Eugenie Scott and I had a fun talk, for an online meeting of the Bay Area Skeptics, about the Ig Nobel Prizes. This happened on June 8, 2023. Here’s video:
Category: Ig Nobel
News about the Ig Nobel Prizes — honoring achievements that make people LAUGH, then THINK.
The invisible-gorilla guys shine a spotlight on con men’s tricks
The Ig Nobel Prize-winning “invisible gorilla” guys have a new book coming out. The book is about con men — about how (1) everyone can get conned, and (2) anyone can learn to not get conned so often. Dan Simons and Chris Chabris‘s new book is called Nobody’s Fool: Why We Get Taken In and […]
Mechanical Engineers’ [ASME] Quiz About the Ig Nobel Prizes
ASME, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, is running a quiz about the Ig Nobel Prizes. Here is their introduction: Quiz: The Ig Nobel Prize and Odd Research Not all research is created equal. Try this quiz on the Ig Nobel Prize that calls out what appears to be silly. The Nobel Prize may be […]
The final recalibration of Ig Nobel Prize winner Pat Robertson
Ig Nobel Prize winner Pat Robertson — who predicted that the world would end in 1982 — died today (June 8, 2023), according to numerous news reports. The 2011 Ig Nobel Mathematics Prize was awarded to: Dorothy Martin of the USA (who predicted the world would end in 1954), Pat Robertson of the USA (who […]
“Shigeru Watanabe Proves Art Is for the Birds”
Nippon.com profiles Ig Nobel Prize winner Shigeru Watanabe. It begins: Japan’s Ig Nobel Prize Winners Monet or Picasso? Japanese Researcher Watanabe Shigeru Proves Art Is for the Birds Keiō University Professor Emeritus Watanabe Shigeru and colleagues won the Ig Nobel Prize in psychology in 1995 for showing that birds can distinguish between different styles of […]
Prozac and the Happiness of Clams (Limerickally)
1998 Ig Nobel Biology Prize — The prize was awarded to Peter Fong of Gettysburg College, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, for contributing to the happiness of clams by giving them Prozac. The research is documented in the study “Induction and Potentiation of Parturition in Fingernail Clams (Sphaerium striatinum) by Selective Serotonin Re-Uptake Inhibitors (SSRIs),” Peter F. Fong, Peter […]
Dead Duck Day is approaching, again
Kees Moeliker reports: Monday June 5th, 2023 is Dead Duck Day again. At exactly 17:55 h (CET) we will honor the mallard duck that collided with the glass facade of the Natural History Museum Rotterdam and became known to science as the first (documented) ‘victim’ of homosexual necrophilia in that species, and earned its discoverer (me) the 2003 Ig Nobel Biology […]
A maybe-haphazard one-from-each-year sampling of Ig Nobel Prize winners
A few of the photos are not the right people, and not all the flags are from the correct countries, but otherwise this video by TopData shows a fun selection of one winner (well some individuals are actually part of a larger team) from each year of the 32 years (so far) of the Ig […]
Religious Devotion, Inspired by Black Goo
In an essay called “Patience Amid Long Experiments“, in the Adventist Review, Justin Kim says “The pitch-drop experiment teaches our faith community some lessons.” Kim goes on to explain: “A parody of the world-famous Nobel Prize, the Ig Nobel Prize was established in 1991 to recognize achievements that first ‘make people laugh, then think.’ In […]
Counting moths
Counting moths is not as easy as it may seem. Jamm Hostetler, and collaborators at the University of Florida’s Natural History Museum, created a system to count moths more indefatigably than most people would be able to do it. It’s called AutoMoth. The heart and eyes of it are an Android app called BioLens. Biolens […]