The 29th first annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony

The Ig Noble Prize 2019

Last year again, the most abstruse and bizarre research of the year was honoured with the Ig Nobel Prize by the journal "Annals of Improbable Research" at Harvard University. The award ceremony once again lived up to its motto "to honour achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think". But before we come to the winners, here are a few facts about this year's award ceremony.

As always, the prizes were awarded by the president and founder of the Ig - Nobel Prize Marc Abrahams. Among the other members of the Ig Nobel board of governors, who select the Ig Nobel Prizes, there are not only real and Ig Nobel Prize winners, but also scientific authors, sportsmen and women, holders of public offices, as well as "other individuals of greater or lesser eminence". Traditionally, on the last day, a random passer-by is also invited to help with the decision-making process. Among other things because of the high participation of Nobel Prize winners in the awarding and presentation of prizes, the Ig Nobel Prizes have gained a certain reputation, and in the meantime many universities also adorn themselves with Ig Nobel Prize winners. The awarding of the prizes is much more informal than that of the real Nobel Prizes, which is shown by the low interest of the Swedish King alone. The opening by a "paper airplane deluge" and the staging and text of the official opening speech also show that science is once again taking itself into its own hands this year. For their acceptance speech, the winners of the Ig Nobel Prizes have exactly 60 seconds before an 8-year-old girl, called "Mrs. Sweetie poo", comes on stage and disturbs them with "please stop, I'm bored" until they give up and finish their speech. There are also not very successful attempts to bribe the girl with t-shirts, money or cuddly toys. By the way, it can also happen that individual award winners appear in a costume that thematically fits their honoured work, some even throw their research objects into the audience. Between the individual Ig Nobel Prize awards, a small musical was premiered again, this time with the title "bad habits". This year's Nobel Prize winners received "a cafe cup with a wad of chewed gum, a cigarette butt, a mobile phone and several other habits" as well as a certificate with the signatures of Nobel Prize winners, congratulations from a real Nobel Prize winner and 10 trillion Zimbabwean dollars from 2008 (converted into approx. 0.09 eurocent, but in the meantime abolished).

Medicine Prize

„Silvano Gallus (Italy, the Netherlands) for collecting evidence that pizza might protect against illness and death, if the pizza is made an eaten in Italy.“

Before you start eating pizza rampantly, Dr. Gallus also said that he can't exactly rule out the possibility that the higher pizza consumption is actually just an indicator that people who eat more pizza often eat more Mediterranean dishes, which has been proven to be a very healthy life-prolonging diet. When Dr. Gallus wanted to discuss the health consequences of consuming peperoni and pineapple as a pizza topping in his acceptance speech, he was unfortunately interrupted by "Mrs. Sweetie poo", so that unfortunately there is still no solution to this hotly debated problem.

Medical Education Prize

„Karen Pryor and Theresa McKeon (USA) for using a simple animal-training technique – called „clicker training “– to train surgeons to perform orthopedic surgery. “

The background of this research is that orthopaedic surgeons often suffer from a very performance-oriented education and very strict trainers. In their experiment they concentrated on a special knot. Trainees who were trained with clicker training took longer to get their first knot completely right, but at the end of the experiment they were able to tie the knot much more reliably than trainees who were taught the knot in the classical way.

Biology Prize

„Ling-Jun Kong, Herbert Crepaz, Agnieszka Górecka, Aleksandra Urbanek, Rainer Dumke and Tomasz Paterek (Singapore, China, Australia, Poland, USA, Bulgaria) for discovering that dead magnetized cockroaches behave different than living magnetized cockroaches. “

Unlike dead magnetized cockroaches, the magnetic field of living magnetized cockroaches is not strong enough to overcome the force of gravity after trying to attach them to a fridge. The background of the research is that cockroaches, unlike humans, have sensory organs with which they can perceive magnetic fields, which accordingly also contain magnetizable material. The original aim of the research was to measure whether and why the magnetic field is degraded faster than that of dead ones. In this experiment, the researchers came to the conclusion that the magnetic field of living cockroaches decays much faster than that of dead ones. As a cause, it is assumed that the viscosity of the body material is responsible for the reduction of the magnetic field in living cockroaches, whereas dead cockroaches simply dry out and the magnetic field is reduced.

Anatomy Prize

„Roger Mieusset and Bourras Bengoudifa (France) for measuring scrotal temperature asymmetry in naked and clothed postmen in France. “

The two researchers actually did their experiment not only with postmen, but also with bus drivers. The experiment was set up in such a way that the bus drivers were measured mainly in a sitting position, while the postmen were measured standing up, which for both groups is more like their normal work. However, measurements were also made while the test persons were moving. The result of the measurement was that the left testicle is generally 0.5 degrees warmer, but only while wearing clothes, otherwise both sides were without significant temperature difference. As background for their research, the scientists stated that fertility can be influenced by temperature.

