It’s that time of year again! As the Swedish Academy announces The Nobel Prizes for the various sciences as well as literature (Peace is handled by the Norwegians), those wacky folks at the Annals of Improbable Research have announced their prizes, the Ig Nobels. The motto of the Ig Nobel Prizes is “For achievements that first make people LAUGH, then make them THINK. This link will take you to the full list of all the Ig Nobel Prizes ever awarded, and you can watch the awards ceremony (it’s virtual). All of the prizes are for published research. To see the literature references, go to the link for the awards above.
And now, the 2021 Ig Nobel Prizes!
BIOLOGY PRIZE [SWEDEN] (Of potential interest to the pootie people!)
Susanne Schötz, Robert Eklund, and Joost van de Weijer, for analyzing variations in purring, chirping, chattering, trilling, tweedling, murmuring, meowing, moaning, squeaking, hissing, yowling, howling, growling, and other modes of cat–human communication.
ECOLOGY PRIZE [SPAIN. IRAN]
Leila Satari, Alba Guillén, Àngela Vidal-Verdú, and Manuel Porcar, for using genetic analysis to identify the different species of bacteria that reside in wads of discarded chewing gum stuck on pavements in various countries.
CHEMISTRY PRIZE [GERMANY, UK, NEW ZEALAND, GREECE, CYPRUS, AUSTRIA]
Jörg Wicker, Nicolas Krauter, Bettina Derstroff, Christof Stönner, Efstratios Bourtsoukidis, Achim Edtbauer, Jochen Wulf, Thomas Klüpfel, Stefan Kramer, and Jonathan Williams, for chemically analyzing the air inside movie theaters, to test whether the odors produced by an audience reliably indicate the levels of violence, sex, antisocial behavior, drug use, and bad language in the movie the audience is watching.
ECONOMICS PRIZE [FRANCE, SWITZERLAND, AUSTRALIA, AUSTRIA, CZECH REPUBLIC, UK]
Pavlo Blavatskyy, for discovering that the obesity of a country’s politicians may be a good indicator of that country’s corruption.
MEDICINE PRIZE [GERMANY, TURKEY, UK]
Olcay Cem Bulut, Dare Oladokun, Burkard Lippert, and Ralph Hohenberger, for demonstrating that sexual orgasms can be as effective as decongestant medicines at improving nasal breathing.
PEACE PRIZE [USA]
Ethan Beseris, Steven Naleway, and David Carrier, for testing the hypothesis that humans evolved beards to protect themselves from punches to the face.
PHYSICS PRIZE [THE NETHERLANDS, ITALY, TAIWAN, USA]
Alessandro Corbetta, Jasper Meeusen, Chung-min Lee, Roberto Benzi, and Federico Toschi, for conducting experiments to learn why pedestrians do not constantly collide with other pedestrians.
KINETICS PRIZE [JAPAN, SWITZERLAND, ITALY]
Hisashi Murakami, Claudio Feliciani, Yuta Nishiyama, and Katsuhiro Nishinari, for conducting experiments to learn why pedestrians do sometimes collide with other pedestrians.
ENTOMOLOGY PRIZE [USA]
John Mulrennan, Jr., Roger Grothaus, Charles Hammond, and Jay Lamdin, for their research study “A New Method of Cockroach Control on Submarines”.
TRANSPORTATION PRIZE [NAMIBIA, SOUTH AFRICA, TANZANIA, ZIMBABWE, BRAZIL, UK, USA]
Robin Radcliffe, Mark Jago, Peter Morkel, Estelle Morkel, Pierre du Preez, Piet Beytell, Birgit Kotting, Bakker Manuel, Jan Hendrik du Preez, Michele Miller, Julia Felippe, Stephen Parry, and Robin Gleed, for determining by experiment whether it is safer to transport an airborne rhinoceros upside-down.
That’s it for 2021. We can do this all again in October of 2022.
Our daily awards for comments is found below the fold, but first, here’s a word from our sponsor:
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Top Comments (October 7, 2021):
From Denise Oliver Velez:
This first comment from a long time reader, deldem44, really made my day. It was good to hear from a reader with a first hand observation of Prime Minister Mia Mottley's career in Barbados. [From Denise’s front page post this morning on Caribbean Matters.]
From Puddytat:
This comment on Joe Manchin by Professor Wagstaff was the best I've seen in along time. Bullseye. From Joan McCarter’s front page post on Sen. Joe Manchin’s draconian demands regarding the BBB bill.
Top Mojo (October 6, 2021):
Top Mojo is courtesy of mik! Click here for more on how Top Mojo works.
Top Photos (October 6, 2021):
Thanks to jotter (RIP) for creating it and elfling for restoring it!