The Noble and the Ignoble

Actually, I meant Nobel and Ig Nobel.. Wondering what I am blabbering?

well, all of us do know about the Nobel prizes, but the IgNobel prize is quite famous in the research circle and not so well-known in the outside world- a prize for the "research that makes you laugh and then think" they claim!

Well here are some of the top picks I found from this year and previous years and my comments are in blue...

Ig Nobel for......
2005

1. PHYSICS: John Mainstone and the late Thomas Parnell of the University of Queensland, Australia, for patiently conducting an experiment that began in the year 1927 -- in which a glob of congealed black tar has been slowly, slowly dripping through a funnel, at a rate of approximately one drop every nine years.

They should have tried to compare tar and bees wax, in which case the experiment would still be going on....something for their predecessors to do u know?!


2. MEDICINE: Gregg A. Miller of Oak Grove, Missouri, for inventing Neuticles -- artificial replacement testicles for dogs, which are available in three sizes, and three degrees of firmness.
REFERENCES: US Patent #5868140, and the book Going Going NUTS!, by Gregg A. Miller,

Each dog is different.. why only 3 sizes? They should pay more attention to customer satisfaction dont u think?

3.PEACE: Claire Rind and Peter Simmons of Newcastle University, in the U.K., for electrically monitoring the activity of a brain cell in a locust while that locust was watching selected highlights from the movie "Star Wars."

I guess the locust would have preffered good "quality" porn if it were a male or good "quality" soap if it were a female [but since both quality porn and soaps or nonexistent they decided on Star Wars I guess!] ... after all this is probably the only time the poor locust gets to watch a movie!!!

4.BIOLOGY: Benjamin Smith of the University of Adelaide, Australia a for painstakingly smelling and cataloging the peculiar odors produced by 131 different species of frogs when the frogs were feeling stressed.

Man...this guy will go to hell and be fried along with the frogs that he killed for all the obnoxiousness he imposed on fellow researchers.

5.FLUID DYNAMICS: Victor Benno Meyer-Rochow of International University Bremen, Germany a for using basic principles of physics to calculate the pressure that builds up inside a penguin, as detailed in their report "Pressures Produced When Penguins Pooh -- Calculations on Avian Defaecation."

This guy will probalby suffer the same predicament as the previous researcher but since penguins are better creatures [atelast in my mind] than frogs, he shall burn in oil with Penguin shit!

2004

6.MEDICINE
Steven Stack of Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan, USA and James Gundlach of Auburn University, Auburn, Alabama, USA, for their published report "The Effect of Country Music on Suicide."
I wonder what sort of country music that they heard inspired them for such a research!

2003

7.CHEMISTRY
Yukio Hirose of Kanazawa University, for his chemical investigation of a bronze statue, in the city of Kanazawa, that fails to attract pigeons.

This research would have been highly relevant in India if he had found a stone statue that pigeons avoided!!!

BIOLOGY
8.C.W. Moeliker, of Natuurhistorisch Museum Rotterdam, the Netherlands, for documenting the first scientifically recorded case of homosexual necrophilia in the mallard duck.

Beware of ducks, after you are dead!

2002

9.BIOLOGY
Norma E. Bubier, Charles G.M. Paxton, Phil Bowers, and D. Charles Deeming of the United Kingdom, for their report "Courtship Behaviour of Ostriches Towards Humans Under Farming Conditions in Britain."

Beware of Ostriches when u are alive! sheesh, I dint know birds were such sexual creatures!

10.MATHEMATICS
K.P. Sreekumar and the late G. Nirmalan of Kerala Agricultural University, India, for their analytical report "Estimation of the Total Surface Area in Indian Elephants"

"late"G.Nirmalan?? the Elephant mistook his moves and stamped him maybe?

2001
11.BIOLOGY
Buck Weimer of Pueblo, Colorado for inventing Under-Ease, airtight underwear with a replaceable charcoal filter that removes bad-smelling gases before they escape.

Next time u eat those beans, cheese or potatoes consider buying that underwear for Environmental protection.

12.MEDICINE
Peter Barss of McGill University, for his impactful medical report "Injuries Due to Falling Coconuts." [PUBLISHED IN: The Journal of Trauma, vol. 24, no. 11, 1984, pp. 990-1.]

How about he follow it with, " Killings with fallen coconuts"?


13.PUBLIC HEALTH
Chittaranjan Andrade and B.S. Srihari of the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Bangalore, India, for their probing medical discovery that nose picking is a common activity among adolescents. [REFERENCE: "A Preliminary Survey of Rhinotillexomania in an Adolescent Sample," Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, vol. 62, no. 6, June 2001, pp. 426-31.]

Oh now apart from smoking, drinking and doping there is also peer pressure to nose-pick! Btw, did u all not the the new word? Nose picker = Rhinotillexomaniac....

Beleive me! this is REAL research that goes on!

Well, there are more years and more funny topics... if u wanna check out go directly to their website...Infact they are webcasting the award cermony on 15 th March at 12 PM EST( US time).though it all seems funny, there is a flip side to all this... this psst is going to have a couple of sequels focussed on trivial research and my opinions on it! So keep watching...

Disclaimer:
1. Some parts have been copied directly from the improbablee research website.
2. I have excluded the names of secondary researchers to avoid unnecessarily lenghtening the post
3. I am sorry if my comments are offenisve to any of the researchers. I am not trying to demean u or ur work.. this is just fun!