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2017 'Ig Nobel' Prizes Recognize Funny Research On Cats, Crocodiles, and Cheese (improbable.com)
An anonymous reader writes:
"The 27th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony" happened Thursday at Harvard's Sanders theatre, recognizing real (but unusual) research papers from all over the world "that make people laugh, then think." This year's prize in the physics category went to Marc-Antoine Fardin, who used fluid dynamics to probe the question "Can a cat be both a solid and a liquid?"
Six prize-winning Swiss researchers also demonstrated that regular playing of a didgeridoo is an effective treatment for obstructive sleep apnoea and snoring, while two Australians tested how contact with a live crocodile affects a person's willingness to gamble. And five French researchers won the medicine prize for their use of advanced brain-scanning technology to investigate "the neural basis of disugst for cheese."
You can watch the ceremony online -- and Reuters got an interesting quote from the editor of the Annals of Improbable Research, who founded the awards ceremony 27 years ago. "We hope that this will get people back into the habits they probably had when they were kids of paying attention to odd things and holding out for a moment and deciding whether they are good or bad only after they have a chance to think."
Six prize-winning Swiss researchers also demonstrated that regular playing of a didgeridoo is an effective treatment for obstructive sleep apnoea and snoring, while two Australians tested how contact with a live crocodile affects a person's willingness to gamble. And five French researchers won the medicine prize for their use of advanced brain-scanning technology to investigate "the neural basis of disugst for cheese."
You can watch the ceremony online -- and Reuters got an interesting quote from the editor of the Annals of Improbable Research, who founded the awards ceremony 27 years ago. "We hope that this will get people back into the habits they probably had when they were kids of paying attention to odd things and holding out for a moment and deciding whether they are good or bad only after they have a chance to think."
Someone told me earlier this week that I got nominated for the Ig Nobel prize in literature.
I went and did the research myself about 7 years back, bought one made of plastic, and use it daily.
My snore went from ( un-scientific ) so loud it could shake the bed and wake me up, to now it just wakes up the cat.
better observation is, I feel better and I I haven't woken myself up on a bus is a long time.
I would advise anyone that has a snoring issue to give it a try. well worth it.
if you see me, smile and say hello.
This year's prize in the physics category went to Marc-Antoine Fardin, who used fluid dynamics to probe the question "Can a cat be both a solid and a liquid?"
Choo-Choo Bear!
THIS is how you write a headline:
https://arstechnica.com/scienc...
Here we observe the subject bluffing his hand in a aussie rules no-holdem tournament.
The subject waits for the river card, unaware that it comes with a live crocodile.
"I can't believe he just folded and ran like that... Typical Texan."
I always thought the ignobel prize as a prize for real research to make people laugh and think - based on real research, but the rheology of cat is obviously not real research, just a joke for the 50th birthday of a guy , written sciency like. It isn't "actual" research with results.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
At first I thought they just meant "contact" as in, "I went to the zoo and saw a live crocodile." No, turns out, they required study participants to actually hold one of the toothy death spinners!
2 days later and there's only 17 comments on the Ig Nobel. News for nerds: This site is no longer news for nerds.
His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain