food on the floor as being garbage-fodder... Catching it in mid-fall is the thing to do, thus managing to foil the buttered-toast rule :-)

      It depends on which part of the claim you are looking at. If you take the claim as "Food that has been on the floor less than 5 seconds is safe to eat" then the claim holds up, mostly because he proved that the time doesn't matter much at all. What he seems to have demonstrated is that most of the floors he looked at were clean enough to eat from. He did disprove that the time is the relevant factor, however.

      There's always a difference between clean and sanitary. Relevant to this is that we may actually be too clean [telegraph.co.uk].
    • They claim they made Thamnes river-water unsafe, which requires doing nothing. They took London tap water (Thamnes river water made safe) and made it unsafe and (according to blind trials) less tasty.
    • ...simply butter the toast on the wrong side.

  • Text in case of Slashdotting.. (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 01, 2004 @08:36AM (#10403695)
    The 2004 Ig Nobel Prize Winners

    The 2004 Ig Nobel Prizes were awarded on Thursday evening, September 30, at the 14th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony, at Harvard's Sanders Theatre.

    MEDICINE
    Steven Stack of Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan, USA and James Gundlach of Auburn University, Auburn, Alabama, USA, for their published report "The Effect of Country Music on Suicide."
    PUBLISHED IN: Social Forces, vol. 71, no. 1, September 1992, pp. 211-8.
    WHO ATTENDED THE IG NOBEL CEREMONY: James Gundlach.

    PHYSICS
    Ramesh Balasubramaniam of the University of Ottowa, and Michael Turvey of the University of Connecticut and Yale University, for exploring and explaining the dynamics of hula-hooping.
    REFERENCE: "Coordination Modes in the Multisegmental Dynamics of Hula Hooping," Ramesh Balasubramaniam and Michael T. Turvey, Biological Cybernetics, vol. 90, no. 3, March 2004, pp. 176-90.
    WHO ATTENDED THE IG NOBEL CEREMONY: Ramesh Balasubramaniam and Michael Turvey.

    PUBLIC HEALTH
    Jillian Clarke of the Chicago High School for Agricultural Sciences, and then Howard University, for investigating the scientific validity of the Five-Second Rule about whether it's safe to eat food that's been dropped on the floor.
    WHO ATTENDED THE IG NOBEL CEREMONY: Jillian Clarke

    CHEMISTRY
    The Coca-Cola Company of Great Britain, for using advanced technology to convert liquid from the River Thames into Dasani, a transparent form of water, which for precautionary reasons has been made unavailable to consumers.

    ENGINEERING
    Donald J. Smith and his father, the late Frank J. Smith, of Orlando Florida, USA, for patenting the combover (U.S. Patent #4,022,227).
    WHO ATTENDED THE IG NOBEL CEREMONY: Donald Smith's son, Scott Jackson Smith, and daughter, Heather Smith.

    LITERATURE
    The American Nudist Research Library of Kissimmee, Florida, USA, for preserving nudist history so that everyone can see it.
    WHO ATTENDED THE IG NOBEL CEREMONY: Pamela Chestek, the daughter of ANRL director Helen Fisher.

    PSYCHOLOGY
    Daniel Simons of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Christopher Chabris of Harvard University, for demonstrating that when people pay close attention to something, it's all too easy to overlook anything else -- even a man in a gorilla suit.
    REFERENCE: "Gorillas in Our Midst," Daniel J. Simons and Christopher F. Chabris, vol. 28, Perception, 1999, pages 1059-74.
    DEMO:
    WHO ATTENDED THE IG NOBEL CEREMONY: Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris.

    ECONOMICS
    The Vatican, for outsourcing prayers to India.

    PEACE
    Daisuke Inoue of Hyogo, Japan, for inventing karaoke, thereby providing an entirely new way for people to learn to tolerate each other
    WHO ATTENDED THE IG NOBEL CEREMONY: Daisuke Inoue.

