Human nature (and blog readers) never cease to amaze

As a person who enjoys blogging about...nearly everything, actually, I enjoy keeping track of which blog pieces continuously surface to the top.

Anything to do with royalty seems to be of interest to everyone world-wide, or at least people who drop by Gimme a Break (this blog) and when I, along with many... Make that a gazillion other people didn't get an invitation to the royal wedding last year, I shared my disappointment and angst with anyone who happened by.
http://myviewscount.blogspot.ca/2011/04/royal-wedding-list-minus-my-name.html

Related to the wedding and even if one (me) had received an invite, one would be required to know how to act in front of royalty and invitees.
http://myviewscount.blogspot.ca/2011/04/royal-behavior-what-are-rules.html

To this end, a consultation with Debrett's, the word when it comes to things societal, as written on their site: "Debrett's is the modern authority on all matters etiquette, taste and achievement. Recognising people of distinction and the finer things in life are true to Debrett's heritage, rooted in publishing chronicles of the great and the good over the past two centuries" was in order in case one (me again) is invited to a royal affair. People appear to enjoy my take on this issue.

Also popular in the royalty-related category or at least something that is still around, is my confession that I missed the Queen's Jubilee Party and celebrations. What can I say - yet another invitation obviously lost in the mail.

These days the most popular topic seems to be a piece written in 2009 focusing on an invention of a dual bra that could if the need be most likely, converted into a gas mask. In fact this unusual invention won a Ig Nobel prize. Actually, when the list of award-ees was released, this particular award stood out among the rest. I mean - think about it - a bra that could also act as a gas mask. This made me think ("oh do share your thoughts, Eleanor!") if - and I say/write, if - this was feasible, the bulkyness of the gas mask would make the wearing of the bra unconfortable, n'est pas? Also, if it became apparent that there was some type of gas in the air, the speed in which one could unhook said bra and place it on one's face would be slow. Just some thoughts that spring to mind. But I digress.

BONUS...BONUS! VIDEO OF DR. BODNAR RECEIVING HER BRA/GAS MASK CONVERSION IG NOBEL AWARD
For those people reading this who are still interested in this interesting...device, did some research and came accross a YouTube video of Dr. Bodnar receiving her award and discussing her invention.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kxf3HK21BWI

Let it not be said or written that I don't go the extra mile for my blog readers!

Also still on the list are Rufus the Turkey has left the building and a complaint that rates at the top of my...complaint list is the usage of cell phones in places where they shouldn't be used (example: in a bathroom while you-get-the-picture), in a movie theatre.

As long as residents of planet earth continue being who and what they are, I will endeavor to continue to seek out the unusual...the unconventional...the weird-ish stories that make this blog what it is. Whatever.

Ig Nobel - awards that say 'we're different' and then some

There are many award ceremonies covering a plethora of subjects marking some type of accomplishment. Some awards recongize special abilities in a specific milieu that make the world a better and/or a more interesting place to live. Then we have the Ig Nobel Prizes, which "honor achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think. The prizes are intended to celebrate the unusual, honor the imaginative — and spur people's interest in science, medicine, and technology."

These are my type of awards.

Recently, the winners and recipients of the award were announced on September 29 along with a live ceremony of the proceedings, which took place at Harvard University. What makes these achievements so memorable is the nature of the accomplishments. I mean, these are not your ardinary, run-of-the-mill subjects!

The PHYSIOLOGY PRIZE was awarded to Anna Wilkinson (of the UK), Natalie Sebanz (of THE NETHERLANDS, HUNGARY, and AUSTRIA), Isabella Mandl (of AUSTRIA) and Ludwig Huber (of AUSTRIA) for their study "No Evidence of Contagious Yawning in the Red-Footed Tortoise."  Not all types of tortoises but merely the Red-Footed Tortoise.

Who knew that there are red-footed tortoises and that they deserved studying for their yawning practises?

REFERENCE: 'No Evidence Of Contagious Yawning in the Red-Footed Tortoise Geochelone carbonaria," Anna Wilkinson, Natalie Sebanz, Isabella Mandl, Ludwig Huber, Current Zoology, vol. 57, no. 4, 2011. pp. 477-84.

The prize in CHEMISTRY went to Makoto Imai, Naoki Urushihata, Hideki Tanemura, Yukinobu Tajima, Hideaki Goto, Koichiro Mizoguchi and Junichi Murakami of JAPAN, 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.

Another shocker for me. Here I was under the impression that wasabi was merely a very strong horseradish to clean the sinuses. Go figure that somebody would even conceive that it could have another use as a fire alarm. Could be that when word gets out about this, there might just be a run on wasabi at the supermarket.

