This week science announced its highest honor, the Ig Nobel Prize. Well, it’s the highest honor for those who do research on funny and at times pointless things. Each year Improbable.com gives away the Ig Nobel Prize show casing the best and oddest in the world of science. Who said a degree in chemistry would lead to a boring life in the lab?
And the winners are…
Veterinary Medicine: Showing that cows who have names give more milk than cows that are nameless
Winner: Catherine Douglas and Peter Rowlinson of Newcastle University, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, Uk.
Economics Prize: The directors, executives, and auditors of four Icelandic banks — Kaupthing Bank, Landsbanki, Glitnir Bank, and Central Bank of Iceland — for demonstrating that tiny banks can be rapidly transformed into huge banks, and vice versa — and for demonstrating that similar things can be done to an entire national economy.
Chemistry Prize: For creating diamonds from liquid — specifically from tequila.
Winner: Javier Morales, Miguel Apátiga, and Victor M. Castaño of Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.
Physics Prize: For analytically determining why pregnant women don’t tip over.
Winner: Katherine K. Whitcome of the University of Cincinnati, USA, Daniel E. Lieberman of Harvard University, USA, and Liza J. Shapiro of the University of Texas, USA
Literature Prize: Writing and presenting more than fifty traffic tickets to the most frequent driving offender in the country — Prawo Jazdy — whose name in Polish means “Driving License”.
Winner: Ireland’s police service
Public Health Prize: Inventing a brassiere that, in an emergency, can be quickly converted into a pair of protective face masks, one for the brassiere wearer and one to be given to some needy bystander.
Winner: Elena N. Bodnar, Raphael C. Lee, and Sandra Marijan of Chicago, Illinois, USA
Mathematics Prize: Giving people a simple, everyday way to cope with a wide range of numbers — from very small to very big — by having his bank print bank notes with denominations ranging from one cent ($.01) to one hundred trillion dollars ($100,000,000,000,000).
Winner: Gideon Gono, governor of Zimbabwe’s Reserve Bank
Ig Nobel Prize – Science’s Highest Award
Posted by College Spot in Student News
This week science announced its highest honor, the Ig Nobel Prize. Well, it’s the highest honor for those who do research on funny and at times pointless things. Each year Improbable.com gives away the Ig Nobel Prize show casing the best and oddest in the world of science. Who said a degree in chemistry would lead to a boring life in the lab?
And the winners are…
Veterinary Medicine: Showing that cows who have names give more milk than cows that are nameless
Winner: Catherine Douglas and Peter Rowlinson of Newcastle University, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, Uk.
Research: “Exploring Stock Managers’ Perceptions of the Human-Animal Relationship on Dairy Farms and an Association with Milk Production,”
Peach Prize: For determining — by experiment — whether it is better to be smashed over the head with a full bottle of beer or with an empty bottle.
Winner: Stephan Bolliger, Steffen Ross, Lars Oesterhelweg, Michael Thali and Beat Kneubuehl of the University of Bern, Switzerland
Research: “Are Full or Empty Beer Bottles Sturdier and Does Their Fracture-Threshold Suffice to Break the Human Skull?”
Economics Prize: The directors, executives, and auditors of four Icelandic banks — Kaupthing Bank, Landsbanki, Glitnir Bank, and Central Bank of Iceland — for demonstrating that tiny banks can be rapidly transformed into huge banks, and vice versa — and for demonstrating that similar things can be done to an entire national economy.
Chemistry Prize: For creating diamonds from liquid — specifically from tequila.
Winner: Javier Morales, Miguel Apátiga, and Victor M. Castaño of Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.
Research: “Growth of Diamond Films from Tequila”
Medicine Prize: For investigating a possible cause of arthritis of the fingers, by diligently cracking the 0sixty (60) years.
Winner: Donald L. Unger, of Thousand Oaks, California, USA
Research: “Does Knuckle Cracking Lead to Arthritis of the Fingers?
Physics Prize: For analytically determining why pregnant women don’t tip over.
Winner: Katherine K. Whitcome of the University of Cincinnati, USA, Daniel E. Lieberman of Harvard University, USA, and Liza J. Shapiro of the University of Texas, USA
Research: “Fetal Load and the Evolution of Lumbar Lordosis in Bipedal Hominins”
Literature Prize: Writing and presenting more than fifty traffic tickets to the most frequent driving offender in the country — Prawo Jazdy — whose name in Polish means “Driving License”.
Winner: Ireland’s police service
Public Health Prize: Inventing a brassiere that, in an emergency, can be quickly converted into a pair of protective face masks, one for the brassiere wearer and one to be given to some needy bystander.
Winner: Elena N. Bodnar, Raphael C. Lee, and Sandra Marijan of Chicago, Illinois, USA
Research: “Garment Device Convertible to One or More Facemasks.”
Mathematics Prize: Giving people a simple, everyday way to cope with a wide range of numbers — from very small to very big — by having his bank print bank notes with denominations ranging from one cent ($.01) to one hundred trillion dollars ($100,000,000,000,000).
Winner: Gideon Gono, governor of Zimbabwe’s Reserve Bank
Research: Zimbabwe’s Casino Economy — Extraordinary Measures for Extraordinary Challenges
Biology Prize: Demonstrating that kitchen refuse can be reduced more than 90% in mass by using bacteria extracted from the feces of giant pandas.
Winner: Fumiaki Taguchi, Song Guofu, and Zhang Guanglei of Kitasato University Graduate School of Medical Sciences in Sagamihara, Japan
Research: “Microbial Treatment of Kitchen Refuse With Enzyme-Producing Thermophilic Bacteria From Giant Panda Feces“