Improbable Research

2010 Ig Nobel Tour of the U.K.

VIDEO: Watch the entire 2009 event at Imperial College London. Imperial College always hosts the most elaborate show of the entire UK tour.

The 2010 tour will be part of National Science & Engineering Week, March 12-21, 2010. This will be the eighth annual tour.  The schedule will be announced soon.

Sponsored by the British Science Association, Improbable Research, and the individual host institutions.

Host an event: Download this brochure, and email <lisa.birk AT improbable.com>

Previous tours: 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003

What and who: The shows feature Marc Abrahams, organizer of the Ig Nobel Prizes, editor of the Annals of Improbable Research, and Guardian columnist, together with a gaggle of Ig Nobel Prize winners and other improbable researchers.

Marc Abrahams will review the past year’s improbable research and Ig Nobel Prize winners. Several Ig winners (and/or colleagues) will try to explain what they did and why they did it, and will field questions. Many of the speakers are new to the tour. Some are returning after previous appearances, now armed with surprising new topics.

Each show will include a unique combination of individuals. Here are some of the stars on the 2010 tour (others will be added to this list):

• Elena Bodnar, a physician, is a 2009 Ig Nobel Prize winner in public health, for inventing a brassiere that, in an emergency, can be quickly converted into a pair of protective face masks, one for the brassiere wearer and one to be given to some needy bystander.
• Kees Moeliker is curator of birds at the Natural History Museum Rotterdam. Moeliker won the 2003 Ig Nobel Biology Prize for documenting the first scientifically recorded case of homosexual necrophilia in the mallard duck. He is also the Annals of Improbable Research European Bureau Chief.
• Catherine Douglas and Peter Rowlinson of Newcastle University shared the 2009 Ig Nobel Prize in veterinary medicine for showing that cows who have names give more milk than cows that are nameless.
• Fiona Barclay, a biochemist, collaborated with Theo Gray to assemble the world’s first periodic table table — a large, lovely, four-legged piece of furniture that contains (nearly) all the elements of the periodic table. The result: the 2002 Ig Nobel Chemistry Prize. She will discuss her adventure of purchasing plutonium in London.
• Steve Farrar will discuss the peculiar history of astronomer Tycho Brahe’s nose. He is a historian and a former editor of the Times Higher Education Supplement. He is also the Annals of Improbable Research Edinburgh Desk Chief.
• John Hoyland created and edits the “Feedback” column in New Scientist Magazine. He will present a fresh batch of oddities.
• Peter Backus is a PhD candidate and Teaching Fellow in the Department of Economics at the University of Warwick. He will use the Drake equation to explain why he does not have a girlfriend.
• Erwin Kompanje studies overlooked spectacular medical history. He is a clinical ethicist at Erasmus University Rotterdam. On this year’s tour her will show scientific investigations of Rudolph’s red nose.
• Maureen MacGlashan is the editor of The Indexer, the journal that published Glenda Browne’s 2007 Ig Nobel Literature Prize-winning study of the word “the” — and of the many ways “the” causes problems for anyone who tries to put things into alphabetical order.
• Dan Meyer, a swordswallower, shared the 2007 Ig Nobel Medicine Prize for the penetrating medical report “Sword Swallowing and Its Side Effects.” In 2010 he will present evidence of some of the unexpected physical objects people have swallowed.
• Charles Paxton, a research fellow at the University of St. Andrews, shared the 2002 Ig Nobel Prize in Biology for the study “Courtship Behaviour of Ostriches Towards Humans Under Farming Conditions in Britain“.

Press contacts: Ollie Christophers +44 (0)20 7019 4946 (Ollie.Christophers AT britishscienceassociation.org); or Marc Abrahams (+1) 617-491-4437 (marca AT improbable.com).