Ever wonder about the sex life of rats who wear pants or ..discerning liars...dead flies... .Ig Nobel Awards has the lowdown

Once again as has been my pattern, the awarding of the Ig Nobel Prize slipped by without my acknowledging the winners contribution to the world. There are the real Nobels where recipients are honored for  distinguished achievements, and then there are the Ig Nobels. We're talking here about individuals with a penchant for thinking outside the box so to speak that definitely fall into the different but undeniably interesting category. 

Organized by the Annals of Improbable Research Magazine, the Ig Nobel Prizes honor achievements, which make people laugh and think, are intended to celebrate the unusual, honor the imaginative and spur people's interest in science, medicine and technology.

Given that the winners travel to the ceremony at their own expense from around the world to receive their prize from a group of genuine Nobel Laureates, means, at least in my mind that the winners take their accolades seriously. Then again, given the nature of the awards, perhaps (just speculation) they take it with a grain of salt. In any case, judge for yourselves.

Some of the subjects of the awards struck me as requiring personal commentary. Then again, maybe not.

REPRODUCTION PRIZE (EGYPT): the late Ahmed Shafik, for studying the effects of wearing polyester, cotton or wool pants on the (wait for it) sex life of rats and for conducting similar tests with human males.

Don't want to cast aspersions on rodents but why would rats wear polyester, cotton or wool pants or any pants for that matter? Would it give them prestige in the sewers? Is there a call for designer outfits for them? Given their propensity for reproduction, rats don't need pants to breed.

ECONOMICS PRIZE (NEW ZEALAND, UK): Mark Avis, Sarah Forbes and Shelagh Ferguson for assessing the perceived personalities of rocks from a sales and marketing perspective.

Rocks have personalities? One surmises that perhaps, studying rocks from various visual points for a period of time and squinting one's eyes, a rock might or could resemble a family member or somebody famous. People have been known to see images in toast, spaghetti and other unusual places so rocks could be viewed in a similar category. Then again, why bother? A rock is a rock is...

PHYSICS PRIZE (HUNGARY, SPAIN, SWEDEN, SWITZERLAND): Gabor Horvath, Miklos Blaho, Gyorgy Kriska, Ramon Hegedus, Balazs Gerics, Robert Farkas, Susanne Akesson, Peter Malik and Hansruedi Wildermuth, for discovering why white-haired horses are the most horse-fly-proof horses, and for discovering why dragonflies are attracted to black tombstones.

Perhaps the dragonflies just like the color black being that it's night time. Who knows.

CHEMISTRY PRIZE (GERMANY): Volkswagen, for solving the problem of excessive automobile pollution emissions by automatically, electromechanically producing fewer emission whenever the cars are being tested.

And what about the times when they're not being tested, one wonders...

MEDICINE PRIZE (GERMANY): Christoph Helmchen, Carina Palzer, Thomas Munte, Silke Anders and Andreas Sprenger, for discovering that if you have an itch on the left side of your body, you can relieve it by looking into a mirror and scratching the right side of your body (and vice-versa)

Upon experiencing an itch, it would be far more simple to just relieve the itch by scratching it immediately and cutting out the necessity to gaze into a mirror. Why look in the mirror for this purpose in the first place? Then again, how would that aid scientific research?

PSYCHOLOGY PRIZE (BELGIUM, THE NETHERLANDS, GERMANY, CANADA, USA): Evelyne Debey, Maarten De Schryver, Gordon Logan, Kristina Suchotzki and Bruno Verschuere, for asking a thousand liars how often they lie and for deciding whether to believe those answers.

Can or should one believe a liar who won't necessarily admit she/he's a liar. There are some means to identify liars a BBC article claims, http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150906-the-best-and-worst-ways-to-spot-a-liar

PEACE PRIZE (CANADA, USA): Gordon Pennycook, James Allan Cheyne, Nathanial Barr, Derek Koehler and Jonathan Fugelsang, for their scholarly study called, "On the Reception and Detection of Pseydo-Profound Bullshit."

BIOLOGY PRIZE [UK] — Awarded jointly to: Charles Foster, for living in the wild as, at different times, a badger, an otter, a deer, a fox, and a bird; and to Thomas Thwaites, for creating prosthetic extensions of his limbs that allowed him to move in the manner of, and spend time roaming hills in the company of, goats.

Since nobody has found a method to communicate with the animals in question, one (me) wonders how they (the animals) feel about the attempt by humans to bond with them. To diminish the chance of rejection. Thomas Thwaites created limbs that resemble goats, Check out the end result: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3612748/Why-decided-life-London-goat-Switzerland.html

 LITERATURE PRIZE [SWEDEN] — Fredrik Sjöberg, for his three-volume autobiographical work about the pleasures of collecting flies that are dead, and flies that are not yet dead.

