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Ig Nobel Prize

By AdamSmith, in The Beer Bar

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Far from pointing out that MsGuy's accusation of me as "refusing to own to his clearly demonstrated error" highlights his characteristically inattentive failure to observe that my just-previous post did precisely that by suggesting I be nominated for the Ig Nobel Prize, this post is to celebrate past winners of said prize.

1991

  • Biology – Robert Klark Graham, selector of seeds and prophet of propagation, for his pioneering development of the Repository for Germinal Choice, a sperm bank that accepts donations only from Nobellians and Olympians.
  • Chemistry – Jacques Benveniste, prolific proselytizer and dedicated correspondent of Nature, for his persistent "discovery" that water, H2O, is an intelligent liquid, and for demonstrating to his satisfaction that water is able to remember events long after all traces of those events have vanished (see water memory, his proposed explanation for homeopathy).
  • Economics – Michael Milken, titan of Wall Street and father of the junk bond, to whom the world is indebted.
  • Education – J. Danforth Quayle, consumer of time and occupier of space (as well as the U.S. Vice President from 1989–93), for demonstrating, better than anyone else, the need for science education.
  • Literature – Erich von Däniken, visionary raconteur and author of Chariots of the Gods?, for explaining how human civilization was influenced by ancient astronauts from outer space.
  • Medicine – Alan Kligerman, deviser of digestive deliverance, vanquisher of vapor, and inventor of Beano, for his pioneering work with anti-gas liquids that prevent bloat, gassiness, discomfort and embarrassment.
  • Peace – Edward Teller, father of the hydrogen bomb and first champion of the Star Wars weapons system, for his lifelong efforts to change the meaning of peace as we know it.

Apocryphal achievements

The first nomination also featured three fictional recipients for fictional achievements.[2]

  • Interdisciplinary research: Josiah S. Carberry, for his work in psychoceramics, the study of "cracked pots".
  • Pedestrian technology: Paul DeFanti, "wizard of structures and crusader for public safety, for his invention of the Buckybonnet, a geodesic fashion structure that pedestrians wear to protect their heads and preserve their composure".
  • Physics: Thomas Kyle, for his discovery of "the heaviest element in the universe, Administratium".

1992

  • Archaeology – Éclaireurs de France (a French Scouting organization), removers of graffiti, for damaging the prehistoric paintings of two Bisons in the Cave of Mayrière supérieure near the French village of Bruniquel.[3]
  • Art – Presented jointly to Jim Knowlton, modern Renaissance man, for his classic anatomy poster "Penises of the Animal Kingdom," and to the U.S. National Endowment for the Arts, for encouraging Mr. Knowlton to extend his work in the form of a pop-up book.
  • Biology – Dr. Cecil Jacobson, relentlessly generous sperm donor, and prolific patriarch of sperm banking, for devising a simple, single-handed method of quality control.
  • Chemistry – Ivette Bassa, constructor of colourful colloids, for her role in the crowning achievement of 20th century chemistry, the synthesis of bright blue Jell-O.
  • Economics – The investors of Lloyd's of London, heirs to 300 years of dull prudent management, for their bold attempt to ensure disaster by refusing to pay for their company's losses.
  • Literature – Yuri Struchkov,[4] unstoppable author from the Institute of Organoelement Compounds[5] in Moscow, for the 948 scientific papers he published between the years 1981 and 1990, averaging more than one every 3.9 days.
  • Medicine – F. Kanda, E. Yagi, M. Fukuda, K. Nakajima, T. Ohta, and O. Nakata of the Shiseido Research Center in Yokohama, for their pioneering research study "Elucidation of Chemical Compounds Responsible for Foot Malodour," especially for their conclusion that people who think they have foot odor do, and those who don't, don't.[6]
  • Nutrition – The utilizers of SPAM, courageous consumers of canned comestibles, for 54 years of undiscriminating digestion.
  • Peace – Daryl Gates, former police chief of the City of Los Angeles, for his uniquely compelling methods of bringing people together.
  • Physics – David Chorley and Doug Bower, lions of low-energy physics, for their circular contributions to field theory based on the geometrical destruction of English crops.

