19.09 Ig Nobel 2014: The Physics of Stepping on Banana Peel and Many More
MOSCOW, September 19 (RIA Novosti) - Harvard University has awarded its 24th annual batch of Ig Nobel Prizes, honoring ten unusual or trivial achievements in scientific research at a farcical ceremony it held in its Sanders Theatre, AFP reports.
Among this year’s winners are Japanese researchers who won the physics prize for measuring the amount of friction between a shoe and a banana peel, and between a banana peel and the floor when a person steps on one.
The neuroscience prize went to scientists from China and Canada, for trying to understand what happens in the brains of people who see the face of Jesus in a piece of toast.
A team of researchers from Australia, Britain and the US shared the psychology prize, for collecting evidence that people who habitually stay up late are, on average, more self-admiring, manipulative and psychopathic than early risers.
Germany and Norway won another unusual award – scoring an Arctic science prize for testing how reindeer would react to polar bears compared to how they react to humans. The researchers dressed up like polar bears to conduct their experiment, only to discover that the reindeer were much calmer when the humans just looked the way they usually do.
The prize in economics was given to the Italian government's National Institute of Statistics for increasing the official size of Italy’s national economy by including revenue from prostitution, illegal drug sales, smuggling, and other unlawful financial transactions that occur between willing participants.
The Czech Republic, Germany and Zambia had the dubious honor of winning the biology prize for documenting that dogs align themselves along Earth’s magnetic field lines when pooping.
The prizes, as usual, were handed out by genuine Nobel laureates.
The annual Ig Nobel ceremony, the organizers say, is aimed at honoring achievements “that first make people laugh, and then make them think.” This year’s ceremony, in keeping with tradition, closed with the words: "If you didn't win a prize — and especially if you did — better luck next year!"