Chemistry Prize

„Shigeru Watanabe, Mineko Ohnishi, Kaori Imai, Eiji Kawano and Seiji Igarashi (Japan) for estimating the total saliva volume produced per day by a typical five-year-old child.“

An interesting question that may arise here is how to make the measurement at all. After all, you can't just let the children spit the saliva they produce into a bucket, because that would falsify the result. Professor Watanabe and his team proceeded in such a way that they first asked the children to write down everything they did for 2 days, e.g. when did they ate? What did they ate? How much and how long did they ate? In the experiment itself, the children were then asked to repeat the activities that have a relevant influence on saliva production. The amount of saliva produced by the child was measured individually, and from these measurements it was extrapolated that a normal 5-year-old child has a saliva production of about 0.5 litres. Perhaps this research needs to be seen in the context of the Ig Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2018 to understand its scientific relevance. At that time, a group of researchers was awarded for "measuring the degree to which human saliva is a good cleaning agent for dirty surfaces."

Engineering Prize

„Iman Farahbakhsh (Iran) for inventing a diaper-changing machine for use on human infants.“

Unfortunately, Dr. Farahbakhsh could not attend the ceremony in person and sent the video with his thank-you speech too late, so that it was unfortunately not possible to learn more about his patent.

Economics Prize

„Habip Gedik, Timothy A. Voss and Andreas Voss (Turkey, the Netherlands, Germany) for testing which country’s paper money is best at transmitting dangerous bacteria. “

As funny as the study sounds, as serious is its background, after all there are few objects that can pass through more hands and thus spread more pathogenic bacteria than banknotes. By the way, the currency in which bacteria survive best is the Romanian Leu. By the way, there was no significant difference between particularly hygienic and particularly unhygienic banknotes. But before you panic, it is usually enough to wash your hands regularly to protect yourself against your banknotes. Nevertheless, we want to protect our American readers from their rather unhealthy US dollar bills, so we have to ask them to send all US dollar bills in their possession to our editorial office, where we can safely destroy them.

Peace Prize

„Ghada A. bin Saif, Alexandru Papoiu, Liliana Banari, Francis McGlone, Shawn G. Kwatra, Yiong-Huak Chan and Gil Yosipovitch (UK, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, USA) for trying to measuring the pleasurability of scratching an itch. “

In this experiment, a total of 18 test persons were treated with itching powder to cause itching in the forearm, back and ankle. The test persons were then scratched with a cytology brush by another person. The strength of the itching and the strength of the relief were to be indicated by the test persons with a numerical value of 1-10. As a result, the researchers found that the itching on the forearm was less severe than the itching on the back or ankle. The researchers also found that the relief from itching is greater at the first itch than if you itch the same spot again later. The remaining remnants of the itching powder were later successfully removed from the test subjects with Scotch tape.

Psychology Prize

„Fritz Strack (Germany) for discovering that holding a pen in one`s mouth makes one smile, which makes one happier and for then discovering that it does not. “

The first study by Dr. Strack is actually a little longer ago (1988), but it is a very important one for social psychology. His experiment was designed in such a way that the subjects thought that experiment had a completely different research goal. He came to the conclusion that it makes people happier when their laugh muscles are strained, for example by holding a pencil with their teeth. This experiment was tried to reproduce in the Reproducibility Project, but it was not successful, which led to a replication crisis in social psychology. This crisis also led to some scientists questioning social psychology as a science in itself, since it does not seem to provide reproducible knowledge because man is apparently too complex. Other scientists have sweepingly portrayed the staff of the reproducibility project as bad scientists, since they only repeat experiments and do not come up with their own. Other scientists wondered whether the replications of the experiments were complete or whether a parameter had been changed somewhere, and Strack in particular has been found to be a good example. In contrast to the original study, the replication involved filming the experiment, which led to the subjects deliberately smiling during the experiment, thereby greatly falsifying the results. This could be proven in a further experiment. Without a camera, Dr. Strack's experiment could actually be reproduced.

Physics Prize

„Patricia Yang, Alexander Lee, Miles Chan, Alynn Martin, Ashley Edwards, Scott Carver and David Hu (USA, Taiwan, Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, UK) for studying how, and why, wombats make cube-shaped poo. “

To find out how wombats make cubic poop, you have to look at their digestion. This takes place very slowly and takes about 2 weeks on average. It is remarkable that their excretion only thickens in the last 8 percent of the intestine and becomes cube-shaped due to differently elastic intestinal walls. Wombats poop on average 80-100 times a day and mark their territory. The poop is cube-shaped, on the one hand so that they remain in their place, usually chosen to be as visible as possible, and can be piled up in towers as high as possible, so that the marking of their territory is as visible, impressive and deterrent as possible. For Patricia Yang and David Hu it is already the 2nd Ig Nobel Prize, they received their first in physics in 2015 for "testing the biological principle that nearly all mammals empty their bladders in about 21 seconds (plus or minus 13 seconds).

These were the Ig Nobel Prizes 2019 and to bid you farewell with the traditional Ig Nobel Prize formula:

„If you didn`t win an Ig Nobel Prize this year and especially if you did: better luck next year.“