Categories: just-life
Date: 09 October 2006 16:28:44
There are two TOP PRIZES in the realm of science. There's the Nobel Prize and the more modern Ig nobel prize (I know which I'd rather win).
For those of you who don't know, the Ig Nobel Prizes are awarded for science that cannot or should not be reproduced.
Last week the Ig Nobels were announced for 2006, the prizes were...
Accoustics Lynn Halpern, Randolph Blake and James Hillenbrand, of Northwester University - experiements to find out why people dislike the sound of fingernails scraping down a blackboard.
Biology Bart Knoles and Ruurd de Jong of the Netherlands - showing that the female maleria mosquito Anopheles gambiae is attracted equally to the smell of limburger cheese and to the smell of human feet.
Chemistry Antonio Mulet, Jose Javier Benedito and Jose Bon of Spain - study on "Ultrasocic velocity in Chedder Cheese as Affected by Temperature"
Literature Daniel Oppenheimer of Princeton University - report "Consequences of Erudite Vernacular Utilized Irrespective of Necessity: Problems with Using Long Words Needlessly"
Mathematics Nic Svenson and Piers Barnes of Australia - calculating the number of photographs you need to take to ensure that nobody in a group has their eyes closed.*
Medicine Francis Fesmire of Tennessee and Majed Odeh, Harry Bassan and Arie Oilven or Haifa, Israel - case report "Termination of Intractable Hiccups with Digital Rectal Massage**.
Nutrition Wasmia Al-Houty and Faten Al-Mussalam from Kuwait - showing that dung beetles are fussy eaters.
Ornithology Ivan Schwab and the late Phillip May of California - exploring and explaining why woodpeckers don't get headaches.
Peace Howard Stapleton of Mertyr Tydfil - inventing a electromechanical teenager repellant that makes annoying noise audible to teenagers but not adults; and for using the same technology to make telephone ringtones that are audible only to teenagers.
Physics Basile Audoly and Sebastien Neukirch of Paris - insights into why dry speghetti often breaks into more than two pieces when bent.
*solution - divide the number of people by three in good light, and by two in bad, and if there are more than fifty people in the group, give up.
**what this means is, well.....it involves using a finger and about thirty seconds of slow, circumferential massage of the rectum.