(Oct. 22nd, 2009) On October 1st, it was time again to show the world that science can indeed be fun or, in the words of the organisers, the scientific humour magazine Annals of Improbable Research, “Research that first makes you laugh then makes you think”. Kathleen Gransalke reports.
Who wouldn't want to laugh…er…think about studies that have found that ostriches get sexually aroused by humans or that, theoretically, black holes could be the actual location of Hell? Anyway, in an extremely “non-boring” award ceremony including short musical numbers, scintillating short speeches and “other wondrous things”, the awards were handed to this year's winners by past, real Nobel laureates, including Wolfgang Ketterle (Nobel Prize in Physics, 2001), Martin Chalfie (Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 2008) and Rich Roberts (Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, 1993).
And…drumroll please…the winners of the 2009 Ig Nobel Prizes are:
Veterinary Medicine Prize: Catherine Douglas and Peter Rowlinson of Newcastle University, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, UK, for showing that cows who have names give more milk than cows that are nameless.
Peace Prize: Stephan Bolliger, Steffen Ross, Lars Oesterhelweg, Michael Thali and Beat Kneubuehl of the University of Bern, Switzerland, 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.
Economics: 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: Javier Morales, Miguel Apátiga, and Victor M. Castaño of Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, for creating diamonds from liquid — specifically from tequila.
Medicine Prize: Donald L. Unger, of Thousand Oaks, California, USA, for investigating a possible cause of arthritis of the fingers, by diligently cracking the knuckles of his left hand — but never cracking the knuckles of his right hand — every day for more than sixty (60) years.
Physics Prize: 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, for analytically determining why pregnant women don't tip over.
Literature Prize: Ireland's police service (An Garda Siochana), for 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".
Who attended the ceremony: [Karolina Lewestam, a Polish citizen and holder of a Polish driver's license, speaking on behalf of all her fellow Polish licensed drivers, expressed her good wishes to the Irish police service.]
Public Health Prize: Elena N. Bodnar, Raphael C. Lee, and Sandra Marijan of Chicago, Illinois, USA, for 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.
Mathematics Prize: Gideon Gono, governor of Zimbabwe’s Reserve Bank, for 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).
Biology Prize: Fumiaki Taguchi, Song Guofu, and Zhang Guanglei of Kitasato University Graduate School of Medical Sciences in Sagamihara, Japan, for demonstrating that kitchen refuse can be reduced by more than 90% in mass by using bacteria extracted from the faeces of giant pandas.
And, as every year, the ceremony was closed with the following encouraging words “If you didn't win a prize — and especially if you did — better luck next year!”