The prizes were awarded this evening at Harvard’s annual IgNobel Prize ceremony. This year’s theme was “Risk”. Among the winners are:
Veterinary Medicine: Catherine Bertenshaw and Peter Rowlinson, Newcastle, for showing that cows who have names give more milk than nameless cows. (Not sure what that has to do with risk…)
Peace: Stefan Bolliger (sp?), et al., Univ. of Bern, Switzerland, for determining whether it is better to be smashed over the head with a full or empty bottle of beer. (The empty ones work better!)
Public Health: Ilena Badnar of the University of Chicago for inventing a brassiere that can be converted to a pair of gas masks. Paul Krugman with a pink bra cup on his face…woah.
Biology: Fumiyake Yamaguchi et al. for demonstrsating that the feces of giant pandas can be used to reduce kitchen waste by 90%.
It’s great that Little Miss Sweetie Poo keeps the speeches short by running up and yelling “please stop! I’m bored!”
Hopefully the whole list and the video will be up on their web site soon!
October 1st, 2009 at 8:58 pm
So, did the dead salmon paper actually lose out, or is it just not up for an award until next year? It seems like the kind of thing that would be a shoo-in for an IgNobel.
October 1st, 2009 at 10:02 pm
[...] The discovery that named cows give more milk than unnamed, empty beer bottles are better for smashing over someone’s head than full, and a brassiere that can be converted into two gas masks are a few of the winners of the 2009 Ignoble Awards. [...]
October 2nd, 2009 at 2:10 am
For peace I think it is better not to drink beer and other alcohols. Also this way there will not be any bottle of beer in addition of no drunk persons.
October 2nd, 2009 at 6:47 am
Re Peace, his name must be Bollinger.
Interesting, though. My intuition woulda been that the full bottle would hit harder.
October 2nd, 2009 at 8:25 am
“… empty beer bottles are better for smashing over someone’s head than full…”. Better for who, the smasher or the smashee? I may find myself in a pub brawl tonight and need to know.
October 2nd, 2009 at 10:41 pm
[...] igNobels 2009 [...]
October 6th, 2009 at 12:41 am
micah, i have to admit the dead salmon paper tops everything the committee has selected this year
. thanks for the link.
October 6th, 2009 at 10:27 am
What about Mexico? I heard they won the chemistry award for attempting to create diamonds out of tequila. Come on now, I think there is definitely a scientific use for this. Or what about the one about why pregnant women don’t tip over? Surely, we all want the answer to this!
October 12th, 2009 at 7:00 pm
[...] 2009 igNobel awards: Winners include the geniuses that discovered that it’s better to be smashed over the head with an empty rather than full bottle of beer. [...]