1993

  • Biology – Presented jointly to Paul Williams Jr. of the Oregon State Health Division and Kenneth W. Newel of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, bold biological detectives, for their pioneering study, "Salmonella Excretion in Joy-Riding Pigs".[7]
  • Chemistry – Presented jointly to James Campbell and Gaines Campbell of Lookout Mountain, Tennessee, dedicated deliverers of fragrance, for inventing scent strips, the odious method by which perfume is applied to magazine pages.
  • Consumer Engineering – Presented to Ron Popeil, incessant inventor and perpetual pitchman of late night television, for redefining the industrial revolution with such devices as the Veg-O-Matic, the Pocket Fisherman, Mr. Microphone, and the Inside-the-Shell Egg Scrambler.
  • Economics – Presented to Ravi Batra of Southern Methodist University, shrewd economist and best-selling author of The Great Depression of 1990 (ISBN 978-0-440-20168-7) and Surviving the Great Depression of 1990, (ISBN 978-0-671-66324-7) for selling enough copies of his books to single-handedly prevent worldwide economic collapse.
  • Literature – Presented to T. Morrison, E. Topol, R. Califf, F. Van de Werf, P. W. Armstrong, and their 972 co-authors,[8] for publishing a medical research paper which has one hundred times as many authors as pages. The authors are from the following countries: Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Spain, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
  • Mathematics – Presented to Robert W. Faid of Greenville, South Carolina, farsighted and faithful seer of statistics, for calculating the exact odds (710,609,175,188,282,000 to 1) that Mikhail Gorbachev is the Antichrist.[9]
  • Medicine – Presented to James F. Nolan, Thomas J. Stillwell, and John P. Sands, Jr., medical men of mercy, for their painstaking research report, "Acute Management of the Zipper-Entrapped Penis".[10]
  • Peace – The Pepsi-Cola Company of the Philippines, for sponsoring a contest to create a millionaire, and then announcing the wrong winning number, thereby inciting and uniting 800,000 riotously expectant winners, and bringing many warring factions together for the first time in their nation's history.[11]
  • Physics – Presented to Corentin Louis Kervran of France, ardent admirer of alchemy, for his conclusion that the calcium in chickens' eggshells is created by a process of cold fusion.[12]
  • Psychology – Presented jointly to John E. Mack of Harvard Medical School and David M. Jacobs of Temple University, for their conclusion that people who believe they were kidnapped by aliens from outer space, probably were—and especially for their conclusion, "the focus of the abduction is the production of children".[13]
  • Visionary Technology – Presented jointly to Jay Schiffman of Farmington Hills, Michigan, crack inventor of AutoVision, an image projection device that makes it possible to drive a car and watch television at the same time, and to the Michigan State Legislature, for making it legal to do so.

1994

  • Biology – Presented to W. Brian Sweeney, Brian Krafte-Jacobs, Jeffrey W. Britton, and Wayne Hansen, for their breakthrough study, "The Constipated Serviceman: Prevalence Among Deployed US Troops," and especially for their numerical analysis of bowel movement frequency.[14]
  • Chemistry – Presented to Texas State Senator Bob Glasgow, wise writer of logical legislation, for sponsoring the 1989 drug control law which makes it illegal to purchase beakers, flasks, test tubes, or other laboratory glassware without a permit.
  • Economics – Presented to Juan Pablo Dávila of Chile, tireless trader of financial futures and former employee of the state-owned company Codelco, for instructing his computer to "buy" when he meant "sell". He subsequently attempted to recoup his losses by making increasingly unprofitable trades that ultimately lost 0.5 percent of Chile's gross national product. Davila's relentless achievement inspired his countrymen to coin a new verb, "davilar", meaning "to botch things up royally".
  • Entomology – Presented to Robert A. Lopez of Westport, NY, valiant veterinarian and friend of all creatures great and small, for his series of experiments in obtaining ear mites from cats, inserting them into his own ear, and carefully observing and analyzing the results.[15]
  • Literature – Presented to L. Ron Hubbard, ardent author of science fiction and founding father of Scientology, for his crackling Good Book, Dianetics, which is highly profitable to mankind, or to a portion thereof.
  • Mathematics – Presented to The Southern Baptist Church of Alabama, mathematical measurers of morality, for their county-by-county estimate of how many Alabama citizens will go to Hell if they don't repent.
  • Medicine – Two prizes. First, to Patient X, formerly of the US Marine Corps, valiant victim of a venomous bite from his pet rattlesnake, for his determined use of electroshock therapy. At his own insistence, automobile spark plug wires were attached to his lip, and the car engine revved to 3,000 rpm for five minutes. Second, to Dr. Richard C. Dart of the Rocky Mountain Poison Center and Dr. Richard A. Gustafson of The University of Arizona Health Sciences Center, for their well-grounded medical report, "Failure of Electric Shock Treatment for Rattlesnake Envenomation."[16]
  • Peace – Presented to John Hagelin of Maharishi University and The Institute of Science, Technology and Public Policy, for his experimental conclusion that 4,000 trained meditators caused an 18 percent decrease in violent crime in Washington, D.C.[17]
  • Psychology – Presented to Lee Kuan Yew, former Prime Minister of Singapore, for his thirty-year study of the effects of punishing three million citizens of Singapore whenever they spat, chewed gum, or fed pigeons.

