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2007 Ig Nobel Awards Announced

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the best-of-the-worst dept.

prostoalex writes "The annual Ig Noble awards by Annals of Improbable Research were announced tonight. The winners included the scientists who discovered that impotence drugs help with jet lag recovery, "a Dutch researcher who conducted a census of all the creepy-crawlies that share our beds, Spanish scientists who found that rats sometimes could not distinguish between Japanese spoken backwards and Dutch spoken backwards, an Australian woman who documented the indexing problems caused by the word "the", a Japanese researcher who extracted vanilla flavoring from cow dung, and a Taiwanese man who patented a Batman-like device that drops a net over bank robbers," MSNBC says."

6 of 157 comments (clear)

  1. Summary forgot the best part! by SamP2 · · Score: 5, Funny

    The Gay Bomb which induces enemies to engage in homosexual behavior.

    I wonder how long before it becomes a political weapon of mass discreditation?

  2. just subtract the expenses from revenue by User+956 · · Score: 5, Funny

    a Taiwanese man who patented a Batman-like device that drops a net over bank robbers

    Yes, well, he only developed it because he was interested in the net profit.

    --
    The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
    1. Re:just subtract the expenses from revenue by clarkkent09 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Yes, and the guy extracted vanilla flavor from cow dung because he was interested in gross profit

      --
      Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
  3. The indexing thing by Daimanta · · Score: 5, Insightful

    an Australian woman who documented the indexing problems caused by the word "the" Is it just me, or is that pretty handy to know. Words like "the" and "of" pretty much clutter non-smart registers.
    --
    Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
  4. Soup Bowl experiment may help dieting by Russell+Coker · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The research that showed people eating more soup (without feeling more full) if the bowl was filled without them noticing is not interesting on it's own. But if the opposite is true then it may be commercially successful.

    What if you had a soup bowl that sucked soup out without the eater noticing, if they felt full after believing that they ate a large bowl of soup then it might make dieting a lot easier!

    If the appearance of food size determines how much people eat then maybe different shaped bowls could affect how much people eat. Maybe a bowl that makes a serve of food look big would encourage people to eat less.

    --
    See http://etbe.coker.com.au/ for my blog.
  5. Re:Viagra and jet lag by ArAgost · · Score: 5, Informative

    It is quite amusing if you think that what is now considered the main effect of Viagra was considered a side effect during the initial tests :)