The Ig Nobel Prizes are awarded for research that “can not, or should not, be reproduced” or research that “first makes you laugh, then makes you think”. The 2009 prizes have just been awarded:
Prize for Mathematics
Awarded to 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).
Prize for Physics
Awarded to Katherine Whitcome, Daniel Lieberman and Liza Shapiro for analytically determining why pregnant women don’t tip over.
Reference: Whitcome, K.K., Shapiro, L.J., Lieberman, D.E. (2007) Fetal Load and the Evolution of Lumbar Lordosis in Bipedal Hominins, Nature, 450, pp. 1075-1078. doi: 10.1038/nature06342
Prize for Chemistry
Awarded to Javier Morales, Miguel Apátiga and Victor Castaño for creating diamonds from tequila.
Reference: Morales, J., Apatiga, M., Castaño, V.M. (2008) Growth of Diamond Films from Tequila, arXiv: 0806.1485
Prize for Biology
Awarded to Fumiaki Taguchi, Song Guofu, and Zhang Guanglei for demonstrating that kitchen refuse can be reduced more than 90% in mass by using bacteria extracted from the faeces of giant pandas.
Reference: Taguchi, F., Guofu, S., Guanglei, Z. (2001) Microbial Treatment of Kitchen Refuse With Enzyme-Producing Thermophilic Bacteria From Giant Panda Feces, Seibutsu-kogaku Kaishi, 79(12), pp. 463-469. Link
Prize for Medicine
Awarded to Donald Unger 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 years.
Reference: Unger, D.L. (1998) Does Knuckle Cracking Lead to Arthritis of the Fingers?, Arthritis and Rheumatism, 41(5), pp. 949-950. doi: 10.1002/1529-0131(199805)41:5<949::AID-ART36>3.0.CO;2-3
Prize for Veterinary Medicine
Awarded to Catherine Douglas and Peter Rowlinson for showing that cows who have names give more milk than cows that are nameless.
Reference: Bertenshaw, C., Rowlinson, P. (2009) Exploring Stock Managers’ Perceptions of the Human-Animal Relationship on Dairy Farms and an Association with Milk Production, Anthrozoos, 22(1), pp. 56-59. doi: 10.2752/175303708X390473
Peace Prize
Awarded to Stephan Bolliger, Steffen Ross, Lars Oesterhelweg, Michael Thali and Beat Kneubuehl 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.
Reference: Bollinger, S.A. et al (2008) Are Full or Empty Beer Bottles Sturdier and Does Their Fracture-Threshold Suffice to Break the Human Skull?, Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine, 16(3), pp. 138-142. doi: 10.1016/j.jflm.2008.07.013
Prize for Public Health
Awarded to Elena Bodnar, Raphael Lee and Sandra Marijan for inventing a brassiere that, in an emergency, can be quickly converted into a pair of face masks, one for the brassiere wearer and one to be given to some needy bystander.
Reference: US Patent #7255627 for “Garment Device Convertible to One or More Facemasks.”
Dr Elena Bodnar demonstrates the face mask bra, assisted by (l-r) Wolfgang Ketterle (Nobel Prize in Physics, 2001), Orhan Pamuk (Nobel Prize in Literature, 2006) and Paul Krugman (Nobel Prize in Economics, 2008)