Ig Nobel Awards

The 2017 list has just been unveiled!

Cats viewed as fluids!

Inspired by online pictures of cats in various containers, a scientist has worked out

"how to calculate a cat’s “Deborah number”, a special term used to describe fluidity, and speculated on how cats might behave if subjected to the “tilted jar experiment”.

“If you take a timelapse of a glacier on several years you will unmistakably see it flow down the mountain,” he said. “For cats, the same principle holds. If you are observing a cat on a time larger than its relaxation time, it will be soft and adapt to its container, like a liquid would.” :cat:
 
Playing the didgeridoo stops snoring - I'll bet that was a relief to Rolf's cellmate.
 
I thought he was more into little girls...
 
Swifty needs to take notice ... This year's Ig Nobel Prize in Medicine is awarded to a researcher who determined that certain roller coaster rides help people pass kidney stones ...

Ig Nobel win for kidney stone removing roller-coaster
Riding on some types of roller-coaster is an effective way of removing kidney stones.

This is the conclusion of research that has won this year's Ig Nobel Prize for Medicine.

The US researchers who carried out the work recommend that those afflicted with the condition should regularly use the theme park attractions. ...

The inspiration behind the roller-coaster research began several years ago when one of Prof David Wartinger's patients at Michigan State University's College of Osteopathic Medicine returned from a holiday trip to Walt Disney World in Florida.

The patient reported that one of his kidney stones became dislodged after a ride on the Big Thunder Mountain ride. ...

Wondering whether it was caused by the ride or a coincidence, the patient went on the ride several more times and each time a stone popped out.

Intrigued by the story, Prof Wartinger built a silicone model of his patient's renal system, including artificial kidney stones, and took it with him on numerous rides.

He discovered that Big Thunder Mountain was indeed effective - more so than the scarier rides such as Space Mountain or Rock and Rollercoaster which involve prolonged drops.

Prof Wartinger concluded that this was because Big Thunder Mountain involves more up and down and side to side movements that "rattle" the rider. ...
Click to expand...

FULL STORY: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-45513012
 
Here's a summary of the other 2018 Ig Nobel awards ...

Medical Education: Scientists are sometimes rudely described as being "up their own backsides" if they are thought to be too obsessed with their research.

However, this is literally the case with a Japanese researcher, Dr Akira Horiuchi, who won the Medical Education Prize for devising a self "self-colonoscopy" technique using a small endoscope.

"Fortunately, I have found neither polyps nor cancer," he told BBC News.

"This trial may be funny, but I inserted an endoscope into my colon for a serious purpose.

"People, especially in Japan, are afraid of colonoscopy and they do not want to undergo colonoscopy. So the number of people who die from colorectal cancer is increasing. I do this research to make colonoscopy easier and more comfortable, so fewer people will die".

Literature: This year's Literature Prize was for an investigation into instruction manuals that come with consumer products. The Investigation was called, Life Is Too Short to RTFM: How Users Relate to Documentation and Excess Features.

"RTFM" is an acronym for "read the field manual", though, according to the researchers, it has gained a new meaning by consumers who are often frustrated by the complexity of operation of their product.

Nutrition: A British researcher won the Nutrition Prize for calculating that pound per pound, it is not worth eating human flesh compared with other types of meat. This was to analyse the eating practices of early humans, rather than to inform present-day dietary choices.

Economics: For economics, the winner was research investigating whether it is effective for employees to use voodoo dolls to retaliate against bullying bosses. This study showed that taking it out on dolls does alleviate negative feelings, but suggested in the long run that it was better to deal with the underlying issue.

Chemistry: The winner of the Ig Nobel Chemistry Prize went to research that settled the issue of whether human saliva is a good cleaning agent for dirty surfaces. It is - especially for fragile, painted areas on ceramics, and on gold leaf.

Biology: A Swedish team won the biology Ig Nobel for demonstrating that wine experts can reliably identify, by smell, the presence of a fly in a glass of wine - possibly sparking a new genre of jokes involving sommeliers.

