Ig Nobel Prize: sniffing between kidney stones on the roller coaster and fruit flies

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All looks rest on a black lear shoe. A man holds him with a far-outstretched arm. He stands in socks on a stage, his first shoe is already re, every moment must also fall second. But he just doesn’t fall. “Waiting for or shoe to drop”, as American proverbially says: Waiting for something to come.

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This is award of Ig Nobel Prize, which was initiated on Thursday evening at Harvard University in Cambridge, USA. Word games belong to this, which already indicates name of unworthy Nobel Prizes (English ignoble). A kind of Antinobelpreisen, refore, given to scientists whose achievements initially sound so absurd that y can be anything but not Nobel-suspicious. However, those responsible emphasize: goal is not to make fun of science – it is about honoring research, making people laugh and n stimulating thought.

The prize is also presented every time by real Nobel Prize winners on behalf of magazine Annals of Improbable Research. This time among winners in a total of ten categories: Fruchtfliegenerschnüffler and self-Darmspiegler.

Miss Sweetie poo remains adamant

While or award ceremonies are often tedious and tedious, IGS will be followed by a gag on next. Many of m have been a tradition since first award 1991. For example, a strictly defined paper airplane throwing takes place in which spectators at venerable Sanders Theatre are allowed to fire paper flyers on a human target. Instead of lavish lighting technology, re are two silver painted human spotlights that roam stage with flashlights. And when winners exceed ir speaking time of one minute, eight-year-old Miss Sweetie poo comes and repeats incessantly, Please stop, I’m bored until speaker is finally quiet. Some of m tried to buy a little more time with candy and gifts. Miss Sweetie poo, however, could not be swayed.

These are prize winners and winners of Ig Nobel Prizes:

• Medicine– Marc Mitchell and David Wartinger of United States tried to speed up elimination of kidney stones by letting patients ride on a roller coaster ( Journal of American Osteopatic Association: Mitchell/Wartinger, 2016). It worked.

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• Anthropology: This award went to Tomas Persson, Gabriela-Alina Sauciuc and Elainie Madsen and ir teams from Sweden, Romania, Denmark, Nerlands, Germany, Great Britain, Indonesia and Italy. The researchers gared evidence that chimpanzees in a zoo imitate humans as often as humans do in chimpanzees (primates: Persson et al., 2018).

• Biology: Paul Becher, Sebastien Lebreton, Erika Wallstreet, Erik Hedenstrom, Felipe Borrero-Echeverry, Marie Bengtsson, Volker Jorger and Peter Witzgall from Sweden, Colombia, Germany, France and Switzerland were honored. They were able to show that wine connoisseurs already recognize smell of wher a fruit fly is in Wineglass (Journal of Chemical Ecology: Becher et al., 2018).

if ( typeof AdController !== ‘undefined’ !window.Zeit.isMobileView()) { if ( !document.getElementById( ‘iqadtile5’ ) ) { var elem = document.createElement( ‘div’ ); elem.id = ‘iqadtile5’; elem.className = “ad ad-desktop ad-desktop–5 ad-desktop–5-on-article”; elem.setAttribute(‘data-banner-type’, ‘desktop’); document.getElementById(‘ad-desktop-5’).parentNode.appendChild(elem); AdController.render(‘iqadtile5’); if ( window.console typeof window.console.info === ‘function’ ) { window.console.info(‘AdController ‘ AdController.VERSION ‘ tile 5 desktop’) } } } The Japanese Akira Horiuchi (right) demonstrates how a colonoscopy folds even when sitting. © Michael Dwyer/Picture Alliance/AP Photo

• Chemistry: Paula Romão, Adília Alarcao and César Viana from Portugal investigated how good it is to clean up dirty surfaces using saliva (studies in Conservation: Romão et al., 2013). Romão noted, however, during her thank-you speech, that this cleaning agent is best used for paintings, sculptures or gilded wood – in kitchen one should prefer to clean with or means.

• Medical Education: Akira Horiuchi from Japan receives this prize. He found out that a colonoscopy works even when patient is sitting. That would not have been ignoble – Horiuchi would not have tested colonoscopy with itself (gastrointestinal Endoscopy: Horiuchi/Nakayama, 2006).