Apocryphal achievements, no longer officially listed

  • Physics – Presented to The Japanese Meteorological Agency, for its seven-year study of whether earthquakes are caused by catfish wiggling their tails. This winner is not officially listed, as it was based on what turned out to be erroneous press accounts.[citation needed]

1995

  • Chemistry – Presented to Bijan Pakzad of Beverly Hills, for creating DNA Cologne and DNA Perfume, neither of which contain deoxyribonucleic acid, and both of which come in a triple helix bottle.
  • Dentistry – Presented to Robert H. Beaumont, of Shoreview, Minnesota, for his incisive study "Patient Preference for Waxed or Unwaxed Dental Floss".[18]
  • Economics – Presented jointly to Nick Leeson and his superiors at Barings Bank and to Robert Citron of Orange County, California for using the calculus of derivatives to demonstrate that every financial institution has its limits.
  • Literature – Presented to David B. Busch and James R. Starling, of Madison, Wisconsin, for their research report, "Rectal Foreign Bodies: Case Reports and a Comprehensive Review of the World's Literature." The citations include reports of, among other items: seven light bulbs; a knife sharpener; two flashlights; a wire spring; a snuff box; an oil can with potato stopper; eleven different forms of fruits, vegetables and other foodstuffs; a jeweler's saw; a frozen pig's tail; a tin cup; a beer glass; and one patient's remarkable ensemble collection consisting of spectacles, a suitcase key, a tobacco pouch and a magazine.[19]
  • Medicine – Presented to Marcia E. Buebel, David S. Shannahoff-Khalsa, and Michael R. Boyle, for their study entitled "The Effects of Unilateral Forced Nostril Breathing on Cognition."[20]
  • Nutrition – Presented to John Martinez of J. Martinez & Company in Atlanta, for Luak Coffee, the world's most expensive coffee, which is made from coffee beans ingested and excreted by the luak, a bobcat-like animal native to Indonesia.
  • Peace – Presented to the Taiwan National Parliament, for demonstrating that politicians gain more by punching, kicking and gouging each other than by waging war against other nations.
  • Physics – Presented to Dominique M.R. Georget, R. Parker, and Andrew C. Smith of Norwich, England, for their rigorous analysis of soggy breakfast cereal. It was published in the report entitled "A Study of the Effects of Water Content on the Compaction Behaviour of Breakfast Cereal Flakes."[21]
  • Psychology – Presented to Shigeru Watanabe, Junko Sakamoto, and Masumi Wakita, of Keio University, for their success in training pigeons to discriminate between the paintings of Picasso and those of Monet.[22]
  • Public Health – Presented to Martha Kold Bakkevig of Sintef Unimed in Trondheim, Norway, and Ruth Nielsen of the Technical University of Denmark, for their exhaustive study, "Impact of Wet Underwear on Thermoregulatory Responses and Thermal Comfort in the Cold."[23]

1996

1997

1998

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

  • Biology – Presented to C.W. Moeliker (nl), of Natuurhistorisch Museum Rotterdam in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, for documenting the first scientifically recorded case of homosexual necrophilia in the mallard duck.[66]
  • Chemistry – Presented to Yukio Hirose of Kanazawa University, for his chemical investigation of a bronze statue, in the city of Kanazawa, that fails to attract pigeons due to its arsenic content.[67]
  • Economics – Presented to Karl Schwärzler and the nation of Liechtenstein, for making it possible to rent the entire country for corporate conventions, weddings, bar mitzvahs, and other gatherings.[68]
  • Engineering – Presented to John Paul Stapp, Edward A. Murphy, Jr., and George Nichols, for jointly giving birth in 1949 to Murphy's Law, the basic engineering principle that "If there are two or more ways to do something, and one of those ways can result in a catastrophe, someone will do it" (or, in other words: "If anything can go wrong, it will").
  • Interdisciplinary Research – Presented to Stefano Ghirlanda, Liselotte Jansson, and Magnus Enquis of Stockholm University, for their inevitable report "Chickens Prefer Beautiful Humans."[69]
  • Literature – Presented to John Trinkaus, of the Zicklin School of Business, New York City, for meticulously collecting data and publishing more than 80 detailed academic reports about things that annoyed him, such as:
    • What percentage of young people wear baseball caps with the peak facing to the rear rather than to the front;
    • What percentage of pedestrians wear sport shoes that are white rather than some other color;
    • What percentage of swimmers swim laps in the shallow end of a pool rather than the deep end;
    • What percentage of automobile drivers almost, but not completely, come to a stop at one particular stop-sign;
    • What percentage of commuters carry attaché cases;
    • What percentage of shoppers exceed the number of items permitted in a supermarket's express checkout lane;
    • What percentage of students dislike the taste of Brussels sprouts.
  • Medicine – Presented to Eleanor Maguire, David Gadian, Ingrid Johnsrude, Catriona Good, John Ashburner, Richard Frackowiak, and Christopher Frith of University College London, for presenting evidence that the hippocampi of London taxi drivers are more highly developed than those of their fellow citizens.[70]
  • Peace – Presented to Lal Bihari, of Uttar Pradesh, India, for a triple accomplishment: First, for leading an active life even though he has been declared legally dead; second, for waging a lively posthumous campaign against bureaucratic inertia and greedy relatives; and third, for creating the Association of Dead People. Lal Bihari overcame the handicap of being dead, and managed to obtain a passport from the Indian government so that he could travel to Harvard to accept his Prize. However, the U.S. government refused to allow him into the country. His friend Madhu Kapoor therefore came to the Ig Nobel Ceremony and accepted the Prize on behalf of Lal Bihari. Several weeks later, the Prize was presented to Lal Bihari himself in a special ceremony in India.
  • Physics – Presented to Jack Harvey, John Culvenor, Warren Payne, Steve Cowle, Michael Lawrance, David Stuart, and Robyn Williams of Australia, for their irresistible report "An analysis of the forces required to drag sheep over various surfaces".[71]
  • Psychology – Presented to Gian Vittorio Caprara and Claudio Barbaranelli of the University of Rome La Sapienza, and to Philip Zimbardo of Stanford University, for their discerning report "Politicians' Uniquely Simple Personalities".[72]