    BIOLOGY
    Ben Wilson of the University of British Columbia, Lawrence Dill of Simon Fraser University [Canada], Robert Batty of the Scottish Association for Marine Science, Magnus Whalberg of the University of Aarhus [Denmark], and Hakan Westerberg of Sweden's National Board of Fisheries, for showing that herrings apparently communicate by farting.
    REFERENCE: "Sounds Produced by Herring (Clupea harengus) Bubble Release," Magnus Wahlberg and Håkan Westerberg, Aquatic Living Resources, vol. 16, 2003, pp. 271-5.
    REFERENCE: "Pacific and Atlantic Herring Produce Burst Pulse Sounds," Ben Wilson, Robert S. Batty and Lawrence M. Dill, Biology Letters, vol. 271, 2003, pp. S95-S97.
    WHO ATTENDED THE IG NOBEL CEREMONY: Lawrence Dill, Robert Batty, Magnus Whalberg, Hakan Westerberg.

    • PSYCHOLOGY
      Daniel Simons of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Christopher Chabris of Harvard University, for demonstrating that when people pay close attention to something, it's all too easy to overlook anything else -- even a man in a gorilla suit.
      REFERENCE: "Gorillas in Our Midst," Daniel J. Simons and Christopher F. Chabris, vol. 28, Perception, 1999, pages 1059-74.
      DEMO:
      WHO ATTENDED THE IG NOBEL CEREMONY: Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris

      Yeah yeah, but if you closely observed who

      • SEP field (Score:2, Insightful)

        by RevDobbs ( 313888 ) *

        PSYCHOLOGY
        Daniel Simons of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Christopher Chabris of Harvard University, for demonstrating that when people pay close attention to something, it's all too easy to overlook anything else -- even a man in a gorilla suit.

        This is hardly original work... I think it was well established by Douglas Adams, though he refered to it as a "Somebody Else's Problem Field". If you're busy counting balls, the gorilla must be Somebody Else's Problem, and thus goes unnotic

    • Re:Text in case of Slashdotting.. (Score:5, Funny)

      by Ford Prefect ( 8777 ) on Friday October 01, 2004 @09:05AM (#10403952) Homepage
      Ben Wilson of the University of British Columbia, Lawrence Dill of Simon Fraser University [Canada], Robert Batty of the Scottish Association for Marine Science, Magnus Whalberg of the University of Aarhus [Denmark], and Hakan Westerberg of Sweden's National Board of Fisheries, for showing that herrings apparently communicate by farting.

      Please, not 'farting' - I believe the correct term is 'fast, repetitive ticks' (or, um, 'FRTs').

    • Re:Text in case of Slashdotting.. (Score:5, Informative)

      by gnalre ( 323830 ) on Friday October 01, 2004 @09:14AM (#10404017)
      CHEMISTRY
      The Coca-Cola Company of Great Britain, for using advanced technology to convert liquid from the River Thames into Dasani, a transparent form of water, which for precautionary reasons has been made unavailable to consumers

      Actually I think what they mean is Thames Water which is a public water company. Many water from the river thames drinkable while no means impossible would demand some plaudits.

      What they actually did was take public tap water meeting EU regulations, filter it and in the process add harmful impurities which were not in the original product.

      Oh yes then sell it at a vast mark up..

      • Oh, its the same thing in the US- Dasani is probably NYC tap water.

        However ANY other tap water is vastly superior to Washington DC tap water, which will KILL YOU (between harmful levels of bacteria, to all the lead in the water). Even my tap water in Montgomery County, Maryland (right outside of DC) is so chlorinated that it smells like a swimming pool.

        Even if they add a few impurities here or there, it sure beats DC's water!

  • 5 seconds on the floor? (Score:4, Funny)

    by MrRTFM ( 740877 ) on Friday October 01, 2004 @08:36AM (#10403700) Journal
    What if it lands in dogshit?

    Is there a formula to work out the exact 'safe time' based on what food lands on when it falls?
  • For endeavouring to manufacture a machine implementing a method of establishing a tally of votes for public-office candidate without the usage of a paper-trail???

  • No, the 5-second rule hasn't been proven. (Score:5, Informative)

    by Srass ( 42349 ) * on Friday October 01, 2004 @08:38AM (#10403713)
    I don't know where the poster got that, considering the article linked from the improb.com site says, in part:

    "The next step was sterilizing the tiles and inoculating them with E. coli, then placing 25 grams of cookies or gummies on the tiles for 5 seconds. In all cases, E. coli was transferred from the tile to the food, demonstrating that microorganisms can be transferred from ceramic tile to food in 5 seconds or less."


