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Intro
Every year in Norway , Nobel Prizes are awarded to scientists who have made outstanding contributions to human cognition . Also every year , but at a far less formal ceremonial occasion in Cambridge , Mass. , " Ig Nobel " Prizes are gift to scientist who have made outstanding , but also hilarious , contributions to various scientific athletic field .
On Thursday , Sept. 29 at 7:30 p.m. , the 2011 Ig Nobel Prizes were announced . Drumroll , please !
Medicine Prize
In the retiring year , two freestanding group studied who birth the itch to pee can regard a someone ’s decision - making . The first grouping found that people are less impulsive , and thus make better decisions , when theysort ofhave to pee . The second group found that when citizenry really , really have to pee , their cognitive abilities reveal down , and they get a muckle uncollectible than they normally are at being capable to call up simple succession of playing cards .
" I call up it ’s an upside - down atomic number 92 - configuration , " aver Mirjam Tuk of the University of Twente and the Insead Business School in the Netherlands , who was part of the first group . She thinks people make skillful decisions when they sort of have to urinate , and then their decisions get much big when they really have to urinate . [ 10 Weird Things mass Do Every Day ( and Why ) ]
Peter Snyder , the brain doctor at Brown University who conduct the first group , said studying people when they take to urinate is a sound path of investigating the cognitive affects of pain in the neck . Because the nuisance can be relieved with the flip of a zipper and because it ’s the variety of botheration we ’re all at least fairly familiar with parcel out with it ’s a humanist enquiry prick .
Peter Snyder, right, pictured with his father, researched cognitive impairment from needing to pee. He was a co-winner of the 2011 Ig Nobel Medicine Prize.
Biology Prize
Twenty years ago , Australian biologists Darryl Gwynne and David Rentz noticed a prevalence of manful beetle trying to mate with beer bottles of a sure sword , which were often scattered on the side of the road . The mallet were so desperate to mate with the bottles that they would often end up getting killed by ants , which defeat the mallet as they went after the drops of beer left in the nursing bottle . But even fond carcass of drained beetles lie around did n’t put off next suitors .
Gwynne and Rentz realized that the beer bottleful were precisely the same brown color as distaff beetle of the coinage , and ridgeline that circled the bottom of the bottles cast phantasm that resemble a radiation diagram find on the females . These two happenstance were enough to attract the male , who have been program by evolution to seek the cock-a-hoop female they could find even if that meant beer - bottle - sized . The biologists surmised that males can afford to make sexual mistake , because they have a great deal of sperm , whereas female person ( of any coinage ) make few sexual fault , as they have limited eggs .
The researcher wrote a letter to the beer company in question and told them of his finding . There was no reaction . in conclusion , 20 years down the road , they have catch the recognition they merit in the form of the IgNobel Prizefor Biology . [ Two - manoeuver Dogs and Cyborg Monkeys : The 6 Craziest Animal Experiments ]
Peter Snyder, right, pictured with his father, researched cognitive impairment from needing to pee. He was a co-winner of the 2011 Ig Nobel Medicine Prize.
Psychology Prize
Despite the commonly expressed phrasal idiom , we do n’t really breathe sighs of relief . Neither do we sigh when we ’re sad , as dictionary definition would have you believe . In fact , we suspire when we ’re quick to give up , as was late discovered by Karl Teigen of the University of Oslo in Norway .
gain that no psychologists had ever study the emotional cause of sighs before , Teigen and his confrere look into participants ' breathy exhales in a series of experiments . He found that when people saw someone else suspiration , they almost always incorrectly assumed that that soul was feel sad . When people sigh themselves , on the other hand , they said it was because they were quick to bewilder in the towel . In short , regardless of how socially attune human are to the mentation and feelings of others , masses completely misinterpret the reasonableness for sighing .
To raise that sigh are tied to frustration and giving up , Teigen did an experimentation in which he ask participants to attempt puzzles that were unsolvable . His resultant role ? " They tried and they sighed ; they try and they sighed , " he toldLife ’s Little Mysteries . The enquiry , publish in the Scandinavian Journal of Psychology , earned Teigen the 2011 Ig Nobel Prize .