2004

It has been suggested that the study of this phenomenon has had major political consequences. Following the sensational stranding of a Soviet submarine deep inside Swedish waters on 27 October 1981, the Swedish navy initiated a large-scale campaign to guard Swedish territorial waters from the perceived threat of infiltration by foreign submarines, despite the Soviets consistently asserting that the stranding had occurred due to navigational errors. The "submarine hunts", which lasted throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, have been a heavily debated issue in Sweden, as to whether or not there ever was any factual substance to the claims of Soviet infiltration. One widely reported piece of "evidence" were several sound recordings of what the Swedish navy suspected to be foreign submarines. Oceanographers and marine biologists were invited to study the recordings and would eventually find that the sounds heard were most probably produced not by submarines, but in fact were the noises made when herring passed gas. In a reportage by the Swedish science magazine "Vetenskapens värld" ("World of science") televised on 16 April 2012, it's suggested that these findings were important in putting an end to the costly "submarine hunts" which had continued for more than a decade, with Ig Nobel laurate Håkan Westerberg guessing that this would have saved Swedish tax payers hundreds of millions in SEK.[75]

2005

  • Agricultural History – Presented to James Watson of Massey University, New Zealand, for his scholarly study, "The Significance of Mr. Richard Buckley's exploding trousers".[80]
  • Biology – Presented jointly to Benjamin Smith of the University of Adelaide, Australia and the University of Toronto, Canada and the Firmenich perfume company, Geneva, Switzerland, and ChemComm Enterprises, Archamps, France; Craig Williams of James Cook University and the University of South Australia; Michael Tyler of the University of Adelaide; Brian Williams of the University of Adelaide; and Yoji Hayasaka of the Australian Wine Research Institute; for painstakingly smelling and cataloging the peculiar odors produced by 131 different species of frogs when the frogs were feeling stressed.[81][82]
  • Chemistry – Presented jointly to Edward Cussler of the University of Minnesota and Brian Gettelfinger of the University of Minnesota and the University of Wisconsin–Madison, for conducting a careful experiment to settle the longstanding scientific question: can people swim faster in syrup or in water? It was found that swimmers in the experiment reach comparable velocity in both media.[83][84]
  • Economics – Presented to Gauri Nanda of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for inventing Clocky, an alarm clock that runs away and hides, repeatedly, thus ensuring that people get out of bed, and thus theoretically adding many productive hours to the workday.
  • Fluid Dynamics – Presented jointly to Victor Benno Meyer-Rochow of International University Bremen, Germany and the University of Oulu, Finland; and József Gál of Loránd Eötvös University, Hungary, for using basic principles of physics to calculate the pressure that builds up inside a penguin, as detailed in their report "Pressures Produced When Penguins Poo—Calculations on Avian Defecation".[85]
  • Literature – Presented to the Internet entrepreneurs of Nigeria, for creating and then using e-mail to distribute a bold series of short stories, thus introducing millions of readers to a cast of rich characters—General Sani Abacha, Mrs. Mariam Sanni Abacha, Barrister Jon A Mbeki Esq., and others—each of whom requires just a small amount of expense money so as to obtain access to the great wealth to which they are entitled and which they would like to share with the kind person who assists them. (See advance fee fraud.)
  • Medicine – Presented to Gregg A. Miller of Oak Grove, Missouri, for inventing Neuticles—artificial replacement testicles for dogs, which are available in three sizes, and three degrees of firmness.
  • Nutrition – Presented to Dr. Yoshiro Nakamatsu of Tokyo, Japan, for photographing and retrospectively analyzing every meal he has consumed during a period of 34 years (and counting).
  • Peace – Presented jointly to Claire Rind and Peter Simmons of University of Newcastle, in the UK, for electrically monitoring the activity of a brain cell in a locust while that locust was watching selected highlights from the movie Star Wars.[86]
  • Physics – Presented jointly to John Mainstone and Thomas Parnell of the University of Queensland, Australia, for patiently conducting the so-called pitch drop experiment that began in the year 1927—in which a glob of congealed black tar pitch has been slowly dripping through a funnel, at a rate of approximately one drop every nine years.[87]