  • Good to see Coca Cola getting an award (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Silver Sloth ( 770927 ) on Friday October 01, 2004 @08:41AM (#10403732)
    We brits loved the Dansai saga and I'm delighted to see that they got an award for it. It's a shame they didn't mention Peckham Spring, surely the inspiration behind the inovation!
    • Ah, finally found an article about the Dasani Saga [guardian.co.uk].

      I was kind of confused, because it's been well known (well, I've known for several years) that both Coke and Pepsi sell tap water for their bottled water. Of course, I also live one town over from the Pepsi bottling plant that serves the New England region.

      It makes logical sense - they need to have this filtered water to begin with anyway. All Dasani and Aquafina are is the base water the two companies start with for making all their beverages, plus s

  • Prior art on combover? (Score:5, Funny)

    by FerretFrottage ( 714136 ) on Friday October 01, 2004 @08:42AM (#10403739)
    Didn't they find cave drawings of cavemen that used combovers? The difference being that the combover covered most of their entire bodies.

  • Winner (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Tomahawk ( 1343 ) * on Friday October 01, 2004 @08:42AM (#10403740) Homepage
    On Brainiac (on Sky ONE in the UK) last week, they did a demonstration of the 'Invisible Gorilla' expirement, which one.

    Basically, they had about 7 or 8 poeple on the screen, and told us to watch how many times a particular parcel was passed around.

    The answer was 12 (for anyone who wanted to know).

    During this time, someone dress in a bee suit walked onto the screen, stood there for about 10 seconds, and walked off the far side. The parcel even passed across this person.

    I didn't see the bee at all, until it was played back. The bee was on the screen for a full 20 seconds in total.

    It was quite amazing. Almost as good as trying to get your right foot to rotate clockwise, and your right hand to rotate anti-clockwise...

    T.

    • Re:Winner (Score:5, Funny)

      by Ford Prefect ( 8777 ) on Friday October 01, 2004 @08:58AM (#10403891) Homepage
      I didn't see the bee at all, until it was played back. The bee was on the screen for a full 20 seconds in total.

      Reminds me of something from a certain radio series [bbc.co.uk] I listened to last night..
      The Somebody Else's Problem field is much simpler and more effective, and what's more can be run for over a hundred years on a single torch battery. This is because it relies on people's natural disposition not to see anything they don't want to, weren't expecting, or can't explain. If Effrafax had painted the mountain pink and erected a cheap and simple Somebody Else's Problem field on it, then people would have walked past the mountain, round it, even over it, and simply never have noticed that the thing was there.

      So, presumably to avoid detection, terrorists and other ne'r-do-wells should wear gorilla suits - invisibility is just too much effort. :-)

    • Gorilla Gender Bias? (Score:5, Funny)

      by milo_Gwalthny ( 203233 ) on Friday October 01, 2004 @09:15AM (#10404028)
      I wonder if they ran this experiment by gender. When I'm watching the guys on TV throw the ball between themselves and at the hoop I never seem to notice my wife walking into the room and talking at me.

      She, OTOH, notices everything. And remembers.

  • Two things: (Score:4, Funny)

    by ImaLamer ( 260199 ) <john.lamar@g m a i l . com> on Friday October 01, 2004 @08:43AM (#10403759) Homepage Journal
    Obligatory Simpsons Quote:

    "mmmm floor pie" - Homer Simpson

    and the worst comb-over [combover.com] I've ever seen:

    My Congressmen [cnn.com]

    • Steve Chabot (Score:3, Funny)

      by ImaLamer ( 260199 )
      I know it's bad form to reply to your own comment, but there was a race between my current congressmen [cnn.com] a few years back and we approached his opponent at Oktoberfest [oktoberfes...innati.com]. Someone I know give him this tidbit:

      Friend: Why don't you ask Chabot in the next debate why he is trying to mislead the people of the first district on a daily basis?

      Candidate: What do you mean? (Excited)

      Friend: Well, he's been trying to convince us that he has a full head of hair. I've seen that combover, it's not fooling anyone.

  • Like in video games... (Score:5, Funny)

    by suso ( 153703 ) on Friday October 01, 2004 @08:44AM (#10403762) Journal
    ...if you see a piece of food lying on the ground, pick it up.
  • Hell, I work in food science. If it hits the floor, it gets inedibled, period. Of course, the floors in your average slaughterhouse...no, wait, I've seen the kitches of some of my friends. The floors in a slaughterhouse are downright clean compared to some of them. Why do I suddenly feel the need to pull out a mop and bucket?