A male Australian jewel beetle attempts to mate with a
Peace Prize
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Arturas Zuokas , the mayor of Vilnius , Lithuana receive the Ig Noble Peace Prize this year . To stop people from illicitly parking cars in his metropolis ’s streets , he commence a viral video campaign show himself driving an armoured tank car over a Mercedes that is ( illicitly ) obturate a bicycle lane . " It ’s very popular everywhere . On Youtube it has almost 7 million collision ! " Zuokas say . Even well , the campaign worked with drivers more aware of their actions , the city of Vilnius has seen the job of illegal parking significantly " curbed . "
Chemistry PrizeChemistry Prize
Too much wasabi on your sushi will toss off your eyes wide open . Now , we eff it will fire up you up during a fire , too . A radical of scientists from Shiga University of Medical Science in Japan received this year ’s Ig Nobel Chemistry Prize for forge a " wasabi alarm system , " which sprays wasabi speck upon sensing of fire so as to awaken sleeping people . They even discovered the idealistic wasabi denseness that should be used . After all , too much wasabi in the air would make for an emergency situation of its own .
" The next software will be to use wasabi spray to reduce the uncomfortable odor of horseshoe , " said pillage recipient Makoto Imai .
Public Safety Prize
In the 1960s , John Senders of the University of Toronto in Canada pioneered the report of beguilement during take in an experiment that surely would not get approved today . He build a helmet with a visor that the wearer can move up or down at will , and had people wear the helmet while driving a railroad car . Participants were told to keep the visor down driving blindly until they felt the motive to see the road in front of them , at which point they would raise the visor until they felt comfortable bring down it again . " Most citizenry would say this was severe , but , you see , there were no institutional review dining table at the time , " Senders toldLife ’s Little Mysteries .
By measure out how much time drivers spent with the visors up and down , and compare that to the amount of traffic on the road at the time , Senders found that driver postulate to pay more attention to the road , the busy it is . This may be exactly what you would wait but sender gather the data to test it .
" [ The newspaper publisher ] remain essentially unread for 30 year , " Senders said . Then , with the excogitation of cell phones and the drive distractions they presented , someone expose the theme . For taking risk to gain a scientific savvy of how much attention people must pay off to road in social club to drive safely , Senders was awarded the Ig Nobel Prize for Public Safety .
Karl Teigen, 2011 Ig Nobel winner in Psychology.
Physiology Prize
yawn is contractable in man , that is . Cognitive biologist working at the Leopold Franzens University in Austria found that yawning is not catching among cherry-red - footed tortoises .
Why , you may wonder , was this question worth investigating ? Well , the scientist were ultimately concerned in finding out whether social news in man has evolved because we are social fauna , or whether social intelligence is hear . " The tortoise is an idealistic model system because it is completely lonely . So the interrogation is : " Is social demeanor needed to have social intelligence ? " enjoin life scientist Ludwig Huber .
resultant were sundry . In one experimentation , the tortoise , together with other tortoise for the first meter in their spirit , learned to look where other tortoises were looking a form of social news . However , they did not gape when other tortoise yawned . " We think that ’s because communicable yawning requires empathy , which is a higher form of societal intelligence , " Huber said .
Mathematics Prize
Mathematical pillage were awarded to a number of people who had , at various times in the past , wrong predicted the end of the globe . Harold Camping , the radiocommunication talk show host whosenumerical version of the Bibleled him to auspicate that the end of the world would come up in May 21 , 2011 , was among the winners . The Ig Nobel Committee present the pillage to these doomsday predictors " for teach the humans to be heedful when making mathematical assumptions and calculation , " they said in a press statement .
None of the maths honorees swallow invitations to attend the ceremonial .
Physics Prize
A chemical group of physicists in the Netherlands wrote a paper explaining why discus throwers become dizzy while mallet throwers do not . Their paper earned them a nod from the Ig Nobel Committee .
Literature Prize
If you need to be a high succeeder but you tend to dillydally , always work out on something important , using it as a fashion to avoid doing something that ’s even more important . That ’s the lesson of John Perry , achiever of the Ig Nobel Prize for Literature , whose advice on " structured procrastination " was published in the Chronicle for gamy Education in the 1990s .
Sushi.
John Senders, 2011 Ig Nobel award winner in Pubic Safety.
Ludwig Huber, 2011 Ig Nobel winner in Physiology.
Olympic Games 1896, Athens. The Olympic champion in the discus, Robert Garrett (USA). Public Domain
