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The IG Nobel Prizes is a ceremony that parodies the real
Nobel Prizes and it is organized yearly by the scientific humor magazine
Annals of Improbable Research. The awards are given for real research which has
the characteristic of first making people smile and only afterwards making them
think. Awards have been won in the past for research concerning ideas like: ostriches
are sexually aroused by the presence of humans and black holes meet every
condition to actually be the location of Hell.
Every year the event is hosted
with the help of real Nobel laureates at the beginning of October.
This year the IG Nobel Prizes has given awards to discoveries
which “cannot or shouldn’t be reproduced”.
Among the winners we can find
research dealing with the moral standings and dignity of plants, the fact that
fleas on dogs jump higher than fleas on cats and other apparently goofy finds. The
awards are double-special because of the fact that they award real scientific
research and because they bring science in general in a more relaxed corner,
showing people that even this precise discipline has a fun side.
This year’s awards consisted of ten categories from which
the most outrageous discoveries are that cola can make sperm explode, the
adaptation of a legal principle that plants have dignity, expensive fake
medicine is better than cheap fake medicine and that food actually tastes
better if it sounds crunchier. Even if it funny, these scientific finds are
actually well researched and, incredibly enough, some can actually make you
think about fantastical things. The IG Nobel Prizes ultimately promote
creativity and the ability of scientists to think outside of the box. Necessary
or not, this award giving ceremony is surely funny enough to bring some smiles on
people’s faces.
16:34, October 3rd 2008
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The 2008 Ig Nobel Prize Winners
The 2008 Ig Nobel Prizes were awarded on
Thursday night, October 2, at the 18th
First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony, at Harvard's Sanders Theatre. We will soon post video
of the ceremony.
https://improbable.com/ig/winners/#ig2008
NUTRITION PRIZE. Massimiliano Zampini of the University of Trento, Italy
and Charles
Spence of Oxford University, UK, for electronically modifying the sound
of a potato chip to make the person chewing the chip believe it to be crisper
and fresher than it really is.
REFERENCE: "The Role of Auditory Cues in Modulating the Perceived Crispness
and Staleness of Potato Chips," Massimiliano Zampini and Charles Spence,
Journal of Sensory Studies, vol. 19, October 2004, pp. 347-63.
PEACE PRIZE. The Swiss Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology
(ECNH) and the citizens of Switzerland for adopting the legal principle
that plants have dignity.
REFERENCE: "The
Dignity of Living Beings With Regard to Plants. Moral Consideration of
Plants for Their Own Sake"
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Urs Thurnherr, member of the committee.
ARCHAEOLOGY PRIZE. Astolfo
G. Mello Araujo and José Carlos Marcelino of Universidade
de São Paulo, Brazil, for measuring how the course of history,
or at least the contents of an archaeological dig site, can be scrambled
by the actions of a live armadillo.
REFERENCE: "The Role of Armadillos in the Movement of Archaeological
Materials: An Experimental Approach," Astolfo G. Mello Araujo and
José Carlos Marcelino, Geoarchaeology, vol. 18, no. 4, April 2003,
pp. 433-60.
BIOLOGY PRIZE. Marie-Christine Cadiergues, Christel Joubert,, and Michel
Franc of Ecole Nationale Veterinaire de Toulouse, France for discovering
that the fleas that live on a dog can jump higher than the fleas that live
on a cat.
REFERENCE: "A Comparison of Jump Performances of the Dog Flea, Ctenocephalides
canis (Curtis, 1826) and the Cat Flea, Ctenocephalides felis felis (Bouche,
1835)," M.C. Cadiergues, C. Joubert, and M. Franc, Veterinary Parasitology,
vol. 92, no. 3, October 1, 2000, pp. 239-41.
MEDICINE PRIZE. Dan Ariely of
Duke University, USA, for demonstrating that high-priced fake medicine
is more effective than low-priced fake medicine.
REFERENCE: "Commercial Features of Placebo and Therapeutic Efficacy," Rebecca
L. Waber; Baba Shiv; Ziv Carmon; Dan Ariely, Journal of the American Medical
Association, March 5, 2008; 299: 1016-1017.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Dan Ariely
COGNITIVE SCIENCE PRIZE. Toshiyuki Nakagaki of Hokkaido University, Japan,
Hiroyasu Yamada of Nagoya, Japan, Ryo Kobayashi of Hiroshima University,
Atsushi Tero of Presto JST, Akio Ishiguro of Tohoku University, and Ágotá Tóth of
the University of Szeged, Hungary, for discovering that slime molds can
solve puzzles.
REFERENCE: "Intelligence: Maze-Solving by an Amoeboid Organism," Toshiyuki
Nakagaki, Hiroyasu Yamada, and Ágota Tóth, Nature, vol. 407,
September 2000, p. 470.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Toshiyuki Nakagaki, Ryo Kobayashi, Atsushi Tero
ECONOMICS PRIZE. Geoffrey
Miller, Joshua Tybur and Brent Jordan of the University of New Mexico,
USA, for discovering that a professional lap dancer's ovulatory cycle
affects her tip earnings.
REFERENCE: "Ovulatory Cycle Effects on Tip Earnings by Lap Dancers:
Economic Evidence for Human Estrus?" Geoffrey Miller, Joshua M. Tybur,
Brent D. Jordan, Evolution and Human Behavior, vol. 28, 2007, pp. 375-81.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Geoffrey Miller and Brent Jordan
PHYSICS PRIZE. Dorian Raymer of the Ocean Observatories Initiative at
Scripps Institution of Oceanography, USA, and Douglas
Smith of the University of California, San Diego, USA, for proving
mathematically that heaps of string or hair or almost anything else will
inevitably tangle themselves up in knots.
REFERENCE: "Spontaneous Knotting of an Agitated String," Dorian
M. Raymer and Douglas E. Smith, Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences, vol. 104, no. 42, October 16, 2007, pp. 16432-7.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Dorian Raymer
CHEMISTRY PRIZE. Sharee A. Umpierre of the University of Puerto Rico,
Joseph A. Hill of The Fertility Centers of New England (USA), Deborah
J. Anderson of Boston University School of Medicine and Harvard Medical
School (USA), for discovering that Coca-Cola is an effective spermicide,
and to Chuang-Ye Hong of Taipei Medical University (Taiwan), C.C. Shieh,
P. Wu, and B.N. Chiang (all of Taiwan) for discovering that it is not.
REFERENCE: "Effect of 'Coke' on Sperm Motility," Sharee A. Umpierre,
Joseph A. Hill, and Deborah J. Anderson, New England Journal of Medicine,
1985, vol. 313, no. 21, p. 1351.
REFERENCE: "The Spermicidal Potency of Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola," C.Y.
Hong, C.C. Shieh, P. Wu, and B.N. Chiang, Human Toxicology, vol. 6, no.
5, September 1987, pp. 395-6. [NOTE: THE JOURNAL LATER CHANGED ITS NAME.
NOW CALLED "Human & experimental toxicology"]
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Deborah Anderson, and C.Y. Hong's daughter Wan
Hong
LITERATURE PRIZE. David
Sims of Cass Business School. London, UK, for his lovingly written
study "You Bastard: A Narrative Exploration of the Experience of
Indignation within Organizations."
REFERENCE: "You Bastard: A Narrative Exploration of the Experience
of Indignation within Organizations," David Sims, Organization Studies,
vol. 26, no. 11, 2005, pp. 1625-40.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: David Sims
