Ig Nobel Prizes awarded
At this time of the year not only the Nobel prizes, but also the Ig Nobel prizes are awarded - according to Nature arguably the highlight of the scientific calendar. To quote the official website: "The Ig Nobel Prizes honor achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think. The prizes are intended to celebrate the unusual, honor the imaginative - and spur people's interest in science, medicine, and technology."
I like most the research exploring why woodpeckers don't get headaches and the invention of the electromechanical teenager repellant - a device that makes annoying noise designed to be audible to teenagers but not to adults; and for later using that same technology to make telephone ringtones that are audible to teenagers but not to their teachers.
The research in acoustics to learn why people dislike the sound of fingernails scraping on a blackboard and in mathematics to calculate the number of photographs you must take to (almost) ensure that nobody in a group photo will have their eyes closed I consider excellent and absolutely worth funding..
posted by ingo @ 19:18
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1 Comments:
hahahha, great as always, this ignobel prices are amazing, and the best thing is that this year we have spanish winners, in the chemistry category, for studying the influence of temperature in the speed of ultrasounds in cheddar cheese. Cheeeese, hmmmm ;)
And reading about the number of photos you have to take to ensure that everybody appears with the eyes open, I remembered an interesting piece of software: the tourist remover. I think the name speaks for itself...
http://www.snapmania.com/info/en/trm/
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