Peace: Last but not least, the Ig Nobel Peace Prize went to a Spanish group that aimed to find ways of reducing road rage, in a paper titled, Shouting and Cursing While Driving: Frequency, Reasons, Perceived Risk and Punishment. The team's solution is to reduce stress and increase road-safety campaigns - a task as sizable as reducing conflict in the Middle East.
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SOURCE: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-45513012
 
JamesWhitehead said:
The Guardian also mentions a Medicine Prize for the Michigan urologists who claim that a ride on a Disney rollercoaster helps folk pass kidney-stones faster!

Swifty would be up for that! :clap:
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The professor responsible was on Radio 4's today around 8am and is worth a listen - and his ideas seemed pretty sound, with real experiments to test a hypothesis. Even to the extent that bouncier, rocking rollercoasters are more effective than purely fast one. It did seem to me that, if true and repeatable on a larger scale, this really could have some genuine positive effects for non-surgical treatment of kidney stones – you just shake them out!
 
I suppose you could also pick someone up and swing them around by their ankles?
 
cycleboy2 said:
The professor responsible was on Radio 4's today around 8am and is worth a listen - and his ideas seemed pretty sound, with real experiments to test a hypothesis. Even to the extent that bouncier, rocking rollercoasters are more effective than purely fast one. It did seem to me that, if true and repeatable on a larger scale, this really could have some genuine positive effects for non-surgical treatment of kidney stones – you just shake them out!
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I heard that too. Sadly his research has reached a dead end as there's no way to test the method on live patients.

His team did a computer simulation of the effect after a patient reported passing all his stones individually, each straight after a rollercoaster ride.

I'd try that if I had kidney stones.
 
GNC said:
I suppose you could also pick someone up and swing them around by their ankles?
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Well, we should try that with Swifty. See if he minds.
 
Swifty said:
Perhaps someone can build a Big Thunder Mountain simulator ? .. I wonder if a pogo stick would work as well?
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Try sitting on a washing machine during its spin cycle.
 
When Techy had something wrong with his ear he read about an exercise you can do that cures it. You bend your neck different ways or summat and the bubble or whatever's causing the trouble pops back into place

He tried it and it worked. Soon afterwards I saw a GP do it on TV. The patient was amazed when it was effective right away. Looked dangerous to me! but hey, if it cures the problem!

So maybe the kidney stones thing is like that.
 
escargot said:
When Techy had something wrong with his ear he read about an exercise you can do that cures it. You bend your neck different ways or summat and the bubble or whatever's causing the trouble pops back into place

He tried it and it worked. Soon afterwards I saw a GP do it on TV. The patient was amazed when it was effective right away. Looked dangerous to me! but hey, if it cures the problem!
Click to expand...
Sounds like the Epley Maneuver for positional vertigo.
 
Ig Nobel time again!

This year’s winners included: Dutch and Turkish researchers who figured out which nation has the yuckiest money, an Italian scientist who urges consumption of pizza for its health benefits, and an Iranian engineer who obtained a U.S patent for a diaper-changing machine.

Karen Pryor, Theresa McKeon and Dr. I. Martin Levy figured out that a common technique used for training animals called operant learning — or clicker training — can be used to make better surgeons.

The winners received $10 trillion Zimbabwean dollars, which is virtually worthless, and each was given one minute to deliver an acceptance speech enforced by an 8-year-old girl whining “Please stop. I’m bored.”

