Ig Nobel Awards 2003

prostoalex writes "The Ig Nobel awards for 2003 were presented at Harvard University. Hold your breath for the winners of this year's awards from Annals of Improbable Research. Engineering: the inventors of the Murphy's law. Physics: authors of 'An Analysis of the Forces Required to Drag Sheep over Various Surfaces' report. Medicine: the scientists, who discovered that London taxi drivers are smarter than average London residents. Psychology: authors of the 'Politicians' Uniquely Simple Personalities' report. Chemistry: a Japanese scientist who studied a bronze statue strangely ignored by pigeon population. Literature: the author of more than 80 scientific reports on amusing statistical information. Economics: the man, who viewed the entire country of Liechtenstein as a large convention center. Interdisciplinary: authors of 'Chickens Prefer Beautiful Humans' study. Biology: first documented case of homosexual necrophilia in the mallard duck species. Links and pictures are available from the official Web site, linked above."

Comments

best one

[ih8apple]

PEACE
Lal Bihari, of Uttar Pradesh, India, for a triple accomplishment: First, for leading an active life even though he has been declared legally dead; Second, for waging a lively posthumous campaign against bureaucratic inertia and greedy relatives; and Third, for creating the Association of Dead People.

The Knowledge

[tinrobot]

...the scientists, who discovered that London taxi drivers are smarter than average London residents

I think memorizing every single street in the city of London does make you pretty darn smart.

Though, London cabbies are certainly not short on opinions. Maybe memorizing every street also makes one think they know everything about anything.

Well...

[CGP314]

We trained chickens to react to an average human female face but not to an average male face (or vice versa). In a subsequent test, the animals showed preferences for faces consistent with human sexual preferences (obtained from university students). This suggests that human preferences arise from general properties of nervous systems, rather than from face-specific adaptations.

I think you need to see if people prefer beautiful chickens before you can jump to that conclusion.

Re:Well...

[Anonymous Coward]

Or, there are more than those two possibilities.

Here's my thought: They were trained to react to female faces, not to male. They also reacted more strongly to 'more attractive' females.

Conclusion: 'More attractive' females are more clearly female, and hence engender a stronger reaction to chickens conditioned to react to females. Ugly females are not as clearly discernable from males.

I think that is a lot more likely than chickens having human standards of beauty hardwired into their nervous systems.

Actually...

[HarveyBirdman]

...looking at how people go to great lengths to discourage pigeons from soiling public art and other objects, the pigeon-thwarting bronze statue actually has practical application. Sounds better than those rotating "antennas" they put on the top of some billboards.

I'd like to see the result if the site wasn;t /.ed.

Really Quacked Me Up

[ChaoticCoyote]

Having a platonic fondness for ducks, I was intrigued by Dr. Moeliker's report. Reading the paper left me pondering the nature of a universe in which:

• A scientist spends 75 minutes watching one dead animal rape another's corpse.
• Said scientist collects and dissects the deceased victim, producing a six-page report (with citations!)
• I actually read this report when I really should be doing something else with my time.

Perhaps Dr. Moeliker's work stands as a monument to the curiosity of the human mind, and the need to laugh even as we ponder insane questions. At least he didn't duck the issues...

Abuse?

[ChrisMaple]

The article states that the researchers got the informed consent of the men who did the dragging. Nowhere does it mention if the sheep gave their informed consent.

The Pigeons

[ChrisMaple]

I found the pigeon story:

Sure enough, in addition to copper, lead and tin, the statue was found to contain gallium -- not enough gallium to be dangerously toxic, as it turned out, but enough to repel birds. This has led Hirose to work on experiments to develop a metal that will keep birds away from bronze statues for good.