2011 Ig Nobel Prizes

alphadogg writes "The quirky Ig Nobel prizes honoring some of the world's funniest if not the most practical academic research will be handed out tonight at 7:30 EST at Harvard University. The theme this year is chemistry, but that doesn't really restrict which entries might win, judging from research that has claimed Ig Nobels in the past. For instance, last year the prize for medicine went to a Netherlands researcher who discovered that riding roller coasters alleviates asthma symptoms. The prize for engineering went to an international team 'for perfecting a method to collect whale snot using a remote-control helicopter.'" You can read more about this year's nominees and watch the live webcast here.

Research on Whale snot

[Cryacin]

Research on Whale snot has fantastic commercial applications. You've heard of "Man Size" tissues, well, what about "Whale Size" tissues, and what do you think they test it on?

Ig Noble Peace Prize

[cosm]

Totalitarian leaders of the middle-east should be given the Ig Noble Peace prize for their peaceful methods of spreading their good word. Hell, give the US one as well.

Re:Ig Noble Peace Prize

[marcosdumay]

They can't issue igNobel peace prizes, they would choose the same characters of the Nobel prize lots of times, and that wouldn't be good.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, didn't they once give the Ig Nobel Peace prize to Barack Obama for the great achievement of "not being Bush"?

Re:

[Opportunist]

Considering how the US presidents are usually selected, namely "some guy who is like the old one 'cause after all he got elected 4 years ago and the people are usually quite set in their ways", that's actually one hell of an achievement.

Or it were, if he was...

Re:

[arth1]

hey can't issue igNobel peace prizes

Yet they do.

Here [youtube.com] is this year's winner.

Re:

[HiThere]

Most times it seems like they should just wait to find out who gets the Nobel Peace Prize, and then give it to them. After Kissinger got it, it sort of lost all credibility.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. Those are awarded with a Nobel Prize.
The existence of an ignoble Prize doesn't mean so-called "bread-and-butter" science isn't also being done.

By the way, plenty of ignoble prizes are given to legitimate science research. If you dig further than reading a headline, you might learn that.
What seems absurd on the surface is actually more interesting if you look into it a bit further, and it doesn't mean there isn't something to be learned from it.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

You are a moron.

Ig Nobles are supposed to make you laugh and THEN make you think because the science is in fact a) good and b) turns out quite important.

Funny also how Ig Noble award winners dont share your opinion

Re:Oh god

[MagikSlinger]

Actually, the vast majority of Ig Noble recipients love it. They have a great sense of humor, and several real Nobel prize winners show up to hand out the awards. The awards are mostly a celebration of the quirky and funny, and an honest celebration of obscure and (seemingly) trivial research. Although in one case, an Ig Nobel preceded a real Nobel prize: http://boingboing.net/2010/10/05/scientist-wins-both.html [boingboing.net]

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

3. Be a scientist with a sense of humor.

The scientific community tends to like the quirky. The vast majority of professors have comics stuck to their door. Of those comics, the vast majority are poking fun at research the professor is involved in. Now I could see where engineers would be upset.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

The truth is I could win a IgNoble for working out how someone so retarded can live. The GP is right, the IgNobles are overwhelmingly recieved in the proer spirit - make em laugh, then make them think - the think bit you seem to lack utterly.

The laugh bit too but that's obvious

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, sure they 'love it'.

Seven of this years winners showed up at the awards, paying out of their own pocket to do so.

What a fucking moron.

Signatures go at the bottom of your post, champ.

Re:

[AvitarX]

Even just reading the summary, roller coaster + asma looks legit.

Re:

[AmiMoJo]

That's what gets me about this kind of thing - it is the same as the worst kind go science reporting in the media. They deliberately ignore the facts to make a good headline.

An example from a few years back was an award for someone who found that cows given names tended to produce more and better quality milk. Actually that study was a wide ranging investigation of all aspects of cattle farming and their impact on the animals, but they conveniently ignored that.

