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Ig Nobel Awards

Here's the sound file for the alligator on helium

A Chinese alligator in heliox: formant frequencies in a crocodilian.
{Stephan A. Reber, Takeshi Nishimura, Judith Janisch, Mark Robertson, W. Tecumseh Fitch Journal of Experimental Biology 2015 218: 2442-2447; doi: 10.1242/jeb.119552)
two calls in ambient air are followed by two calls in heliox

http://www.biologists.com/movies/JEB_Movies/JEB119552/Audio1.mov

Are you sure that's not someone knocking over a box?
 
Are you sure that's not someone knocking over a box?
It sounds more (to me) like that bit in Ferris Bueller's Day Off when Ferris is playing fake synthesiser coughs down the phone.
 
Here's the sound file for the alligator on helium

A Chinese alligator in heliox: formant frequencies in a crocodilian.
{Stephan A. Reber, Takeshi Nishimura, Judith Janisch, Mark Robertson, W. Tecumseh Fitch Journal of Experimental Biology 2015 218: 2442-2447; doi: 10.1242/jeb.119552)
two calls in ambient air are followed by two calls in heliox

http://www.biologists.com/movies/JEB_Movies/JEB119552/Audio1.mov
I can imagine someone using that as a sound sample in a tune.
 
Stephan Reber who did the alligator thing works at my alma mater now. He seems quite flattered by the prize.
Ask him to get an alligator to inhale nitrous oxide next. I used to know a chef who'd inhale that and it made him sound like Barry White afterwards.
 
A gas heavier than air will do that. It's more difficult to get out of the lungs again though.
 
A gas heavier than air will do that. It's more difficult to get out of the lungs again though.
That's why hanging upside-down is encouraged afterwards.
 
The 2021 Ig Nobel awards ceremony were being conducted online (only), and the ceremonies have just ended. Announcement of this year's winners and their lectures will be made available. For more info see:

https://www.improbable.com/2021-ceremony/

The 31st First Annual Ig Nobel CeremonySeptember 9, 2021​

The 31st First Annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony will happen entirely online on Thursday, September 9, 2021, at 6:00 pm (US eastern time) ...

THE IG INFORMAL LECTURES

In the Ig Informal Lectures, the new winners explain, if they can, what they did and why they did it.
Normally the lectures happen at MIT, two days after the Ig Nobel Prize ceremony. But in this pandemic year, it’s all happening online only.
In the weeks and months following the ceremony, we will post the Ig Informal Lectures, one at a time, here on www.improbable.com and on YouTube.
 
Ladies and gentlemen - here are your 2021 Ig Nobel Prize winners ...

The 2021 Ig Nobel Prize winners


BIOLOGY PRIZE [SWEDEN]:
Susanne Schötz for analyzing variations in purring, chirping, chattering, trilling, tweedling, murmuring, meowing, moaning, squeaking, hissing, yowling, howling, growling, and other modes of cat–human communication.

REFERENCE: “A Comparative Acoustic Analysis of Purring in Four Cats,” Susanne Schötz and Robert Eklund, Proceedings of Fonetik 2011, Speech, Music and Hearing, KTH, Stockholm, TMH-QPSR, 51.
REFERENCE: “A Phonetic Pilot Study of Vocalisations in Three Cats,” Susanne Schötz, Proceedings of Fonetik 2012, Department of Philosophy, Linguistics and Theory of Science, University of Gothenburg, Sweden.
REFERENCE: “A Phonetic Pilot Study of Chirp, Chatter, Tweet and Tweedle in Three Domestic Cats,” Susanne Schötz, Proceedings of Fonetik 2013, Linköping University, Sweden, 2013, pp. 65-68.
REFERENCE: “A Study of Human Perception of Intonation in Domestic Cat Meows,” Susanne Schötz and Joost van de Weijer, Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Speech Prosody, Dubin, Ireland, May 20-23, 2014.
REFERENCE: “Melody in Human–Cat Communication (Meowsic): Origins, Past, Present and Future,” Susanne Schötz, Robert Eklund, and Joost van de Weijer, 2016.



