Ig Nobel Prizes

Research that makes people LAUGH and then THINK

Everything started 17 years ago, when Marc Abrahams became editor of AIR. He was meeting all kinds of people who had done things that were hard to describe, and for the most part, nobody had ever heard of. For some of them, it seemed a great shame that nobody would give them any kind of recognition, and that was what really led to the birth of the Ig Nobels


By MARIJA MITROVIĆ
from Belgrade, SERBIA


It is seven o'clock, your alarm starts to ring, and then runs away and hides. If you like to sleep (who doesn't?), this invention of Gauri Nanda is solution of all your problems. This is just one of the "silly" inventions awarded with Ig Nobel Prize. The Ig Nobel Prizes represent a parody of the Nobel Prizes and are intended to "celebrate the unusual, honor the imaginative - and spur people's interest in science, medicine and technology". Organized by the scientific humor magazine Annals of Improbable Research (AIR), they are presented in early October at a ceremony at Harvard University's Sanders Theater. Genuine Nobel Laureates handed out the much-coveted awards to the winners, who took away no cash, but instead received a hand-made prize, a certificate, and, of course, the glory of such an illustrious win.

Everything started 17 years ago, when Marc Abrahams became editor of AIR. He was meeting all kinds of people who had done things that were hard to describe, and for the most part, nobody had ever heard of. For some of them, it seemed a great shame that nobody would give them any kind of recognition, and that was what really led to the birth of the Ig Nobels. In that time prizes were given for discoveries "that cannot, or should not, be reproduced." Like genuine Nobel Prizes, the Ig Nobel Prizes are split into several categories and all research is real and published. Beside physics, chemistry medicine, literature, peace and economy, the awards are given for discoveries in areas of public health, engineering, biology, etc

The ceremony of presentation of awards at the Harvard University's Sanders Theater is consistent with leading idea of prizes. It is followed a few days later by the Ig Informal Lectures at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in which laureates have the opportunity to explain their achievements and their relevance to the general public. If the explanations are too long they are interrupted by the cries of Miss Sweety Poo. a little girl who repeatedly cries out in a high-pitched voice "Pleas stop. I'm bored!". For a long time throwing paper airplanes onto the stage was a tradition at the Ig Nobels. The official "Keeper of Broom" had a obligation to keep the stage clean of the airplanes. For years physics professor Roy Glauber was doing a great job in removing paper flying object from the stage, until 2005 when he could not attend the awards as he was traveling to Stockholm to claim a genuine Nobel Prize in Physics.

It is not rear that winners of Ig Nobel Prizes are extremely honored for wining the prize, like Dan Meyer, one of the awarded in 2007 in the category of medicine. He and his colleague Brian Witcombe worked on the health consequences of swallowing a sword. Their study revealed that when professional sword swallower ingested a single sword very carefully, it did not do much harm, but swallowing many swords, strangely shaped blades, or being distracted when swallowing, could cause injury. The findings also suggested that sword swallower should not swallow swords if he already had a sore throat.

In category of aviation, the outstanding prize for year 2007 was given to a National University of Quilmes, Argentina, team for discovering that impotency drugs can help hamsters to recover from jet lag. Hamsters that received small doses of sildenafil, sold under the name Viagra, adjusted more quickly to laboratory simulations of a six-hour time-zone change than animals in the control group.

Did you know that rats sometimes can't distinguish between recordings of Japanese and Dutch played backward? This discovery of team of University of Barcelona was awarded in category of linguistics.

The awards ceremony is traditionally closed with the words: "If you didn't win a prize - and especially if you did - better luck next year!"


(Published: 09.03.2008.)

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