Yes… it is that time of the year again, when science and humour collide. I secretly dream of winning the Ig-Nobel prize some day. But it is very unlikely. I’m afraid I’m a very boring researcher.
Anyways, here you have the winners of the prizes this year:
CHEMISTRY PRIZE — to the invention of a chemical recipe to partially un-boil an egg.
Very useful for people who can’t decide between hard-boiled egg or omelette for breakfast.
Also for the ones that back off from revolution… Truth, Justice, Freedom, Reasonably Priced Love, and a Hard-Boiled Egg!
PHYSICS PRIZE — to the testing of the biological principle that nearly all mammals empty their bladders in about 21 seconds (plus or minus 13 seconds).
The authors, in the abstract of their paper, wonder why this issue was given not much attention by researchers. I am really surprised too. I always find very long queues for the toilet, while men don’t queue at all… so if the time we spend “ejecting fluids” is the same, I wonder what takes us so much time in the toilet… perhaps because we usually go in pairs, and we just go to have a chat? Of course, that’s what most men think. It is clearly the best place to have a chat…
LITERATURE PRIZE — to the discovering that the word "huh?" (or its equivalent) seems to exist in every human language — and for not being quite sure why.
This is too easy to comment… huh?
MANAGEMENT PRIZE — to the discovering that many business leaders developed in childhood a fondness for risk-taking, when they experienced natural disasters (such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, and wildfires) that — for them — had no dire personal consequences.
I really don’t care about this… I’m immortal…
ECONOMICS PRIZE — The Bangkok Metropolitan Police [THAILAND], for offering to pay policemen extra cash if the policemen refuse to take bribes.
I am really not paid to write this blog… if you get my drift…
MEDICINE PRIZE — Awarded jointly to two groups, for experiments to study the biomedical benefits or biomedical consequences of intense kissing (and other intimate, interpersonal activities).
This is the kind of study where the researcher can get too involved into. I can imagine a PhD on Kissing and its benefits. There would never be enough data according to the PhD student…
MATHEMATICS PRIZE — to try 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.
This guy really was healthy, according to the MEDICINE PRIZE above…
BIOLOGY PRIZE — to the observation that when you attach 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.
This is, in my humble opinion, the best of them all. I can’t help showing the supporting material of this study…
DIAGNOSTIC MEDICINE PRIZE — to the determination that acute appendicitis can be accurately diagnosed by the amount of pain evident when the patient is driven over speed bumps.
Don’t ever go to La Cañada in Almería with appendicitis then…
PHYSIOLOGY and ENTOMOLOGY PRIZE — Awarded jointly to two individuals, 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 penis shaft).
Should we investigate if the word “Ouch!” is universal too????
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