Complete Schedule
Improbable Research Events
| February 15, 2008, Friday | AAAS Annual Meeting, Boston, Massachusetts 8:00 pm. Republic A room, Sheraton Boston Hotel. (Click here for a map.) “Update on Improbable Research and the Ig Nobel Prizes.” Annual special Improbable Research session. Featuring: AIR editor Marc Abrahams, Ig Nobel Prize winner Gauri Nanda (inventor of Clocky, the alarm clock that runs away and hides repeatedly); Steve Nadis (”Just How Many Holy Grails of Science Are There?”); Toscanini’s Ice Cream Propriety Gus Rancatore (Ig Nobel Chemistry Prize winner Mayu Yamamoto’s discovery of how to extract vanillin from cow dung—and applications of this for making delicious ice cream; Gus will will also touch on the 89th Anniversary of the Great Boston Molasses Flood); Elaine Chew and Alexandre Francois (A technical analysis of the music of P.D.Q. Bach); David Kessler and Joshua Kroll (”Technical Secrets of the Ig Nobel Ceremony”); and eight-year-old Miss Sweetie Poo will help ensure that all the talks are delightfully brief. Open to the public—free. |
| March 6-16, 2008 | Ig Nobel UK Tour (for National Science Week) Click here for details. |
| April 1, 2008 | Erasmus University, Rotterdam, The Netherlands 16.00-17.30. Woudestein Campus, Zaal B-3, Burg. Oudlaan 50. Entrance free. Lof der Zotheid-lezing ‘Is er leven na een dode eend?’ (Is there life after a dead duck?). Ig Nobel prize winner and European Bureau Chief of Improbable Research Kees Moeliker will speak (in fluent Dutch) about ‘Onwaarschijnlijk Onderzoek en de Ig Nobel prijzen’. He will highlight the achievement that won him an Ig Nobel prize and will talk about his recent quest to acquire specimens of the rapidly declining pubic louse. As a supporting act, medical ethicist Erwin Kompanje will reveal his discovery, in the 16th century medical literature, of a remarkable but forgotten device. Click here for general info, and here for a map. |
| April 21, 2008, Monday | Skeptics in the Pub, Asgard, Cambridge, MA7:00 pm. 350 Mass Ave.. Free. Marc Abrahams will discuss improbable research with a barful of skeptical people. |
| April 23, 2008, Wednesday | Brown Bag Lecture, Chemical Heritage Foundation, PhiladelphiaFree. 315 Chestnut Street, 6th Floor Conference Room.
Marc Abrahams will discuss the Ig Nobel Prizes and, possibly, brown bags. |
| June 1, 2008, Sunday | American Society for Mass Spectrometry (ASMS) Annual Conference, Colorado Convention Center, Denver. 7:00 pm. Marc Abrahams will give the opening plenary talk: “Improbable Research, Spectrometric and Otherwise.” Info: Gary Glish. |
| June 7, 2008, Saturday, 9:00 pm. | Cheltenham Science Festival, UK In Town Hall. Ig Nobel Cabaret. Marc Abrahams will introduce Brian Witcombe and Dan Meyer (Ig Nobel Prize winner—medical effects of sword swallowing), Fiona Barclay (collaborator on the Ig-winning Periodic Table Table) and Charles Paxton (Ig winner—courtship behaviour of ostriches towards humans under farming conditions in Britain), and John Hoyland (New Scientist’s Feedback editor) |
| August 21-23, 2008 | Alpbach Technology Forum, Alpbach, Austria. Marc Abrahams will give a talk about “Improbable Research and the Future of Europe” |
| October 2, 2008, Thursday | Eighteenth 1st Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony 7:30 pm. Sanders Theatre, Cambridge, MA. Tickets go on sale in early August. Details to be announced. |
| October 4,2008, Saturday afternoon | Ig Informal Lectures MIT, Cambridge, MA. Details to be announced. |
| October 10,2008, Saturday evening | Ohio-Region Section of the American Physical Society (OSAPS), Dayton, Ohio. Open to the public, free. Marc Abrahams will discuss the 2008 Ig Nobel Prize winners (who will have been announced just a few days earlier) and previous winners. Details to be announced. (This is a joint meeting of the Ohio-Region Section of the APS, the Southern Ohio Section of the AAPT, and the Dayton Section of the American Chemical Society, co-hosted by the Department of Engineering Physics, Air Force Institute of Technology and the Physics Department, Wright State University.) |
| October, 2008 | Festival della Scienza, Genoa, Italy Details to be announced. |