ECOLOGY PRIZE [SPAIN. IRAN]:
Leila Satari, Alba Guillén, Àngela Vidal-Verdú, and Manuel Porcar, for using genetic analysis to identify the different species of bacteria that reside in wads of discarded chewing gum stuck on pavements in various countries.

REFERENCE: “The Wasted Chewing Gum Bacteriome,” Leila Satari, Alba Guillén, Àngela Vidal-Verdú, and Manuel Porcar, Scientific Reports, vol. 10, no. 16846, 2020.


CHEMISTRY PRIZE [GERMANY, UK, NEW ZEALAND, GREECE, CYPRUS, AUSTRIA]:
Jörg Wicker, Nicolas Krauter, Bettina Derstroff, Christof Stönner, Efstratios Bourtsoukidis, Achim Edtbauer, Jochen Wulf, Thomas Klüpfel, Stefan Kramer, and Jonathan Williams, for chemically analyzing the air inside movie theaters, to test whether the odors produced by an audience reliably indicate the levels of violence, sex, antisocial behavior, drug use, and bad language in the movie the audience is watching.

REFERENCE: “Proof of Concept Study: Testing Human Volatile Organic Compounds as Tools for Age Classification of Films,” Christof Stönner, Achim Edtbauer, Bettina Derstroff, Efstratios Bourtsoukidis, Thomas Klüpfel, Jörg Wicker, and Jonathan Williams, PLoS ONE, vol. 13, no. 10, 2008, p. e0203044.
REFERENCE: “Cinema Data Mining: The Smell of Fear,” Jörg Wicker, Nicolas Krauter, Bettina Derstorff, Christof Stönner, Efstratios Bourtsoukidis, Thomas Klüpfel, Jonathan Williams, and Stefan Kramer, Proceedings of the 21th ACM SIGKDD International Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining, pp. 1295-1304. 2015.



ECONOMICS PRIZE [FRANCE, SWITZERLAND, AUSTRALIA, AUSTRIA, CZECH REPUBLIC, UK]:
Pavlo Blavatskyy, for discovering that the obesity of a country’s politicians may be a good indicator of that country’s corruption.

REFERENCE: “Obesity of Politicians and Corruption in Post‐Soviet Countries,” Pavlo Blavatskyy, Economic of Transition and Institutional Change, vol. 29, no. 2, 2021, pp. 343-356.


MEDICINE PRIZE [GERMANY, TURKEY, UK]:
Olcay Cem Bulut, Dare Oladokun, Burkard Lippert, and Ralph Hohenberger, for demonstrating that sexual orgasms can be as effective as decongestant medicines at improving nasal breathing.

REFERENCE: “Can Sex Improve Nasal Function? — An Exploration of the Link Between Sex and Nasal Function,” Olcay Cem Bulut, Dare Oladokun, Burkard M. Lippert, and Ralph Hohenberger, Ear, Nose & Throat Journal, 2021, no. 0145561320981441.


PEACE PRIZE [USA]:
Ethan Beseris, Steven Naleway, and David Carrier, for testing the hypothesis that humans evolved beards to protect themselves from punches to the face.

REFERENCE: “Impact Protection Potential of Mammalian Hair: Testing the Pugilism Hypothesis for the Evolution of Human Facial Hair,” Ethan A. Beseris, Steven E. Naleway, David R. Carrier, Integrative Organismal Biology, vol. 2, no. 1, 2020, obaa005.


PHYSICS PRIZE [THE NETHERLANDS, ITALY, TAIWAN, USA]:
Alessandro Corbetta, Jasper Meeusen, Chung-min Lee, Roberto Benzi, and Federico Toschi, for conducting experiments to learn why pedestrians do not constantly collide with other pedestrians.

REFERENCE: “Physics-based modeling and data representation of pairwise interactions among pedestrians,” Alessandro Corbetta, Jasper A. Meeusen, Chung-min Lee, Roberto Benzi, and Federico Toschi, Physical Review E, vol. 98, no. 062310, 2018.