REFERENCE: US patent application 2010/0308995 A1. Filing date: Feb 5, 2009.

Now the MEDICINE PRIZE given to Mirjam Tuk (of THE NETHERLANDS and the UK), Debra Trampe (of THE NETHERLANDS) and Luk Warlop (of BELGIUM). and jointly to Matthew Lewis, Peter Snyder and Robert Feldman (of the USA), Robert Pietrzak, David Darby, and Paul Maruff (of AUSTRALIA) is somewhat logical (at least in my mind) 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.

If one has to - well - pee badly, the only thought that comes to mind (at least mine) is where is the nearest toilet.

REFERENCE: "Inhibitory Spillover: Increased Urination Urgency Facilitates Impulse Control in Unrelated Domains," Mirjam A. Tuk, Debra Trampe and Luk Warlop, Psychological Science, vol. 22, no. 5, May 2011, pp. 627-633.

REFERENCE: "The Effect of Acute Increase in Urge to Void on Cognitive Function in Healthy Adults," Matthew S. Lewis, Peter J. Snyder, Robert H. Pietrzak, David Darby, Robert A. Feldman, Paul T. Maruff, Neurology and Urodynamics, vol. 30, no. 1, January 2011, pp. 183-7.

The PSYCHOLOGY PRIZE was awarded to Karl Halvor Teigen of the University of Oslo, NORWAY, for trying to understand why, in everyday life, people sigh.

We think - we sigh. Right?

REFERENCE: "Is a Sigh 'Just a Sigh'? Sighs as Emotional Signals and Responses to a Difficult Task," Karl Halvor Teigen, Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, vol. 49, no. 1, 2008, pp. 49–57.

John Perry of Stanford University, USA, was recognized for his Theory of Structured Procrastination, which says: to be a high achiever, always work on something important, using it as a way to avoid doing something that's even more important.

Never could have conceived that procrastination is or could be structured but then I was most likely busy doing other things.

REFERENCE: "How to Procrastinate and Still Get Things Done," John Perry, Chronicle of Higher Education, February 23, 1996. Later republished elsewhere under the title "Structured Procrastination."

BIOLOGY PRIZE: Darryl Gwynne (of CANADA and AUSTRALIA and the UK and the USA) and David Rentz (of AUSTRALIA and the USA) for discovering that a certain kind of beetle mates with a certain kind of Australian beer bottle.

Perhaps certain types of beetles are sight-challenged and Australian beer bottles resemble beetles. It's probably a good thing that the brand of Australian beer was omitted.

REFERENCE: "Beetles on the Bottle: Male Buprestids Mistake Stubbies for Females (Coleoptera)," D.T. Gwynne, and D.C.F. Rentz, Journal of the Australian Entomological Society, vol. 22, , no. 1, 1983, pp. 79-80

REFERENCE: "Beetles on the Bottle," D.T. Gwynne and D.C.F. Rentz, Antenna: Proceedings (A) of the Royal Entomological Society London, vol. 8, no. 3, 1984, pp. 116-7.

PHYSICS PRIZE: Philippe Perrin, Cyril Perrot, Dominique Deviterne and Bruno Ragaru (of FRANCE), and Herman Kingma (of THE NETHERLANDS), for determining why discus throwers become dizzy, and why hammer throwers don't.

This discovery would most likely be of high interest to discus tossers and hammer throwers. Seems it's something to do with motion sickness, accord to the reference supplied. Then again, why would a person who suffers from motion sickness take up these sports, one wonders.

REFERENCE: "Dizziness in Discus Throwers is Related to Motion Sickness Generated While Spinning," Philippe Perrin, Cyril Perrot, Dominique Deviterne, Bruno Ragaru and Herman Kingma, Acta Oto-laryngologica, vol. 120, no. 3, March 2000, pp. 390–5.

So here's an interesting one. The MATHEMATICS PRIZE: 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 predicted the world would end on September 6, 1994 and later predicted that the world will end on October 21, 2011), for teaching the world to be careful when making mathematical assumptions and calculations.

Mathematics prize? These dates really don't add up.

The PEACE PRIZE was awarded to 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 an armored tank.

So this leads one to wonder how Mayor Zuokas made this discovery. Peace prize?

PUBLIC SAFETY PRIZE: 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.

I mean, why-oh-why would a person drive a car on a major highway while a visor flaps down on his face? More important, who does the flapping?

REFERENCE: "The Attentional Demand of Automobile Driving," John W. Senders, et al., Highway Research Record, vol. 195, 1967, pp. 15-33. VIDEO

I mean, go figure!