Really? Three whole volumes on fly collection? Dead AND alive?

PERCEPTION PRIZE [JAPAN] — Atsuki Higashiyama and Kohei Adachi, for investigating whether things look different when you bend over and view them between your legs.

Perhaps a case of too much time on one's hands, or legs?

And so, yet another year of - well - interesting awards in recognition of the Ig Nobels. Perhaps a special category should be created for those aspiring to enter the political realm. Couldn't hurt.

The Ig Nobels - recognizing achievement for...stuff

There are well-known prestigious awards distributed to those who gain international recognition in various fields of achievement in the sciences, literature and/or are successful in various scopes of performance and related areas. Then there are lesser known distinctions bestowed to people whose contribution to society could be, but not necessarily, considered somewhat questionable or at the very least, head-scratching-inducing.

Somehow, the 2015 Ig Nobel Prizes almost slipped by on my part, without any of the usual acknowledgement and commendation to the winners. These are achievements that elicit laughs but are also thought-provoking. This year's winners gathered together on September 17 at a ceremony at Harvard University's Saunders Theatre, followed by a lecture at MIT. These people went home with an Ig Prize:

The prize for Chemistry went to Calum Ormonde and Colin Raston (Australia), Tom Yuan, Stephan Kudlacek, Sameeran Kunche, Joshua N. Smith, William A. Brown, Kaitlin Pugliese, Tivoli Olsen, Mariam Iftikhar, Gregory Weiss (USA), for their invention of a chemical recipe to partially un-boil an egg. This is no yolk...eggs-actly.

The rationale behind the desire to un-boil an egg is curious but then again, one could ask oneself whether an egg is half-boiled or not, would it make a difference to a hen? Just thinking...


In the science of Physics, Patricia Yang (USA and Taiwan), David Hu (USA and Taiwan), Jonathan Pharm and Jerome Choo (USA),  who tested the biological principale that nearly all mammals empty their bladders in approximately 21 seconds (plus or minus 13 seconds).

Contemplating further, one (me) wonders whether this would vary following a night of alcoholic indulgence. Just thinking...


So Mark Dingemanse (The Netherlands), USA), Francisco Torreira (The Netherlands, Belgium, USA) AND Nick J. Enfield (Australia, The Netherlands), who took home the Literature Prize, for their earth-shattering discovery - wait for it - that the word, "huh" (or its equivalent) seemed to exist in every human language - and for not being quite sure why.

Would depend, IMHO, if one considers "huh" a word uttered on purpose or merely an exhalation of breath on a windy day. What about the Canadian equivalent of "eh:? Where does that fall in the scheme of things? Just wondering...


In the area of Management, Gennaro Bernile (Italy, Singapore, USA), Vineet Bhagwat (USA, India) and P. Raghavendra Rau (UK, India, France, Luxembourg) in their discovery that many business leaders developed a fondness for risk-taking in childhood when they experienced natural disasters i.e. earthquakes et al that - for them - had no dire personal consequences.


Now here is something worthy of recognition. The Bangkok Metropolitan Police were recognized in the Economics area (Thailand), for offering to pay policemen extra cash if the policemen refused to take bribes.


For the Medicine prize, two groups received the honors jointly - perhaps they were testing their experiments: Hajime Kimata (Japan, China), Jaroslava Durdiakova (Slovakia, US, UK), Peter Celec (Slovakia, Germany) Natalia Kamodyova, Tatiana Sedlackova, Gabriela Repiska, Barbara Sviezena and Gabriel Minarik (Slovakia), for their study examining the biomedical benefits or biomedical consequences of intense kissing (and other intimate, inter-personal activities).

So how this falls into the medical sphere is interesting but even more interesting would be what type of activities did they conduct to arrive at their conclusions. Right?


The prize in Mathematics was awarded to Elisabeth Oberzaucher (Austria, Germany, UK) and Karl Grammer (Austria, Germany), for trying to use mathematical techniques to determine whether and how Moulay Ismael the Bloodthirsty, the Sharifian Emperor of Morocco, managed during the years from 1697 through 1727, to father 888 children.


Yet another chicken aspersion in the Biology prize category. Bruno Grossi, Omar Larach, Mauricio Canals, Rodrigo A. Vaszuez (Chile), Jose Iriarte-Diaz (Chile, USA), for observing that when one attaches a weighted stick to the rear end of a chicken, the chicken then walks in a manner similar to that in which dinosaurs are thought to have walked.

