Global EditionASIA 中文雙語Fran?ais
    World
    Home / World / Americas

    Ig Nobel Awards show: You can't be serious all of the time, or can you?

    By Chris Davis | Updated: 2018-09-21 23:51
    Share
    Share - WeChat

    We can't let a year pass without acknowledging the Ig Nobel Awards, those tongue-in-cheek salutes to dubious achievements in science that first make people laugh, and then think.

    The gala awards ceremony takes place every September at Harvard before an audience of 1,100 "splendidly eccentric spectators", where authentic Nobel laureates hand out the prizes — this year's prize was 10 trillion Zimbabwean dollars (a 100 trillion dollar Zimbabwean note is worth about 40 cents, so do the math). Here's a look at some of this year's winners.

    The anthropology prize went to a multinational European team of researchers for a study at zoos that found that chimpanzees imitate humans about as often, and about as well, as humans imitate chimpanzees. As Tarzan might say: "Cheeta, ungawa!"

    A team from Portugal took home the chemistry prize (actually they delivered their acceptance speech via videotape from home) for a study that measured the degree to which human saliva is a good cleaning agent for dirty surfaces. Nothing to spit at.

    Another chemistry prize was awarded to German carmaker Volkswagen for "solving the problem of excessive automobile pollution emissions by automatically, electromechanically producing fewer emissions whenever the car is being tested".

    The medicine award went to a study in the Journal of the American Osteopathic Association that observed the beneficial effects of riding roller coasters to hasten the removal of kidney stones.

    Co-author Dr. David Wartinger credited the breakthrough to one of his patients, who went to Disney World for spring break and took a ride on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.

    "He rode the ride, got off, and about two minutes later, passed a kidney stone," Wartinger said, adding that the man got on the ride again and two minutes after he got off a second time he passed another stone.

    The medical education award went to a Japanese scientist's paper in Gastrointestinal Endoscopy titled: "Colonoscopy in the Sitting Position: Lessons learned From Self-Colonoscopy."

    The Ig Nobel Peace Prize went to a team in Spain that measured "the frequency, motivation, and effects of shouting and cursing while driving an automobile".

    A multinational team of scientists from China, the US, Canada and Singapore got the economics prize for cataloguing the benefits of taking out one's aggression against abusive bosses at the workplace on voodoo dolls rather than the actual supervisor. What's that song from School of Rock — Stick It to the Man?

    Co-author of the study, Lindie Liang of Wilfrid Laurier University, said, "I really want to take this opportunity to thank my former boss for teaching me everything about how to deal with abusive bosses."

    Another global team — Australia, El Salvador and the UK — found evidence proving that most people who use complicated products and devices do not bother to read the instruction manual. The title of their paper, which appeared in the journal Interacting With Computers, was "Life Is Too Short to RTFM".

    The psychology award went to a team that asked 1,000 liars how often they lie and deciding whether or not to believe their answers.

    A scientist named James Cole received the nutrition prize for calculating that the caloric intake from human cannibalism is significantly lower than it is from most other traditional meats.

    "It turns out that calorifically, we're not that nutritious," Cole said in his acceptance speech.

    I stumbled across a candidate for next year's awards on my own. It was done by scientists at no less than Johns Hopkins.

    By studying the genome of a certain kind of octopus known for its unfriendliness toward its peers, and then testing how its behavior changes after it's given a dose of the recreational mood-altering street drug known as "Ecstasy", chemical name MDMA, the team "found preliminary evidence of an evolutionary link between the social behaviors of the sea creature and humans, species separated by 500 million years on the evolutionary tree".

    The four drugged octopuses gravitated to a cage holding a fifth. "They tended to hug the cage and put their mouth parts on the cage," said Gul Dolen, MD, PhD, and assistant professor of neuroscience at Hopkins. "This is very similar to how humans react to MDMA; they touch each other frequently."

    Contact the writer at chrisdavis@chinadailyusa.com.

    Most Viewed in 24 Hours
    Top
    BACK TO THE TOP
    English
    Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site.
    License for publishing multimedia online 0108263

    Registration Number: 130349
    FOLLOW US
    亚洲成人中文字幕| 无码8090精品久久一区| 一本色道无码道在线| 国产成人无码一区二区三区在线| 日本中文字幕一区二区有码在线| 午夜福利av无码一区二区| 最近2019在线观看中文视频| 变态SM天堂无码专区| 亚洲午夜国产精品无码 | 中文字幕人妻无码系列第三区 | 天堂中文在线最新版| 99国产精品无码| 亚洲av永久无码精品秋霞电影影院| 日韩乱码人妻无码中文视频| 天堂а√中文最新版地址在线| 国产成人无码精品久久久免费| 手机永久无码国产AV毛片| 国产成人无码一区二区在线观看 | 国产成人无码区免费网站| 欧美日韩中文字幕2020| 永久免费无码日韩视频| 特级小箩利无码毛片| av潮喷大喷水系列无码| 精品无码一区二区三区爱欲九九 | 台湾佬中文娱乐网22| 无码人妻少妇久久中文字幕蜜桃| 无码人妻丰满熟妇啪啪 | 无码国产精品一区二区免费3p| 中文字幕日本精品一区二区三区| 无码中文字幕日韩专区| 久久精品aⅴ无码中文字字幕重口 久久精品天天中文字幕人妻 | 亚洲精品无码永久在线观看你懂的| AV色欲无码人妻中文字幕| 少妇性饥渴无码A区免费| 人妻无码中文字幕免费视频蜜桃 | 影院无码人妻精品一区二区| 亚洲AV无码乱码精品国产| 无码av中文一二三区| 99在线精品国自产拍中文字幕| 色噜噜亚洲精品中文字幕| 中文无码成人免费视频在线观看|