  • The Effect of Country Music on Suicide (Score:3, Funny)

    by Nos. ( 179609 ) <andrew@nOSPAm.thekerrs.ca> on Friday October 01, 2004 @08:46AM (#10403779) Homepage
    I'm sure Country Music has increased the rate of suicide, while thrash metal and rap have increased the number of homicides.... I know I want to kill the little punks who drive around with this crap blasting out of their car at all hours of the night!

  • Details of the invisible gorilla (Score:5, Interesting)

    by tiled_rainbows ( 686195 ) on Friday October 01, 2004 @08:46AM (#10403784) Homepage Journal
    I saw this one on TV, on a pop-psychology programme. The guy said that he was going to play a short video, and that you should watch it carefully.
    The video consisted of about eight people standing in a circle. Some of them were wearing white t-shirts and some of them were wearing black t-shirts. They had two basketballs and people were engaged in passing basketballs to others wearing the same colour t-shirts. Occasionally two of them would swap places.
    It went on for a couple of minutes, and was pretty hard to follow, what with people changing places and everything.

    But it was only on the second play-through that I noticed a guy in a gorilla suit, halfway through the video, walk on from one side of the screen, slowly stroll through the circle of ball-passing people, and off the other side of the screen.

    Truly astonishing.
    • 'Gorillas in Our Midst [harvard.edu],' Daniel J. Simons and Christopher F. Chabris, vol. 28, Perception, 1999, pages 1059-74.

      It was even mentioned on CSI Season 2 Show 32, the one were the three woman rob the casino:

      Gil Grissom : A Harvard professor conducted an experiment. Asked a bunch of students to watch a basketball game - count the number of times the ball was passed.

      Captain Jim Brass : Yeah? Groundbreaking.

      Gil Grissom : During the game a person dressed in a gorilla suit ran across the court. Afterward, the pro

  • Coca-Cola (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Un0r1g1nal ( 711750 ) on Friday October 01, 2004 @08:53AM (#10403848)
    I am still amazed that they tried to sell this and expected not to get caught. It's beggars belief. But then again look at coke, it can't be any better for you (probably much worse) than water from the thames. My dad recently used some to clean an oil spill off his drive, think I will stick with real drinks, like orange and apple juice, that aren't just processed drugs.

    • Re:Coca-Cola (Score:3, Informative)

      by lelitsch ( 31136 )
      You *are* aware that the Dasani water that Coca Cola is selling in the US is purified tab water, too, are you?
      Maybe tat just shows that the US consumer-or the US media-are bigger suckers than the ones in the UK.
    • Um, it's just a mild amount of phosphoric acid. Try it with other acids, like lemon or tomato juice. Of course you'd be foolish to waste money on lemon or tomato juice when Coke is cheaper. Now, the refined sugar, caffeine and murderous anti-labor activities *are* something to be concerned about.

      It's like that "big deal" that Taco Bell sauce cleans pennies... It's just vinegar in action; you'd get the same effect with a $100 bottle of fine Balsamic vinegar.

  • Country music and suicide rates (Score:5, Funny)

    by scotay ( 195240 ) on Friday October 01, 2004 @08:58AM (#10403892)
    A disturbing study showing that the suicide rates for whites in US metropolitan areas is higher in cities where more country music is played on the radio earned the Ig Nobel prize in Medicine for Steven Stack of Wayne State in Detroit and James Gundlach of Auburn University in Alabama.

    I think some further study is needed here. My theory is that country music is not actually the culprit, but Southern Baptists are. Country music is more likely to be played in areas infested with Southern Baptists and other fundamentalist Christians. These groups are able to place stricter social controls on anything fun and are constantly harping on homosexuals and on anyone that might be having a good time and not constantly worried about damnation. This denial of the reality of free American lives eventually leads to higher suicide rates. I think we would need to start playing country music in more liberalized areas and see if that might increase the rates of buzzkill before we can blame country music exclusively.
    • I think we would need to start playing country music in more liberalized areas and see if that might increase the rates of buzzkill before we can blame country music exclusively.

      I'd like to counter-point: I think it is totally acceptable to blame country music exclusively. Discuss. :^)

      (My mom listened to waaaaay too much of it as a kid and nowadays I squirm whenever I hear Garth Brooks, though I'm not entirely sure that was a learned response)
      • I'd like to counter-point: I think it is totally acceptable to blame country music exclusively.

