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
    亚洲精品无码久久久久去q| 日本按摩高潮a级中文片| 精品久久久久久中文字幕人妻最新| 亚洲国产精品无码久久一线| 欧美日韩国产中文精品字幕自在自线| 国产自无码视频在线观看| 无码日韩精品一区二区免费| 一级中文字幕免费乱码专区| 人妻丝袜中文无码av影音先锋专区| 大学生无码视频在线观看| 无码日韩精品一区二区三区免费| 中文字幕在线无码一区| 最近2019年中文字幕6| 中文亚洲AV片不卡在线观看 | 中文字幕高清有码在线中字| 无码精品人妻一区二区三区影院 | 久久精品aⅴ无码中文字字幕不卡| 中文字幕一区二区免费| 最近免费最新高清中文字幕韩国| 亚洲国产精彩中文乱码AV| 在线综合亚洲中文精品| 中文字幕亚洲码在线| 中文字幕无码久久人妻| 亚洲区日韩区无码区| 亚洲男人在线无码视频| 欧美日本道中文高清| 欧美 亚洲 有码中文字幕| 伊人久久无码精品中文字幕| 中文字幕AV影片在线手机播放| 中文毛片无遮挡高潮免费| 在线欧美中文字幕农村电影| 无码人妻少妇久久中文字幕| 中文无码喷潮在线播放| 在线精品自拍无码| 香蕉伊蕉伊中文视频在线| 亚洲欧美中文日韩在线v日本| 日本免费中文视频| 中文字幕精品一区| 一区二区三区人妻无码| 亚洲av福利无码无一区二区| 人妻中文字系列无码专区|