2006

2007

  • Aviation: Patricia V. Agostino, Santiago A. Plano and Diego A. Golombek, for discovering that hamsters recover from jetlag more quickly when given Viagra.[97][98]
  • Biology: Johanna E.M.H. van Bronswijk, for taking a census of all the mites and other life forms that live in people's beds.[99]
  • Chemistry: Mayu Yamamoto for extracting vanilla flavour from cow dung.[100]
  • Economics: Kuo Cheng Hsieh, for patenting a device to catch bank robbers by ensnaring them in a net.[101]
  • Linguistics: Juan Manuel Toro, Josep B. Trobalon and Nuria Sebastian-Galles, for determining that rats sometimes can't distinguish between recordings of Japanese and Dutch played backward.[102]
  • Literature: Glenda Browne, for her study into indexing entries that start with the definitive article "the".[103]
  • Medicine: Dan Meyer and Brian Witcombe, for investigating the side-effects of swallowing swords.[104]
  • Nutrition: Brian Wansink, for investigating people's appetite for mindless eating by secretly feeding them a self-refilling bowl of soup.[105]
  • Peace: The United States Air Force Wright Laboratory in Dayton, Ohio, for suggesting the research and development of a "gay bomb," which would cause enemy troops to become sexually attracted to each other.[106]
  • Physics: Lakshminarayanan Mahadevan and Enrique Cerda Villablanca for their theoretical study of how sheets become wrinkled.[107]

2008

The "18th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony" was held on 2 October 2008 at Harvard University's Sanders Theatre.[108]

  • Archaeology: Astolfo Gomes de Mello Araujo and Jose Carlos Marcelino, for showing that armadillos can mix up the contents of an archaeological site.[109][110]
  • Biology: Marie-Christine Cadiergues, Christel Joubert, and Michel Franc, for discovering that fleas that live on dogs jump higher than fleas that live on cats.[111]
  • Chemistry: Sheree Umpierre, Joseph Hill, and Deborah Anderson, for discovering that Coca-Cola is an effective spermicide,[112] and C.Y. Hong, C.C. Shieh, P. Wu, and B.N. Chiang for accidentally proving it is not.[113][114]
  • Cognitive science: Toshiyuki Nakagaki, Hiroyasu Yamada, Ryo Kobayashi, Atsushi Tero, Akio Ishiguro, and Ágota Tóth, for discovering that slime molds can solve puzzles.[115][116]
  • Economics: Geoffrey Miller, Joshua Tyber, and Brent Jordan, for discovering that exotic dancers earn more when at peak fertility.[117]
  • Literature: David Sims, for his study "You Bastard: A Narrative Exploration of the Experience of Indignation within Organizations".[118][119]
  • Medicine: Rebecca Waber and Dan Ariely for demonstrating that expensive placebos are more effective than inexpensive placebos.[120][121]
  • Nutrition: Massimiliano Zampini and Charles Spence, for demonstrating that food tastes better when it sounds more appealing.[122][123]
  • Peace: The Swiss Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology and the citizens of Switzerland, for adopting the legal principle that plants have dignity.[124]
  • Physics: Dorian Raymer and Douglas Smith, for proving that heaps of string or hair will inevitably tangle.[125]

2009

2010

2011

  • Biology: Darryl Gwynne and David Rentz for discovering that certain kinds of beetle mate with certain kinds of Australian beer bottle.[146]
  • Chemistry: Makoto Imai, Naoki Urushihata, Hideki Tanemura, Yukinobu Tajima, Hideaki Goto, Koichiro Mizoguchi and Junichi Murakami for determining the ideal density of airborne wasabi (pungent horseradish) to awaken sleeping people in case of a fire or other emergency, and for applying this knowledge to invent the wasabi alarm.[147][148]
  • Literature: John Perry of Stanford University for his Theory of Structured Procrastination, which states: "To be a high achiever, always work on something important, using it as a way to avoid doing something that's even more important."[149][150][151]
  • Mathematics: Dorothy Martin of the USA (who predicted the world would end in 1954), Pat Robertson of the USA (who predicted the world would end in 1982), Elizabeth Clare Prophet of the USA (who predicted the world would end in 1990), Lee Jang Rim of Korea (who predicted the world would end in 1992), Credonia Mwerinde of Uganda (who predicted the world would end in 1999), and Harold Camping of the USA (who originally predicted the world would end on 6 September 1994, and later predicted that the world will end on 21 May 2011, which preceded his final prediction on 21 October 2011), for teaching the world to be careful when making mathematical assumptions and calculations.
  • Medicine: Mirjam Tuk, Debra Trampe and Luk Warlop,[152] and jointly to Matthew Lewis, Peter Snyder, Robert Feldman, Robert Pietrzak, David Darby and Paul Maruff[153] for demonstrating that people make better decisions about some kinds of things – but worse decisions about other kinds of things – when they have a strong urge to urinate.
  • Peace: Arturas Zuokas, the mayor of Vilnius, Lithuania, for demonstrating that the problem of illegally parked luxury cars can be solved by running them over with a tank.[154][155] (Note, the vehicle used was not a tank, but a BTR-60 Armoured personnel carrier).[156]
  • Psychology: Karl Halvor Teigen of the University of Oslo, Norway, for trying to understand why, in everyday life, people sigh.[157]
  • Physics: Philippe Perrin, Cyril Perrot, Dominique Deviterne, Bruno Ragaru and Herman Kingma for trying to determine why discus throwers become dizzy, and why hammer throwers don't, in their paper "Dizziness in discus throwers is related to motion sickness generated while spinning".[158]
  • Physiology: Anna Wilkinson, Natalie Sebanz, Isabella Mandl and Ludwig Huber for their study "No evidence of contagious yawning in the red-footed tortoise Geochelone carbonaria".[159]
  • Public safety: John Senders of the University of Toronto, Canada, for conducting a series of safety experiments in which a person drives an automobile on a major highway while a visor repeatedly flaps down over his face, blinding him.[160]

