Having developed suspicions based on “self-observation”, Bulut recruited a group of co-workers to investigate. The ecology prize honoured research into the array of bacteria living on chewing gum stuck to pavements, while the biology prize went to Dr Susanne Shötz at Lund University for her extensive work on the purrs, chirps, trills, hisses, howls, growls and meows that constitute feline communication.Ĭem Bulut, a professor at the SLK Clinics in Heilbronn in Germany, and colleagues, won the medicine prize for research that suggests sex with orgasm is an effective nasal decongestant. The transportation prize went to a group that found airlifting tranquilised rhinoceroses upside down is probably better for them than carrying them on their sides in slings. Mulrennan (retired) of the US Navy who won the entomology prize for eradicating cockroaches on submarines with a highly-potent organophosphate insecticide. The physics prize honoured research that explained why pedestrians are not constantly colliding, while the kinetics prize rewarded work that showed why they sometimes do.Īmong the other freshly minted Ig Nobel laureates were Cmdr John A. The Ig Nobel for economics went to Pavlo Blavatskyy, a professor at Montpellier Business School, who used a computer vision algorithm and photos of politicians to find evidence that obesity is “highly correlated” with national corruption. To keep the ceremony’s audience entertained, scientists and singers sought to instil hope for the future by performing a premiere of a mini opera that connected angry adults with miniature suspension bridges. He now wonders whether beards might also act as obscurants, making the jaw harder to target in a fist fight. “What we can say is that they provide some protection to the bones and skin. A really strong punch is always going to be dangerous,” he said. “It’s not that beards provide a lot of protection.
#IG NOBEL SPEECH TIMER SKIN#
After dropping weights on to a bone-like material covered in sheep fleece, he concluded that hairy skin absorbs far more energy than smooth skin.
While Charles Darwin – a man who fully embraced facial hair – suspected beards evolved “as an ornament to charm or excite the opposite sex”, Carrier found evidence for their protective qualities. Prof Carrier and his colleagues set out to test the controversial hypothesis that men evolved beards to protect their faces in fist fights. “I was thinking, do I want this award?” After a little research, he concluded he did. “When I heard I’d won I was a little nervous,” said David Carrier, professor of biology at the University of Utah and recipient of the Ig Nobel peace prize.
0 kommentar(er)