KINETICS PRIZE [JAPAN, SWITZERLAND, ITALY]:
Hisashi Murakami, Claudio Feliciani, Yuta Nishiyama, and Katsuhiro Nishinari, for conducting experiments to learn why pedestrians do sometimes collide with other pedestrians.

REFERENCE: “Mutual Anticipation Can Contribute to Self-Organization in Human Crowds,” Hisashi Murakami, Claudio Feliciani, Yuta Nishiyama, and Katsuhiro Nishinari, Science Advances, vol. 7, no. 12, 2021, p. eabe7758.


ENTOMOLOGY PRIZE [USA]:
John Mulrennan, Jr., Roger Grothaus, Charles Hammond, and Jay Lamdin, for their research study “A New Method of Cockroach Control on Submarines”.

REFERENCE: “A New Method of Cockroach Control on Submarines,” John A. Mulrennan, Jr., Roger H. Grothaus, Charles L. Hammond, and Jay M. Lamdin, Journal of Economic Entomology, vol. 64, no. 5, October 1971, pp. 1196-8.


TRANSPORTATION PRIZE [NAMIBIA, SOUTH AFRICA, TANZANIA, ZIMBABWE, BRAZIL, UK, USA]:
Robin Radcliffe, Mark Jago, Peter Morkel, Estelle Morkel, Pierre du Preez, Piet Beytell, Birgit Kotting, Bakker Manuel, Jan Hendrik du Preez, Michele Miller, Julia Felippe, Stephen Parry, and Robin Gleed, for determining by experiment whether it is safer to transport an airborne rhinoceros upside-down.

REFERENCE: “The Pulmonary and Metabolic Effects of Suspension by the Feet Compared with Lateral Recumbency in Immobilized Black Rhinoceroses (Diceros bicornis) Captured by Aerial Darting,” Robin W. Radcliffe, Mark Jago, Peter vdB Morkel, Estelle Morkel, Pierre du Preez, Piet Beytell, Birgit Kotting, Bakker Manuel, Jan Hendrik du Preez, Michele A. Miller, Julia Felippe, Stephen A Parry; R.D. Gleed, Journal of Wildlife Diseases, vol. 57, no. 2, 2021, 357–367.


SOURCE: https://www.improbable.com
 
The Ig Nobels, 2022:

Art History Prize​

Citation: "Peter de Smet and Nicholas Hellmuth, for their study 'A Multidisciplinary Approach to Ritual Enema Scenes on Ancient Maya Pottery.'"

IgNobel22-MayaEnema.jpg

A scene from ancient Mayan pottery, showing someone administering an enema to themselves ... for fun.(Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York:Justin Kerr

Applied Cardiology Prize​

Citation: "Eliska Prochazkova, Elio Sjak-Shie, Friederike Behrens, Daniel Lindh, and Mariska Kret, for seeking and finding evidence that when new romantic partners meet for the first time and feel attracted to each other, their heart rates synchronize."

Literature Prize​

Citation: "Eric Martínez, Francis Mollica, and Edward Gibson, for analyzing what makes legal documents unnecessarily difficult to understand."

Biology Prize​

Citation: "Solimary García-Hernández and Glauco Machado, for studying whether and how constipation affects the mating prospects of scorpions."

Medicine Prize​

Citation: "Marcin Jasiński, Martyna Maciejewska, Anna Brodziak, Michał Górka, Kamila Skwierawska, Wiesław Jędrzejczak, Agnieszka Tomaszewska, Grzegorz Basak, and Emilian Snarski, for showing that when patients undergo some forms of toxic chemotherapy, they suffer fewer harmful side effects when ice cream replaces one traditional component of the procedure."

Engineering Prize​

Citation: "Gen Matsuzaki, Kazuo Ohuchi, Masaru Uehara, Yoshiyuki Ueno, and Goro Imura, for trying to discover the most efficient way for people to use their fingers when turning a knob."

Physics Prize​

Citation: "Frank Fish, Zhi-Ming Yuan, Minglu Chen, Laibing Jia, Chunyan Ji, and Atilla Incecik, for trying to understand how ducklings manage to swim in formation."