2012

  • Acoustics: Kazutaka Kurihara and Koji Tsukada for creating the SpeechJammer – a machine that disrupts a person's speech, by making them hear their own spoken words at a very slight delay.[161]
  • Anatomy: Frans de Waal and Jennifer Pokorny, for discovering that chimpanzees can identify other chimpanzees individually by seeing photographs of their anogenital regions (their behinds).[162]
  • Chemistry: Johan Pettersson, for solving the puzzle of why, in certain houses in the town of Anderslöv, Sweden, people's hair turned green.[163]
  • Fluid dynamics: Rouslan Krechetnikov and Hans Mayer for studying the dynamics of liquid sloshing, to learn what happens when a person walks while carrying a cup of coffee.[164]
  • Literature: The US Government General Accountability Office, for issuing a report about reports about reports that recommends the preparation of a report about the report about reports about reports.[165]
  • Medicine: Emmanuel Ben-Soussan and Michel Antonietti, for advising doctors who perform colonoscopies how to minimize the chance that their patients will explode.[166][167]
  • Neuroscience: Craig Bennett, Abigail Baird, Michael Miller, and George Wolford, for demonstrating that brain researchers, by using complicated instruments and simple statistics, can see meaningful brain activity anywhere – even in a dead salmon.[168]
  • Peace: The SKN Company, for converting old Russian ammunition into new diamonds.[169][170]
  • Physics: Joseph Keller, Raymond Goldstein, Patrick Warren, and Robin Ball, for calculating the balance of forces that shape and move the hair in a human ponytail.[171]
  • Psychology: Anita Eerland, Rolf Zwaan, and Tulio Guadalupe for their study "Leaning to the Left Makes the Eiffel Tower Seem Smaller".[172]

2013

  • Archaeology: Brian Crandall and Peter Stahl, for parboiling a dead shrew, and then swallowing the shrew without chewing, and then carefully examining everything excreted during subsequent days — all so they could see which bones would dissolve inside the human digestive system, and which bones would not.[173]
  • Biology/Astronomy: Marie Dacke, Emily Baird, Marcus Byrne, Clarke Scholtz, and Eric Warrant, for discovering that when dung beetles get lost, they can navigate their way home by looking at the Milky Way.[174]
  • Chemistry: Shinsuke Imai, Nobuaki Tsuge, Muneaki Tomotake, Yoshiaki Nagatome, Toshiyuki Nagata, and Hidehiko Kumagai, for discovering that the biochemical process by which onions make people cry is even more complicated than scientists previously realized.[175]
  • Medicine: Masateru Uchiyama, Xiangyuan Jin, Qi Zhang, Toshihito Hirai, Atsushi Amano, Hisashi Bashuda and Masanori Niimi, for assessing the effect of listening to opera, on mice which have had heart transplant operations.[176]
  • Peace: Alexander Lukashenko, president of Belarus, for making it illegal to applaud in public, AND to the Belarus State Police, for arresting a one-armed man for applauding.[177]
  • Probability: Bert Tolkamp, Marie Haskell, Fritha Langford, David Roberts, and Colin Morgan, for making two related discoveries: First, that the longer a cow has been lying down, the more likely that cow will soon stand up; and Second, that once a cow stands up, you cannot easily predict how soon that cow will lie down again.[178]
  • Physics: Alberto Minetti, Yuri Ivanenko, Germana Cappellini, Nadia Dominici, and Francesco Lacquaniti, for discovering that some people would be physically capable of running across the surface of a pond — if those people and that pond were on the moon.[179]
  • Psychology: Laurent Bègue, Brad Bushman, Oulmann Zerhouni, Baptiste Subra, and Medhi Ourabah, for confirming, by experiment, that people who think they are drunk also think they are attractive.[180]
  • Public Health: Kasian Bhanganada, Tu Chayavatana, Chumporn Pongnumkul, Anunt Tonmukayakul, Piyasakol Sakolsatayadorn, Krit Komaratal, and Henry Wilde, for the medical techniques described in their report "Surgical Management of an Epidemic of Penile Amputations in Siam" — techniques which they recommend, except in cases where the amputated penis had been partially eaten by a duck.[181]
  • Safety Engineering: The late Gustano Pizzo, for inventing an electro-mechanical system to trap airplane hijackers — the system drops a hijacker through trap doors, seals him into a package, then drops the encapsulated hijacker through the airplane's specially-installed bomb bay doors, whence he parachutes to earth, where police, having been alerted by radio, await his arrival. (U.S. Patent 3,811,643)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ig_Nobel_Prize_winners

