First up, a quick overview from The Scientist, September 14:
2021 Ig Nobel Prizes Honor Decongestant Orgasms, Rhino Transport
A full beard can absorb nearly 40 percent of the shock from a punch to the face, according to one winning study.
Science is driven by curiosity. While some topics are more useful to society, such as treating cancer or mitigating climate change, others are less consequential, such as how to best kill cockroaches on a submarine or what bacteria lurk in that piece of chewing gum stuck under a table. The latter group has a chance to shine thanks to the Ig Nobel prizes from the Annals of Improbable Research.
The 31st First Annual (yes, you read that right) Ig Nobel Prize ceremony was held last week (September 9), honoring work representing 10 categories. Because of the ongoing pandemic, the ceremony was held fully online. Winners were sent a PDF file, allowing them to cut out and assemble a gear-shaped trophy, with human teeth as the teeth in the gear, because why not?
See “Frozen Fecal Knives Honored by 2020 Ig Nobel Prizes”
Here is the work honored at the ceremony:
Biology: Over several years, a team of Swedish researchers analyzed variations of vocalizations made by domesticated cats and how this “meowsic” is interpreted by people.
Ecology: An international team analyzed the bacteriome of discarded pieces of chewing gum on streets and sidewalks in five countries across Europe. “Our findings have implications for a wide range of disciplines, including forensics, contagious disease control, or bioremediation of wasted chewing gum residues,” the authors write in the study.
Chemistry: In 2008 and 2015, an international team chemically analyzed the air in movie theatres, identifying the volatile organic compounds emitted by the audience, which they found was a reliable indicator of the amount of violence, sex, and profanity contained in the movie.
Economics: A French researcher compared hundreds of photographs of politicians in post-Soviet countries and found that obesity correlated with corruption.....
....MUCH MORE
To date, the University of Manchester's Andre Geim remains the only winner of both a Nobel and an Ig Nobel Prize.
And from the Award's sponsor, The Journal of Improbable Research:
The 31st First Annual Ig Nobel Ceremony
....THE CEREMONY
The ceremony itself included these traditional elements:
- Winners — Ten new Ig Nobel Prize winners were introduced. Each winner (or winning team) has done something that makes people LAUGH, then THINK
- Presenters — A gaggle of
genuine, genuinely bemused Nobel laureates handed the Ig Nobel Prizes to
the new Ig Nobel winners. Here’s the gaggle:
- Rich Roberts (physiology or medicine, 1993)
- Frances Arnold (chemistry, 2018)
- Marty Chalfie (chemistry, 2008)
- Eric Maskin (economics, 2007)
- Barry Sharpless (chemistry, 2001)
- Robert Lefkowitz (chemistry, 2012)
- Carl Weiman (physics, 2001)
- Eric Cornell (physics, 2001)
- Jerome Friedman (physics, 1990)
....MUCH MORE
It appears the winners of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry were seriously overrepresented among the presenters.