        In that case rap and other forms of kiddie 'music' are certainly responsible for a higher homocide rates. Particularly when some little prick is blasting the ultra-mega-supercool speakers he just bought (either for his house or his car) and refuses to recognize the fact that his neighbors really don't want to listen to his noise collection along with him. And when you ask him - politely - to turn the noise dow

  • i knew i wasn't crazy..... (Score:5, Funny)

    by to_kallon ( 778547 ) on Friday October 01, 2004 @09:09AM (#10403978)
    Oddly a large fraction had not noticed a woman in a gorilla suit walk through the scene
    for years i've been seeing this big rabbit, and everyone thought i was nuts. but who's laughing now......?

  • The 5 second rule (Score:5, Funny)

    by iso ( 87585 ) <`slash' `at' `warpzero.info'> on Friday October 01, 2004 @09:13AM (#10404007) Homepage
    I have been told since I was a kid that this is the three second rule! I can't believe for all these years I've been throwing out two seconds worth of perfectly good food!

  • Gah!! Thames Water (Score:2, Informative)

    by shabble ( 90296 )
    From the article:

    CHEMISTRY

    The Coca-Cola Company of Great Britain [coca-cola.co.uk], for using advanced technology to convert liquid from the River Thames [environmen...ncy.gov.uk] into Dasani, a transparent form of water, which for precautionary reasons has been made unavailable to consumers. [guardian.co.uk]

    I think if you look at the Guardian article more closely, it implies they used water supplied by the company called Thames Water, not water from The Thames:

    [...]It goes something like this: take Thames Water from the tap in your factory in Sidcup, Kent; pu

    • That's an easy mistake. The Engineering prize is what astounds me - it's for a patent which is 29 years old.
    • "I do hope the people who selected these aren't doing any research papers on anything important."

      Some of the names appear again and again, but you do seem to have picked up on a minor point that the Ig Nobels are run for a laugh.

      You weren't even concerned that Coca Cola's 'purification' process involved introducing a carcinogenic product into _drinking_ water?

      That's the serious bit. Concentrate on that rather than the gag reporting.

  • Dr. Turvey was one of my professors (Score:4, Interesting)

    by ayden ( 126539 ) on Friday October 01, 2004 @09:27AM (#10404148) Homepage Journal
    I'm shocked and amazed that my former professor won an Ig in Physics.

    I graduated from UCONN in 1990 with a Bachelor's in Psychology. Dr. Turvey taught perhaps the most interesting class in my experience at UCONN: Learning Theory. The department at that time was in split into factions, one espousing the usual sensation drives perception while the other (led by Dr. Turvey) held that direct perception was a better model. Interesting note, the direct perception group was using hard science and mathematics to prove their theories, something very unusual for what is perceived to be a "soft science".

    BTW, does anybody know why the Ig ceremony is off schedule this year? They are usually held on the first Thursday of October, but in this case were held on the last Thursday of September.
  • ...does Donnald Trump own them a licensing fee for using it while on TV?

    • Nope, the patent appears to have been granted in 1977(!) so has definitely expired by now. On the other hand, to me, it proves the USPTO has been Nucking Futs for much longer than I had originally assumed, and recent problems with obvious software patents are an extension of a pre-existing problem rather than a new one...

  • Not water from the Thames (Score:4, Informative)

    by awol ( 98751 ) on Friday October 01, 2004 @10:41AM (#10404920) Journal
    It's not water from the Thames, it is water from a company called "Thames Water" that provides water in the UK (originally from the Thames river valley) I would imagine that none of this water is from the Thames itself, and certainly the catchment area and resevoirs are much more widely distributed than just the Thames.

    As the original paper points out, tap water is actually validated to a much higher standard than all of that bottled crap people pay for.

  • Dogs rights (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    As a long time dog owner I know that any food that touches the floor is the legal property of the dog.
  • Inattentional blindness...now when that idiot in the SUV mows me down while I'm crossing the street, they can say it wasn't their fault....

  • Somebody Elses Problem (SEP) field (Score:3, Funny)

    by Punchinello ( 303093 ) on Friday October 01, 2004 @11:53AM (#10405734)
    The gorilla experiment proves that the SEP Field [thefreedictionary.com] in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy actually works!!

    Once again, science fiction becomes science fact.

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