Hollywood isn’t the only town to recognize greatness. Last Thursday night the 16th annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony was held at Harvard. The Ig Nobel Prize celebrates out-of-the-ordinary research that first make people laugh and then think. Mostly they’re thinking “who the hell signed off on these grants??”
Anyway, here are a few of this year’s winners along with my heartiest congratulations.
ORNITHOLOGY: Ivan R. Schwab and the late Philip R.A. May for exploring and explaining why woodpeckers don't get headaches.
PHYSICS: Basile Audoly and Sebastien Neukirch for their insights into why, when you bend dry spaghetti, it often breaks into more than two pieces.
PEACE: Howard Stapleton for inventing an electromechanical teenager repellant -- a device that makes annoying noise designed to be audible to teenagers but not to adults; and for later using that same technology to make telephone ringtones that are audible to teenagers but not to their teachers.
ACOUSTICS: D. Lynn Halpern, Randolph Blake, and James Hillenbrand for conducting experiments to learn why people dislike the sound of fingernails scraping on a blackboard.
MATHEMATICS: Nic Svenson and Piers Barnes for calculating the number of photographs you must take to (almost) ensure that nobody in a group photo will have their eyes closed
LITERATURE: Daniel Oppenheimer for his report "Consequences of Erudite Vernacular Utilized Irrespective of Necessity: Problems with Using Long Words Needlessly."
And my personal favorite:
MEDICINE: Francis M. Fesmire for his medical case report "Termination of Intractable Hiccups with Digital Rectal Massage”.
Face it Levine, your career is complete now that you've successfully used the words "Digital Rectal Massage" in a sentence. It's all downhill from here, man.
ReplyDeleteI believe there may be some folk in West Hollywood who've tried that remedy for hiccups and found it preferable to holding your breath and drinking a gallon of water...
ReplyDeleteYeah I think I'd just take the hiccups. Though I'm not so sure about the rest of my friends.
ReplyDeleteI've heard that a digital rectal message is much more accurate than the old analog type.
ReplyDelete...and that's the good stuff. This morning, I produced the London segment of the podcast for New Scientist. Subject?
ReplyDelete"Why Snot is Green"
Shoot me...
Good one, alaskaray!
ReplyDelete