A Restless Mind

The 'Other' Nobel Prizes

The Ig Nobel Prize Laureates for 2009 have been announced and they are as 'crazy' as they have always been. But don't tell that to the laureates!

The Ig Nobel Prizes are alternative Nobel prizes which have been handed out since 1991 by the scientific comedy magazine Annals of Improbable Research and are meant to reward 10 achievements which, in their own words, are meant to "first make people laugh, and then make them think". Previous winning works have included the following:

• Discovering that fleas on dog jump higher than those on cats
• Discovering that slime moulds can solve puzzles
• Showing that rats sometimes cannot tell the difference between a person speaking Japanese backwards and a person speaking Dutch backwards.
• Calculating the number of photographs you must take to practically ensure that nobody in a group photo will have their eyes closed
• Studying ultrasonic velocity in cheddar cheese as affected by temperature.

As you can see, they are all very fascinating achievements! You could think that it's all about having a laugh at absolutely stupid research work, which is definitely true to some extent since the truly mental nature of some of the discoveries is very obvious. But advocates of the awards think that although the Ig Nobel prizes are a disguised dig at trivial research and sometimes very tongue-in-cheek by not rewarding actual research but stupid actions, history suggests that some of them could give way to amazing finds in the future. The warm nature of the awards is characterised by the fact that real Nobel laureates attend the ceremony (which is sponsored by a few Harvard University clubs and societies) and hand out the awards.

OK, let's have a look at the 2009 Ig Nobel Laureates by category:

Public Health: Three Americans for inventing a bra that can be quickly turned into a pair of gas masks: one for the woman (or fat man) and the other for anyone standing nearby.


Mathematics: Governor of Zimbabwe's Reserve Bank for printing notes ranging from one cent to one hundred trillion denominations to make everyday transactions easier in the ravaged Zimbabwean economy.

Veterinary Medecine: Two Newcastle University staff for showing that cows which are named give more milk than nameless ones.

Literature: The Irish Police for writing over 50 traffic tickets to the most frequent driving offender in Ireland, Prawo Jazdy (whose name means "Driving Licence" in Polish)

Biology: Three Japanese university lecturers for showing that kitchen rubbish can be reduced by more than 90% in mass by using bacteria extracted from the excrements of giant pandas.

Chemistry: Three Mexicans scientists for creating diamonds from tequila.

Peace: Five Swiss university academics for determining whether it is better to be smashed over the head with a full bottle of beer or with an empty bottle.

Medecine: An American for his investigation on a possible cause of arthritis of the fingers, by regularly cracking the knuckles of his left hand but not his right hand every day for more than 60 years.

Physics: Three American university academics for analysing why pregnant women do not tip over.

Economics: The directors, executives, and auditors of four Icelandic banks for showing that tiny banks can be rapidly transformed into huge banks, and vice versa (and for demonstrating that similar things can be done to an entire national economy).


Well done everyone!!

So which one do you think is your favourite winning discovery?