The organizers of the Ig Nobel Prize ceremony solved an ancient problem: How to keep speeches from droning on and on… The solution, called “Miss Sweetie Poo”, is an 8-year-old girl who tells long-winded speakers to “Please stop. I’m bored. Please stop. I’m bored…” Here are Miss Sweetie Poo highlights from several Ig ceremonies.
About: Julia Lunetta
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Posts by Julia Lunetta:
Improbable Webmaster at Balticon
Julia Lunetta, aka the “Improbable Webmaster” will be appearing this weekend at Balticon, a science and sci-fi convention in Baltimore, Maryland. She will be speaking on her decade-plus experience as a minordomo for the Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony, and some of the various trials, tribulations, and hilarity that has come about as a result. The […]
Improbable Research Collection #128: The 2009 Ig Nobel Prize for Public Health
At the 2009 Ig Nobel Prize ceremony, Public Health Prize winner Dr. Elena Bodnar demonstrates her invention – 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. She is assisted by Nobel laureates […]
The Big Bank Opera (video), redux
As fans of the Ig Nobel Ceremony, opera, and large-scale economic failure may remember, “The Big Bank Opera” premiered as a featured part of the 2009 Ig Nobel Prize ceremony. A few weeks ago, we posted all four acts to YouTube, each as a separate episode (#124-7) of the Improbable Research TV series. The libretto […]
Improbable Research Collection #123
William Lipscomb, the 1976 Nobel laureate in chemistry, is a Kentucky colonel. He is famous for wearing string ties. Here he demonstrates how to tie a string tie. We made this video as part of the celebration for Professor Lipscomb’s upcoming 90th birthday.
Big-Banks/Big-Bang Opera preview
Big Banks and the Big Bang theory combine in these two new episodes (#122 and #121) of the Improbable Research TV series. These were filmed at an early rehearsal of “The Big Bank Opera”. The plot: Stylish bankers in a swanky Wall Street bar explain the explosive rise and fall of big banking and big […]
Improbable Research Collection #121
Here’s the new episode — #121, “Big Bank Opera Rehearsal, Act 1” — of the Improbable Research TV series. The episode depicts an early rehearsal of Act 1 of “The Big Bank Opera”, in which stylish bankers in a swanky Wall Street bar explain the explosive rise and fall of big banking and big bankers. […]
Robot Sex: The Next Big Tourism Draw May Not Be Disease-Free
Ian Yeoman, a tourism futurist, has predicted that robot prostitution could be a tourism draw in the future, perhaps even in the next 50 years. Dr. Yeoman claims that robot sex workers could have advantages such as not passing on sexually-transmitted diseases. However, any budding robo-entrepreneur should perhaps first take a good, long look at […]
Ig Winning software might have prevented porn Arrest
A South Florida man might have avoided arrest had he installed Ig Nobel-winning catproofing software on his computer. According to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, a man’s cat has been implicated in his arrest for having child pornography on his computer. Martin County Sheriff’s detectives didn’t buy it when a 48-year-old Jensen Beach man claimed that […]
Improbable Research Collection #119
Here’s the new episode — #119, “MRI Sex” — of the Improbable Research TV series. Dr. Pek Van Andel, who won an Ig Nobel Prize for making the first MRI images of a couple’s sex organs while those organs were in use, also made a video of the phenomenon. Here, more or less, is the […]