Ig Nobel event—with Two/Too Lectures!—at Hokkaido U

The Ig Nobel Japan Tour continues, with an event at Hokkaido University on Wednesday, September 26.

Marc Abrahams and Ig Nobel Prize winners — Prof. Toshiyuki Nakagaki (winner of two Ig Nobel Prizes, for discovering that slime mold can solve puzzles and that slime mold is more efficient than human engineers at designing railway routes), and Prof. Kazunori Yoshizawa (winner for discovering a female penis and a male vagina, in a cave insect) — will discuss the Ig Nobel Prizes. They will also answer (and ask) questions. Paper airplanes will fly.

A new experiment: The Two/Too Lectures

Professor Nakagaki and Professor Yoshizawa will also become the first people to try a new kind of Improbable Research public activity. Each will present a Two/Too Lecture.

In a Two-Too Lecture, the lecturer explains their research in just two (2) minutes — and then explains the same thing again, in two (2) minutes, but using a completely different metaphor.

The/Too This Lectures are a new descendant of the 24/7 Lectures that have long been a featured part of the Ig Nobel Prize ceremony. You can think of each of these — the 24/7 Lectures and the Two/Too Lectures — as new kinds of science communication. Indeed, they are new forms of public communication. Each is designed to make people LAUGH, then THINK.

The Ig Nobel Japan Tour

The Ig Nobel Japan Tour celebrates the opening (which happened a few days ago) of the Ig Nobel Prizes Exhibition, in the Tokyo Dome Complex. The exhibition is open to the public September 22-November 4, 2018.

The final event of the Ig Nobel Japan Tour will happen at the University of Kanazawa, on Friday.

UPDATE (written several days after the event):

Ig Nobel Prize founder visits Hokkaido University for special discussion event