This year’s shenanigans also included a tribute to Nobel Prize-winning physicist Roy Glauber, known for his humbleness and sense of humor, who for years attended the Ig Nobel ceremony and always helped sweep up afterward. He died in December at age 93.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/2019-ig-nobel-awards_n_5d7ad746e4b03b5fc8808907

Research measuring if there is a difference in temperature between the left and right testicles is one of the winners of this year's spoof Nobel prizes.
Fertility experts Roger Mieusset and Bourras Bengoudifa measured the temperature of French postmen's testicles, both naked and clothed.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-49687538

https://www.improbable.com/ig-about/
 
BAHFest London 2020

BAHFest is a celebration of well-argued and thoroughly researched but completely incorrect scientific theory. Our brave speakers present their bad theories in front of a live audience and a panel of judges with real science credentials, who together determine who takes home the coveted BAHFest trophy. And eternal glory, of course.
Come join us at Imperial College London in the Great Hall on Saturday, March 21st.
BAHFest London has once again partnered this year with the Ig Nobels.

http://bahfest.com/london2020/
 
Are the Ignobles really "damned science" (How they are sorted currently in the forum)? I was under the impression that they were for scientifically valid research, though of topics of questionable utility.
 
The research typically cited in the Ig Nobel Prizes is generally "damned" in one or more of the multiple senses in which Fort and Forteans have applied the term:

- Speculative / bizarre for addressing phenomena or subjects outside mainstream science's self-attributed purview;
- Not conducted in any coherently "scientific" manner;
- Yielding results which are trivial, unconvincing, or simply rhetorical;
- Reliant on presumptions and / or yielding conclusions that are false or falsifiable at face value; and finally ...
- Simply ridiculed or rejected by the mainstream science "establishment."
 
Ladies and gentlemen ... Your 2020 Ig Nobel Prize winners ...
Alligator on gas snaps up Ig Nobel prize

Have you heard the one about the alligator that performed the party trick of breathing in helium so it could talk in a funny voice?

It's not that hilarious but then you'd be careful never to smile at a crocodilian.
Stephan Reber and colleagues performed the experiment to try to understand how alligators might communicate.

It was a serious piece of research but its slightly comedic aspects have just won the team an Ig Nobel Prize.

Ten such awards were handed out on Thursday by the science humour magazine Annals of Improbable Research.

The annual Igs are intended as a bit of a spoof on the more sober Nobel science prizes.

Other 2020 winners included the team that devised a method to identify narcissists by examining their eyebrows; and the group that wanted to see what happened when earthworms were vibrated at high frequency.

All this kind of stuff sounds daft, but when you dig a little deeper you realise much of the research lauded by the Ig Nobels is actually intended to tackle real-world problems and gets published in peer-reviewed, scholarly journals. ...

This is the 30th year the Ig Nobels have been presented.

Their usual home is the Sanders Theatre at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US; and the event is always a riotous affair that involves lots of paper plane throwing and a small girl who shouts "boring" at anyone who talks for too long.

But the Covid-19 crisis forced this year's ceremony online.

Even so, some traditions were maintained, like the involvement of real Nobel Laureates. Dr Reber's team was presented with its Ig by Andre Geim, the UK-based researcher who won the Physics Nobel in 2010 for his work on graphene.

The Prof is something of a superstar having also won an Ig earlier in his career for levitating frogs. ...
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Here's a full list of the 2020 Ig Nobel winners. Each winning team was given a cash prize - of a 10 trillion dollar bill from Zimbabwe.

For Acoustics: Stephan Reber, Takeshi Nishimura, Judith Janisch, Mark Robertson, and Tecumseh Fitch, for inducing a female Chinese alligator to bellow in an airtight chamber filled with helium-enriched air.

Psychology: Miranda Giacomin and Nicholas Rule, for devising a method to identify narcissists by examining their eyebrows.

Peace: The governments of India and Pakistan, for having their diplomats surreptitiously ring each other's doorbells in the middle of the night, and then run away before anyone had a chance to answer the door.

Physics: Ivan Maksymov and Andriy Pototsky, for determining, experimentally, what happens to the shape of a living earthworm when one vibrates the earthworm at high frequency.

Economics: Christopher Watkins and colleagues for trying to quantify the relationship between different countries' national income inequality and the average amount of mouth-to-mouth kissing.

