Blog: Tuesday, Oct 7
Wednesday, Oct 8, 2008 1:10AM / Standard Entry
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Working as a teacher for the past few years, i realize that people forget that scientists generally have a wicked sense of humor. This time of year, the Nobel prizes are awarded, but so is the parody award...the Ig Nobel Prize
http://improbable.com/ig/winners/#ig2008
here are a few of my favorites based on titles and subjects of research. from physics, medicine, nutrition, and best of all, chemistry :)
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
MEDICINE PRIZE. Dan Ariely
of Duke University (USA), Rebecca
L. Waber of MIT (USA), Baba
Shiv of Stanford University (USA), and Ziv
Carmon of INSEAD (Singapore)
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
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.
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
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