Re:

[tibit]

I think you're probably the lone person on this planet who thinks of it as some sort of a career-ending thing.

Re:

[multiben]

Don't be such a kill joy and get a sense of humour! If you take a step back and look at what science has achieved over the last 20 years alone then I think we can probably afford to take the time to have an occasional laugh.

Re:A Fucking Embarrassment

[elsurexiste]

Relax, they give those prizes for science that makes you laugh, not for useless science.

A great example is the one about feeding Viagra to hamsters with jet-lag. It's insane, but now that's done, maybe we can use a cheaper/safer substitute based on its findings. The researcher was not offended at all: he even wanted to wear a hamster costume for the Ig Nobel ceremony (he couldn't find one, though).

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Ig Nobles aren't that bad. Scientists used to be burned at the stake, poisoned, or hung drawn and quartered because their research was deemed to be witchcraft or heresy by The Church.

Re:

[professionalfurryele]

I'm a scientist and I'd love to get an IgNoble, heck I would put it on my academic CV. For a start they do pretty decent science outreach. Besides that, having looked at a fair few of the studies they consider / give awards to many are of the very highest quality. The only reason someone would be bat-shit enough to shove a asthma sufferer on a roller coaster is if they had an a priori hypothesis as to why it might improve their condition. The condition for getting an IgNoble is that the research makes you l

Re:

[inode_buddha]

Yeah, bat shit is cool, but I've come to prefer spider shit as time goes by...

I remember last year

[inode_buddha]

Some guy documented fellatio among fruit bats. With video. The goggles, they did nothing...

Let's not forget JIR and Fortean Society

[plopez]

http://www.jir.com/ [jir.com]

http://www.forteantimes.com/ [forteantimes.com]

enjoy

Re:

[mpoulton]

Don't forget the Journal of Universal Rejection: http://www.universalrejection.org/ [universalrejection.org] I submitted an excellent paper to them, but they didn't publish it.

Re:

[SteveFoerster]

Perhaps you should try the Journal of Universal Acceptance [wordpress.com] instead?

On Greatness

[ackthpt]

The country which ceases to laugh at it's own foibles ceases to be great.

The same can be said for sciences.

Cheers for a little levity in an often very dry field.

Re:

[Weedhopper]

Pretty much.

I've been dragged to the actual ceremony a couple times over the past couple years. A bunch of guys in funny hats and completely undeveloped senses of humor and timing = fucking boring. The timer girl wasn't funny the first time and it's not funny the fiftieth time.

The actual papers winning the prizes are often amusing. The presentation and the ceremony itself is not.

Re:

[ThatsMyNick]

And you sir, win this year's Ig Grammar Nazi award!

PS: 'its' refers to 'IT IS' and "it's" refers to, well, "it's"

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it does not.

Re:

[schroedingers_hat]

Yore very helpful to post this. Thank ewe.

Re:

[Nestea80]

You're worse than those folks that say "your stupid".

What time?

[Quadari]

"...will be handed out tonight at 7:30 EST at Harvard University." Last I checked, Cambridge, MA is currently on Eastern DAYLIGHT Time, not Eastern Standard Time. So that makes the start time of the ceremony very confusing. Or maybe you can only show up if you can actually figure out what time to be there.

Re:

[gsslay]

Well, to be fair, the Improbable Research web page is car-crash of a website that says "The webcast begins at 7:30 PM Eastern Time" half way down, in ugly white on red text.

Paper airplanes ahoy

[paiute]

If you have ever gone to see the IgNobels or watched them on video, you have seen the paper airplane blizzard. Here is a screenplay in which the paper airplanes play a pivotal role: http://www.scribd.com/doc/13651346/The-EightFoot-Bride-an-original-screenplay [scribd.com]

The Coffee

[ljhiller]

Today was also National Coffee Day [wikipedia.org] if you were wondering, like I was, what was up with all the coffee.

Test

[AddisonW]

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