Management: Xi Guang-An, Mo Tian-Xiang, Yang Kang-Sheng, Yang Guang-Sheng, and Ling Xian Si - five professional hitmen in Guangxi, China, who subcontracted a murder one to the other with none of them in the end actually carrying out the crime.

Entomology: Richard Vetter, for collecting evidence that many entomologists (scientists who study insects) are afraid of spiders, which are not insects.

Medical Education: Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil, Boris Johnson of the United Kingdom, Narendra Modi of India, Andrés Manuel López Obrador of Mexico, Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus, Donald Trump of the USA, Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, Vladimir Putin of Russia, and Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow of Turkmenistan, for using the Covid-19 viral pandemic to teach the world that politicians can have a more immediate effect on life and death than scientists and doctors can.

Materials Science: Metin Eren, Michelle Bebber, James Norris, Alyssa Perrone, Ashley Rutkoski, Michael Wilson, and Mary Ann Raghanti, for showing that knives manufactured from frozen human faeces do not work well. ...

FULL STORY: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-54197198
 
The Peace prize cracked me up, and then I spotted the Management one. Cue howls of laughter.

I still think my ultimate favourite one has to be the necrophiliac homosexual duck. Quite how anyone wrote a paper on that - AND got it accepted - is beyond me, and I have written a couple in my time!
 
EnolaGaia said:
Ladies and gentlemen ... Your 2020 Ig Nobel Prize winners ...


Here's a full list of the 2020 Ig Nobel winners. Each winning team was given a cash prize - of a 10 trillion dollar bill from Zimbabwe.

For Acoustics: Stephan Reber, Takeshi Nishimura, Judith Janisch, Mark Robertson, and Tecumseh Fitch, for inducing a female Chinese alligator to bellow in an airtight chamber filled with helium-enriched air.

Psychology: Miranda Giacomin and Nicholas Rule, for devising a method to identify narcissists by examining their eyebrows.

Peace: The governments of India and Pakistan, for having their diplomats surreptitiously ring each other's doorbells in the middle of the night, and then run away before anyone had a chance to answer the door.

Physics: Ivan Maksymov and Andriy Pototsky, for determining, experimentally, what happens to the shape of a living earthworm when one vibrates the earthworm at high frequency.

Economics: Christopher Watkins and colleagues for trying to quantify the relationship between different countries' national income inequality and the average amount of mouth-to-mouth kissing.

Management: Xi Guang-An, Mo Tian-Xiang, Yang Kang-Sheng, Yang Guang-Sheng, and Ling Xian Si - five professional hitmen in Guangxi, China, who subcontracted a murder one to the other with none of them in the end actually carrying out the crime.

Entomology: Richard Vetter, for collecting evidence that many entomologists (scientists who study insects) are afraid of spiders, which are not insects.

Medical Education: Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil, Boris Johnson of the United Kingdom, Narendra Modi of India, Andrés Manuel López Obrador of Mexico, Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus, Donald Trump of the USA, Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, Vladimir Putin of Russia, and Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow of Turkmenistan, for using the Covid-19 viral pandemic to teach the world that politicians can have a more immediate effect on life and death than scientists and doctors can.

Materials Science: Metin Eren, Michelle Bebber, James Norris, Alyssa Perrone, Ashley Rutkoski, Michael Wilson, and Mary Ann Raghanti, for showing that knives manufactured from frozen human faeces do not work well. ...

FULL STORY: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-54197198
Click to expand...

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
 
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bugmum said:
The Peace prize cracked me up, and then I spotted the Management one. Cue howls of laughter. I still think my ultimate favourite one has to be the necrophiliac homosexual duck. Quite how anyone wrote a paper on that - AND got it accepted - is beyond me, and I have written a couple in my time!
Click to expand...
The male mallard duck is an extremely rapey creature. Definitely not petting zoo material. Bring a tennis racket to bat them away or join #MeToo community and share your stories. The fact that they are also prone to homosexual necrophilia is a little surprising, but only a little. Put it this way; male goats have more decorum.
 
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