The 28th annual science Ig Nobel awards at Harvard university in the USA have caused the usual stir this year.
.... The winner, who has understandably gained the most press interest, was for the medical scientists who said that kidney stones could be removed, by the sufferers riding roller coasters like the infamous Wild Mouse ride in Blackpool above.
.... the winner, professor Davis Wartinger suggested that it would work best, if the patient was placed on one 'that's quick and rough, with a lot of side to side motion'. I can personally attest to the Wild Mouse ride being very quick and rough, with a lot of side to side motion.
The British interest in the 2018 awards, was Dr James Cole of the university of Brighton, who gained the Nutrition Prize for calculating the human body's calorific value
- then proving that in fact cannibals are losing out in a dietary sense, as pound per pound, it is not worth eating human flesh compared with other types of meat .... so much for Soylent Green.
Other awards included Japanese researcher, Dr Akira Horiuchi, who won the Medical Education Prize for devising a "self-colonoscopy" technique using a small endoscope. In literature the winner was a nifty little number entitled 'Life Is Too Short to RTFM: How Users Relate to Documentation and Excess Features.' - an investigation into instruction manuals that come with consumer products. The F in RTFM didn't mean what it does to most of us now .... the F stands for 'Field' i.e. Read The Field Manual.
The winner of the Chemistry Prize, was research that showed human saliva is a good cleaning agent for dirty surfaces, especially for fragile, painted areas on ceramics, and on gold leaf. The Biology Prize went to proving that 'sommeliers' (Wine tasters), could really identify, by smell, the presence of a fly in a glass of wine. The Ig Nobel Peace Prize went for a paper titled, Shouting and Cursing While Driving: Frequency, Reasons, Perceived Risk and Punishment. The inane solution to this was to try to reduce stress on the road .... hmm
But my personal winner .... was the Economics Prize, where the winning research investigated whether staff using voodoo dolls to retaliate against bullying bosses at work, works.
They confirmed that taking out your rage on dolls, rather than the boss, does alleviate negative feelings, but suggested in the long run that it was better to deal with the underlying issue .... strangely they didn't find out what it did to the bullying bosses.
.... The winner, who has understandably gained the most press interest, was for the medical scientists who said that kidney stones could be removed, by the sufferers riding roller coasters like the infamous Wild Mouse ride in Blackpool above.
.... the winner, professor Davis Wartinger suggested that it would work best, if the patient was placed on one 'that's quick and rough, with a lot of side to side motion'. I can personally attest to the Wild Mouse ride being very quick and rough, with a lot of side to side motion.
The British interest in the 2018 awards, was Dr James Cole of the university of Brighton, who gained the Nutrition Prize for calculating the human body's calorific value
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| Soylent Green ... Not As Nutritious As Beef. |
- then proving that in fact cannibals are losing out in a dietary sense, as pound per pound, it is not worth eating human flesh compared with other types of meat .... so much for Soylent Green.
 |
| Dr Akira Horiuchi Demonstrated His Self-Colonoscopy. |
Other awards included Japanese researcher, Dr Akira Horiuchi, who won the Medical Education Prize for devising a "self-colonoscopy" technique using a small endoscope. In literature the winner was a nifty little number entitled 'Life Is Too Short to RTFM: How Users Relate to Documentation and Excess Features.' - an investigation into instruction manuals that come with consumer products. The F in RTFM didn't mean what it does to most of us now .... the F stands for 'Field' i.e. Read The Field Manual.
The winner of the Chemistry Prize, was research that showed human saliva is a good cleaning agent for dirty surfaces, especially for fragile, painted areas on ceramics, and on gold leaf. The Biology Prize went to proving that 'sommeliers' (Wine tasters), could really identify, by smell, the presence of a fly in a glass of wine. The Ig Nobel Peace Prize went for a paper titled, Shouting and Cursing While Driving: Frequency, Reasons, Perceived Risk and Punishment. The inane solution to this was to try to reduce stress on the road .... hmm
But my personal winner .... was the Economics Prize, where the winning research investigated whether staff using voodoo dolls to retaliate against bullying bosses at work, works.
 |
| Cynthia Really Hated Her Supervisor ... |
They confirmed that taking out your rage on dolls, rather than the boss, does alleviate negative feelings, but suggested in the long run that it was better to deal with the underlying issue .... strangely they didn't find out what it did to the bullying bosses.
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