Improbable Research

Tickets for the 18th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony go on sale at noon today from the Harvard Box Office. [Location: Holyoke Center, Harvard Square. Telephone: (+1) 617-496-2222 ].

********************

The ceremony will happen at Sanders Theatre, Harvard University, on Thursday evening, October 2. The event always sells out, so it is advisable to get your tickets before October 2 rather than after October 2.

The theme this year is Redundancy. To honor that theme, Redundancy, the ceremony will include the premiere of the new mini-opera “Redundancy, Again.”

The ceremony will be preceded by a 15-minute-long mini-concert by Paul & Storm.

NOTE ABOUT DELEGATIONS: If you would like to bring a theme delegation to the ceremony, please first obtain your tickets, and then register your delegation. The very most colorful delegations will be selected to march in the grand parade of the delegations.

For further details of the ceremony and of the related events, and for a downloadable poster, see the ceremony’s web page.

But my bigger question is why doesn’t Japan dominate the Ig Noble Awards ? those Nobel Prize parodies handed out at Harvard each year by the Annals of Improbable Research magazine. One would guess Japan would rule here the way the Russians have ruled in chess.

Yet Japan has won barely a dozen Ig Nobles since the prizes began 16 years ago, a modest amount but still almost twice the number of Japan’s genuine Nobels. And most of the Ig Nobles are genuine lulus….

So writes Thomas Dillon in the March 29, 2008 issue of Japan Times. He gives several examples.

(Thanks to investigator Mark Schreiber for bringing this to our attention.)

The Baltic Times pays a visit to Stalin World, whose proprietor won the 2001 Ig Nobel Peace Prize for creating Lithuania’s most popular tourist attraction:

In addition to statues of Russian and Lithuanian communist leaders, indoor displays feature a variety of memorabilia. One small house represents a typical reading room, housing books filled with Soviet propaganda and communist messages. Mannequins in pioneer uniforms seem to jump out of nowhere, watchtowers line the perimeter, and loudspeakers blare party-approved music.

For the little ones, the park features a small zoo, home to a variety of exotic birds. Near the entrance is a playground equipped with (thankfully) post-Soviet-era swings and slides. While you can still find some Soviet favorites on the restaurant’s menu — sprats, a very thin borscht, and buckwheat kasha — up-scale entrees are also available. The Dzukija region is known for its mushrooms, and they star in several dishes. Don’t forget to visit the souvenir shop for a deck of propaganda-poster playing cards or a Stalin shot glass.
Grutas Park is only three kilometers from Drus-kininkai, a famous historic spa town.  On the road from the park are a few superb shashlik restaurants, offering excellent grilled meat alongside Armenian side dishes. Anything with eggplant is guaranteed to be delicious…

Troy Hurtubise is valiantly trying to auction another of his anti-grizzly suits of armor. This time, he is offering up the most famous of the bunch.

Back in early 2007, Troy? ? the 1998 Ig Nobel Prize winner in Safety Engineering ? attempted to auction off his “Trojan” combat suit. Unfortunately, the $35,000 minimum price was not met. This is not the first time Troy has had trouble finding eBay purchasers for his grizzly-resistant suits.

Troy is again attempting to recoup some of the money he’s put into his various projects (flame paste, the “Angel Light”, and of course, his various grizzly suits), this time by auctioning off the Ursus Mk VI suit featured in the documentary “Project Grizzly”. The suit is currently priced at a bit over US$2,000, and Troy hopes the ending price will exceed $40,000 by the auction’s end on July 14th.

Researchers at New Mexico State University recently discovered the world?s hottest chile pepper.

Bhut Jolokia, a variety of chile pepper originating in Assam, India, has earned Guiness World Records? recognition as the world?s hottest chile pepper by blasting past the previous champion Red Savina. In
replicated tests of Scoville heat units (SHUs), Bhut Jolokia reached one million SHUs, almost double the SHUs of Red Savina, which measured a mere 577,000

Dr. Paul Bosland, Director of the Chile Pepper Institute at New Mexico State University?s Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences collected seeds of Bhut Jolokia while visiting India in 2001. Bosland grew Bhut Jolokia plants under insect-proof cages for three years to produce enough seed to complete the required field tests.

?The name Bhut Jolokia translates as ?ghost chile,?? Bosland said, ?I think it?s because the chile is so hot, you give up the ghost when you eat it!? Bosland added that the intense heat concentration of Bhut Jolokia could have significant impact on the food industry as an economical seasoning in packaged foods.

The complete study and abstract are available on the ASHS HortScience electronic journal web site.

(Thanks to investigator Kristine Danowski for bringing this to our
attention.)