Why do chickens have to suffer indignities like having a weighted stick attached to their rear end? I mean, is there a reason? It's bad enough having to speculate about their motivation for crossing the road/highway/street etc. and now being categorized as walking like a dinosaur? Really and when you think about it (too much time on my hands, obviously), who was around to witness the manner in which dinosaurs walked, anyway? Am I wrong, readers?


I dunno. Some people really seem to enjoy pain, Two individuals, one Justin Schmidt (USA, Canada) for painstakingly (in the true sense of the word) creating the Schmidt Sting Pain Index that rates the relative pain people feel when stung by various insects.
Really.

Also, Michael L. Smith (USA, UK, The Netherlands) in the area of Physiology and Entomology, for carefully arranging for honey bees to sting him repeatedly on 25 different locations on his body, to learn, which locations are the least painful (the skull middle, toe tip and upper arm) and which are the most painful (the nostril, upper lip and - can't believe I'm writing this - penis shaft).

It's really difficult to believe that someone, even in the name of science, would allow a/some bees to sting him on the penis shaft.  Bee+stinger+penis=extreme pain.


And so yet another year of dubious distinctions has come and gone but definitely not without notice or accolades. Next year - who knows. The mind boggles.

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!

Time to vote people! National Lampoon sponsoring 1st Nat. Lampoon Twitter Awards!

Seems that for whatever reason, as they themselves say: "just because" , National Lampoon is holding its first Annual National Lampoon Twitter Awards. Kind'a weird that National Lampoon is sponsoring Twitter Awards and not Twitter itself but then - why not. I mean, there are enough twits who tweet (yes - including moi before you ask).


According to the write-up on the NL site, the people or at least presumably a lot of the people at National Lampoon have in their words, "fallen in love with the Twitter Machine." They explain their attachment to the site due to "the amazingly funny and talented people on it."

The voting system will be broken down into categories, many of which - how shall one put it - are "different." Two rounds of voting will be held and in the first round currently open, they've offered some of their own suggestions on where to place your "X" or "Y"...or whatever. There is also a "other"square for write-in names at the end of each category. Round two begins on Tuesday, September 6, where the highest vote getters will be narrowed down.

"Our goal here is to honor the men and women of Twitter who fight every day to keep our country honest, stupid, and funny… because in any society, comedians are the truth-tellers, and we need truth-tellers now more than ever," National Lampoon opines.

In any case and for the record, I'm toying with adding a write-in for Bronz Zoo Cobra since there is no category listed for talented animals or escaped zoo denizens. After all - his (the snake) escape did make hisssssstory.

A list of the various categories and for people wanting to exercise their vote, let your fingers do the walking to http://nationallampoon.com/twitterawards

I'll be back to announce the preliminary winners. So who'd you vote for?



Golden Globes - Hollywood puts on its best smile

Did you watch the Golden Globe Awards last night? What did you think of Ricky Gervais's acidic/acerbic observations of various Hollywood celebs? Actually, I found him very entertaining although it was visually obvious during camera pans that not everyone agreed.

Watched it for the first hour while waiting for the next installment of Masterpiece Theatre's, "Downton Abbey" (love this series!) and returned for the last half-hour. Seems I didn't miss that much since Ricky's presence was limited in the second half of the show. Hmmmm...wonder why... As usual, the 'thank-you's' by the winners went on and on to the point where you (me) want to scream, "shut-up, already!" Really, your average person really doesn't know or care who was responsible for elevating the star to the winner's circle or the people involved in making the film/TV series.

One of the more interesting - at least for me - aspects of watching any award show is the reaction of those nominated who didn't win. There is the fixed smile and the applause but one has to admire their brave personna. Inside they could be thinking: "that stupid blah-blah - she/he didn't deserve the award. I should'a won! Wait 'til I speak to my agent!" Just speculating.

Another favorite part of all award shows is the fashions and general "look." Local plastic surgeons must be working day and night before all award shows judging by the lack of aging on the s*t*a*r*s. Not a frown line, skin creases or bags under the eyes could be seen, anywhere. Mind you, at least big lips were in short supply, thank goodness. Personally, I love the dresses and am aghast at how anyone can walk in those beautiful-looking but most likely painful to wear, shoes. All part of the "the look" one assumes so that we viewers will sigh and wish that we were among the glitterai.

The Golden Globes is the kick-off for the plethora of award shows that will follow. Somehow, they don't seem as relevant as they once did. Still, they're the only means in which to get a glimpse of our favorite celebs playing the role of celebs. And it's about the fashions...