This entrancing, well-researched article tells what happened to and because of scientist Saul Justin Newman after he was awarded an Ig Nobel Prize in 2024. You could sum up what happened in just two words: people noticed. But it’s more fun, and more eye-opening and enlightening, to read the juicy (yet judiciously told) details.
The article is called Demographers at War — Fake centenarians, faulty data, junk science, and contested “blue zones”. Kerry Howley researched and wrote it, then published it in New York magazine.
PS. Saul Newman will be part of an Ig Nobel show at the Royal Institution in London, on Sunday evening, April 6. Come talk with him!