Bra cups runneth over as a gas mask

For most females (and males as the case may be) a bra is something one wears to enhance/shape/retain/contain one's breasts. There could be other lesser known uses, for example, a sling-shot or a small container in which to carry seashells collected on a beach. Interesting but lesser-known stuff. However, the winner of the 2009 Ig Nobel Prize, one Dr. Elena Bodnar, took home the public health prize for creating a dual bra that could be converted (if necessary obviously) into two gas masks.


Note the "Ig" in front of Nobel Prize signifying that this is not "the" Nobel Prize, which usually spring to mind. In fact, "The Ig Nobel Prizes' - there are numerous categories - honor achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think. The prizes are intended to celebrate the unusual, honor the imaginative and spur people's interest in science, medicine, and technology."


Obviously pleased to be a recipient and winner, Dr. Bodnar did a demo and then gave the Nobel laureates each their very own gas bra/gas mask.

So this leads one - me - to wonder about the comfort aspect of this bra-come-gas mask. Is it padded to prevent chaffing from the gas...whatevers? More importantly, how many colors does it come in? Are there different cup sizes or is it a one-size-fits-all?

The mind boggles at its potential usage in the military. A soldier (female and/or male) who wears said double-duty bra, could when there is the scent of gas and lurking danger, disrobe, unhook said bra and place it on their face(s). This act in itself could cause a shock wave among the enemy. I mean, it's rare for your average person to walk around with a bra over one's face, period. Then again, the time delay in actually getting access to the bra might be a problem.

The ceremony was organized by the magazine, "The Annals of Improbable Research", which is a good name given the nature of the awards. For the full list of names, try this site:

http://improbable.com/ig/winners/

And for a diagram of the winning bra...that is to say, gas mask...whatever, try here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8285380.stm

AND THE WINNERS ARE (AMONG OTHER) HOW TO EXTRACT VANILLA FROM COW DUNG

It brings a tear to the eyes - at least the prize handed out to Mayu Yamamoto, from Japan, who developed a method to extract vanilla fragrance and flavoring from cow dung. This is something the world has been waiting for!

The prize is among other - how shall we say - unusual awards known as the Ig Nobel Prize handed out by the Annals of Improbable Research in their ongoing quest to “celebrate the unusual, honor the imaginative — and spur people’s interest in science, medicine and technology.”

O-kay. We'll drink to that. Actually, maybe not.

Among the other prize winners was a team at Quilmes National University in Argentina, who took home the honors in the aviation category for finding that - wait for it - hamsters given Viagra needed 50% less time to recover from a six-hour time zone change. This vital information should be of great interest to rodents that fly the friendly skies. I mean...really.

In the medical sphere, the prize for medicine went to radiologist Brian Witcombe at Gloucestershire Royal NHS foundation trust for his study of the vocational risks of sword swallowing Moreover, “sore throats - ’sword throats’ - occur when swallowers are learning, when performances are repeated frequently, or when odd-shaped or multiple swords are used,” he concluded. This conclusion is all the more interesting given the means in which they arrived at this. Who were the subjects and what were they given to partake in this experiment? Equally fascinating, are they still alive and what did they do with the leftover swords?

Juan Manuel Toro, Josep Trobalon and Núria Sebastián-Gallés, of Barcelona University, collected the linguistics Ig Nobel for showing that rats sometimes cannot tell the difference between a person speaking Japanese backwards and a person speaking Dutch backwards (but only sometimes!). Now this begs the question as to how the researchers actually found rats that understood Japanese AND Dutch and then determining if they could distinguish the difference when speaking Japanese and Dutch backwards/forwards... Oh who cares anyway!

Back state-side, the U.S. Air Force’s Wright Laboratory in Ohio took the peace prize for its 1994 research into a “gay bomb” that could deploy a chemical substance that would turn the enemy’s front lines into an orgy. Unlike most of the other winners, no one from the lab showed up for the presentation. Perhaps they were other-wise occupied one ponders?

The Biology honors went to Dr. Johanna van Bronswijk of the Netherlands for carrying out a census of all of the mites, insects, spiders, ferns and fungi that share our beds. No mention of numbers acquired in the mite research, which could be a good or bad sign. Then again there could have been duplication given their propensity to jump around. Was this research conducted world-wide or locally?

Now in as far as Economics go, here is something that has some merit or at least logic. Kuo Cheng Hsieh of Taiwan presumably patented a device that can catch bank robbers by dropping a net over them. Oh the inventiveness of this device!

Can't wait for next year's prizes. Got any ideas?

Writers & Friends
www.writersandfriends.org