Peace Prize​

Citation: "Junhui Wu, Szabolcs Számadó, Pat Barclay, Bianca Beersma, Terence Dores Cruz, Sergio Lo Iacono, Annika Nieper, Kim Peters, Wojtek Przepiorka, Leo Tiokhin and Paul Van Lange, for developing an algorithm to help gossipers decide when to tell the truth and when to lie."

Economics Prize​

Citation: "Alessandro Pluchino, Alessio Emanuele Biondo, and Andrea Rapisarda, for explaining mathematically why success most often goes not to the most talented people but instead to the luckiest."

Safety Engineering Prize​

Citation: "Magnus Gens, for developing a moose crash test dummy."

https://arstechnica.com/science/202...ed-scorpions-the-2022-ig-nobel-prize-winners/

maximus otter
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Ladies and gentlemen - here are your 2021 Ig Nobel Prize winners ...

The 2021 Ig Nobel Prize winners.


ECONOMICS PRIZE [FRANCE, SWITZERLAND, AUSTRALIA, AUSTRIA, CZECH REPUBLIC, UK]:
Pavlo Blavatskyy, for discovering that the obesity of a country’s politicians may be a good indicator of that country’s corruption.

REFERENCE: “Obesity of Politicians and Corruption in Post‐Soviet Countries,” Pavlo Blavatskyy, Economic of Transition and Institutional Change, vol. 29, no. 2, 2021, pp. 343-356.
Public weighing of Officials after their term of Office to determine their commitment to the role is apparently still going on in Wycombe.

"When it was first introduced in 1678, it was used as a real tool to measure corruption in the town of High Wycombe. By weighing the mayor each year, the citizens of the town could see if the mayor was “getting fat” off of the taxpayer’s pound."

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/weighing-of-the-mayor
 
The Physics prize is incomprehensible; I have been watching ducklings all summer and they are all random.
 

Meet the winners of the 2023 Ig Nobel Prizes


Established in 1991, the Ig Nobels are a good-natured parody of the Nobel Prizes; they honor "achievements that first make people laugh and then make them think." The unapologetically campy awards ceremony features miniature operas, scientific demos, and the 24/7 lectures whereby experts must explain their work twice: once in 24 seconds and the second in just seven words. Acceptance speeches are limited to 60 seconds.

Chemistry/Geology Prize​

Citation: "Jan Zalasiewicz, for explaining why many scientists like to lick rocks."

Literature Prize​

Citation: "Chris Moulin, Nicole Bell, Merita Turunen, Arina Baharin, and Akira O’Connor, for studying the sensations people feel when they repeat a single word many, many, many, many, many, many, many times."

Mechanical Engineering Prize​

Citation: "Te Faye Yap, Zhen Liu, Anoop Rajappan, Trevor Shimokusu, and Daniel Preston, for reanimating dead spiders to use as mechanical gripping tools."

Medicine Prize​

Citation: "Christine Pham, Bobak Hedayati, Kiana Hashemi, Ella Csuka, Tiana Mamaghani, Margit Juhasz, Jamie Wikenheiser, and Natasha Mesinkovska, for using cadavers to explore whether there is an equal number of hairs in each of a person's two nostrils."

Communication Prize​

Citation: "María José Torres-Prioris, Diana López-Barroso, Estela Càmara, Sol Fittipaldi, Lucas Sedeño, Agustín Ibáñez, Marcelo Berthier, and Adolfo García, for studying the mental activities of people who are expert at speaking backward."

Public Health Prize​

Citation: "Seung-min Park, for inventing the Stanford Toilet, a device that uses a variety of technologies —including a urinalysis dipstick test strip, a computer vision system for defecation analysis, an anal-print sensor paired with an identification camera, and a telecommunications link —to monitor and quickly analyze the substances that humans excrete."

Nutrition Prize​

Citation: "Homei Miyashita and Hiromi Nakamura, for experiments to determine how electrified chopsticks and drinking straws can change the taste of food."

Etc.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/09/meet-the-winners-of-the-2023-ig-nobel-prizes/

maximus otter
 
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