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RA1 Grand Master

RA1

Posted
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Posted

Are you asking for too much? After all the Ignoble prize is intended to honor the truly ignoble. Are you truly worthy Are you truly Ignoble? Only time will tell and perhaps the judges. :smile:

Best regards,

RA1

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MsGuy Grand Master

MsGuy

Posted
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Posted

Interesting that your response to me gently chiding you for your inability to own to a mistake, you loudly assert you have done "precisely that", but then link to the post in question rather than quote the relevant section. Were you operating on the assumption that few would bother to check out your actual words?

For this slur I expect at the least a nomination for next year's Ig Nobel Prize.

As you well know, AS, "own to" denotes forthright & public acceptance, a taking of ownership of the matter in question. The half-hearted. jocular weaseling response quoted does not meet that standard.

However, as you continue insist that those words, infelicitous though they were, were meant in a spirit of humble confession of error, why then, as a gentleman, I will accept your apology and will be content to let bygones be bygones.

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Te absolvo, AdamSmith. Go forth and sin no more.

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RA1 Grand Master

RA1

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So many strange words. Do cute and weasel go together? I am pretty sure MsGuy has never been "up north" so a visit to NC seems unlikely, therefore he cannot be your father. :smile:

Isn't Ignoble good enough? Are you going for Grand Ignoble? :smile:

Best regards,

RA1

AdamSmith Grand Master

AdamSmith

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Don't think I could really compete. Look at some of the past winners...

2001 Biology – Presented to Buck Weimer of Pueblo, Colorado for inventing Under-Ease, airtight underwear with a replaceable charcoal filter that removes bad-smelling gases before they escape.

I.e., Fart Filtering Underwear! :cheer:

And the beat goes on, and on...

1991 Medicine – Alan Kligerman, deviser of digestive deliverance, vanquisher of vapor, and inventor of Beano, for his pioneering work with anti-gas liquids that prevent bloat, gassiness, discomfort and embarrassment.

1993 Biology – Presented jointly to Paul Williams Jr. of the Oregon State Health Division and Kenneth W. Newel of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, bold biological detectives, for their pioneering study, "Salmonella Excretion in Joy-Riding Pigs".

1994 Biology – Presented to W. Brian Sweeney, Brian Krafte-Jacobs, Jeffrey W. Britton, and Wayne Hansen, for their breakthrough study, "The Constipated Serviceman: Prevalence Among Deployed US Troops," and especially for their numerical analysis of bowel movement frequency.

1995 Nutrition – Presented to John Martinez of J. Martinez & Company in Atlanta, for Luak Coffee, the world's most expensive coffee, which is made from coffee beans ingested and excreted by the luak, a bobcat-like animal native to Indonesia.

1998 Literature – Presented to Dr. Mara Sidoli of Washington, DC, for her illuminating report, "Farting as a Defence Against Unspeakable Dread".

2000 Public Health – Presented to Jonathan Wyatt, Gordon McNaughton, and William Tullet of Glasgow, for their alarming report, "The Collapse of Toilets in Glasgow".

2005 Fluid Dynamics – Presented jointly to Victor Benno Meyer-Rochow of International University Bremen, Germany and the University of Oulu, Finland; and József Gál of Loránd Eötvös University, Hungary, for using basic principles of physics to calculate the pressure that builds up inside a penguin, as detailed in their report "Pressures Produced When Penguins Poo—Calculations on Avian Defecation".

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RA1 Grand Master

RA1

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If you cannot meet or exceed, "When penguins poo" I don't know who can. :smile:

Best regards,

RA1

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lookin Grand Master

lookin

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Interesting that your response to me gently chiding you for your inability to own to a mistake, you loudly assert you have done "precisely that", but then link to the post in question rather than quote the relevant section. Were you operating on the assumption that few would bother to check out your actual words?

If anybody ever gets to the bottom of this kerfuffle, I sure hope they'll post it here. :rolleyes:

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I can't even figure out who started it.. .

. . . . .. .Too bad there aren't any tapes.

AdamSmith Grand Master

AdamSmith

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Let me just say this about that.

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In great part all this is because it has amused me to nip at MsGuy's heels and ankles on any pretext, in payback for his getting me interested the other day in hunting down that rhetorical figure that, after considerable time wasted in fruitless search, I now believe does not exist.

Granted, he never said it did, preserving himself from culpability. That adroitness on his part naturally only adds to the irritation. ^_^

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lookin Grand Master

lookin

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Good gosh, AdamSmith! You show a self-awareness few can match.

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I kind of remember the original riddle. Something to do with folks wishing for one another's blessings? All I could think of was looking for a word meaning "the grass is always greener".

I petered out early on and, if it was a wild goose chase, did not meander after the gander. If you did, I can understand your pique.

Perhaps this one is a draw and MsGuy will have another challenge for us? :rolleyes:

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MsGuy Grand Master

MsGuy

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lookin: Perhaps this one is a draw and MsGuy will have another challenge for us?

How does one declare a draw when one side is clearly winning? Never-the-less I take you to be making a larger point about forum amity and, in that spirit, concede the ground to AS, if that will mollify him.

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In great part all this is because it has amused me to nip at MsGuy's heels and ankles on any pretext, in payback for his getting me interested the other day in hunting down that rhetorical figure that, after considerable time wasted in fruitless search, I now believe does not exist.

Good Lord, AS, was that what all this has been about? :lol: Honestly, I just thought you were being unusually knotty headed about admitting when you were in the wrong!

Actually I have been embedding subtle clues in many of my posts on the riddle and had expected you to resolve it long before now. Of course I simultaneously egged you on once you went off in the wrong direction & started punching the puzzle's tar baby, but, really now, AS, would you have been able to resist a similar temptation were the tables turned?

LOL, the unfortunate thing was that I had already decided to end your misery by posting a pair of clues pointing you directly to the answer when you relieved my conscience by launching into the ankle biting.

That was petty of me, and I own that it was. You have my most sincere apology.

AdamSmith Grand Master

AdamSmith

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LOL, the unfortunate thing was that I had already decided to end your misery by posting a pair of clues pointing you directly to the answer when you relieved my conscience by launching into the ankle biting.

That was petty of me, and I own that it was. You have my most sincere apology.

Gratefully accepted.

Now. Clues are of the least possible interest. Freely admitting defeat, what will it take to have the answer?

Assuming, of course, there is one.

A return to the alternative would not, as you note, advance forum Amishness.

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MsGuy Grand Master

MsGuy

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And now you've gone straight to the heart of my dilemma. I fear that, after all this time punching away at that tar baby, for which my deliberately misleading posts were partly responsible, you'll be even more enraged when (should I say if?) I tell you the answer (which has really and truly been sitting right out there in plain sight the whole time).

So...AS, will you have resolution at the possible price of further outrage? The choice is yours but think long and hard.

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Of course, that's all assuming that we have resolved the little matter of the apology from you I have been so patiently awaiting.

Actually I no longer recall what it was that you were to apologize for but I'm pretty sure it was for something. :logik: Do you remember? Maybe lookin knows. I guess if need be we could check back through our posts and find out.

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Hey, I said I owned to being petty. I didn't say I had changed my stripes. ;) Character change is hard!

ROFLMFAO... you did ask for a price.

Guest hitoallusa

Guest hitoallusa

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I don't get what the this thread is about.. What exactly is AS and MsGuy discussing about.. Anyways, I enjoy pictures you both posts.. I think they are so cute and witty... So I will just check pictures...^_^

AdamSmith Grand Master

AdamSmith

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Curiosity, it seems, will pay any price. Thus:

I apologize.

For all and sundry, no feints or escape clauses. (And if you don't recall exactly for what, I certainly lack will to look back and sort it all out!)

As for further outrage -- well, who can forecast the future? Much less control it. ^_^

So. Yours to disclose, or keep teasing. We all lead narrow shrunken enough lives that I will understand, either way. :lol:

P.S. What I can foresee is a Scholastic disputatio over whether you correctly interpreted and applied whatever rhetorical figuration you reveal. :D

Guest callipygian

Guest callipygian

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I suspect everyone in this reum knows more than they are telling.

Best regards,

RA1

That might be true - but for me, I have learned a bunch of new words which I will probably never have an opportunity to use (if i can even recall them) without people looking at me and saying.......what? Or finding new people to hang out with altogether!

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It's almost been as cryptic and thought-challenging as my favorite ipad game - The Room, which I highly recommend for those with a likening to digital puzzle solving.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/the-room/id552039496?mt=8

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(also avail on android/kindle)

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MsGuy Grand Master

MsGuy

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So. Yours to disclose, or keep teasing. We all lead narrow shrunken enough lives that I will understand, either way. :lol:

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OUCH

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In mitigation, I plead that I did have a Paul on the Road to Damascus moment at lunch and rushed home hoping you had slept in late today and that I could go ahead and do the great reveal w/o any further concession on your part.

No such luck.

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Somehow AdamSmith, like Henry at Agincourt, you have turned the table, not merely snatched away my victory but crushed me beyond hope of recovery. Well played, AS, well played.

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The Grand Reveal will follow by separate post so as not to detract from your triumph. I owe you a decent period for celebrations.

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RA1 Grand Master

RA1

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AS never sleeps in late, contrary to the rest of us mere mortals. :smile:

Best regards,

RA1

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MsGuy Grand Master

MsGuy

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First:

I would have had to accept the following answer as fully compliant with the spirit of the query (although I admit it only occurred to me as I sat down to compose this reveal.

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RA1 Grand Master

RA1

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Sayeth the dog to all the other dogs.

Best regards,

RA1

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