Anyone seeking distraction can find it in this documentary video, “Project Grizzly.” See Troy Hurtubise in his self-mythic quest to personally build and test a suit of armor that he hopes will let him spend time with grizzly bears. Troy was awarded the Ig Nobel Prize for safety engineering, in 1998, for the work documented […]
Category: Improbable Investigators
People who do research that males people LAUGH, then THINK.
Mathematics and the end of the world, predictably
A prize-winning profession confidently confronts a new challenge. Some professionals—professionals who professionally calculate a date on which the world will end—have calculated that the COVID-19 pandemic is not a goodbye-everyone harbinger. The Washington Post reports, on March 17, 2020: This is not the end of the world, according to Christians who study the end of […]
Michael Milken, First Winner (in 1991) of the Ig Nobel Economics Prize, Pardoned
Michael Milken, the very first winner of the Ig Nobel Economics Prize, was pardoned today by the current President of the United States, Donald Trump. The 1991 Ig Nobel Prize for economics was awarded to “Michael Milken, titan of Wall Street and father of the junk bond, to whom the world is indebted”. Fox Business […]
Forensic professor news: Piano-sentence and Poker/Rock/Scissors
El Espagnol reports “The rocambolesque story of the psychiatrist who ‘scammed’ the US and was sentenced to play the piano“. The news article begins [here machine-translated from Spanish to English]: An American psychiatrist has recently been reprimanded by the US Government Office of Integrity in Research, after having already been convicted. His crime: steal several […]
The special Ig Nobel issue of the magazine
The magazine’s special Ig Nobel issue (vol. 25, no. 6) shows and tells all about the 2019 Ig Nobel Prize winners and the 29th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony, and also the opera (“Creatures of Habit”) that premiered as part of the ceremony). Read some of the articles online. You can buy the entire […]
The dead are rising up against their national leaders
Led by Ig Nobel Prize winner Lal Bihari, the dead are rising up against their national leaders. Here’s a look back at notable happenings in 2019. The Times of India reported, on January 19, 2019: In Varanasi, ‘living dead’ to contest against PM Modi If Prime Minister Narendra Modi decides to contest the upcoming Lok […]
“How Did Bulgaria Get to the Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony?”
The Bulgarian bTV network asks and answers the question “How Did Bulgaria Get to the Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony?” Their November 28, 2019 report profiles Ig Nobel Prize winner Herbert Crepaz. The report begins with the statement “The winner of the Ig Nobel Prize in Biology is an Austrian who lives in our country.” Magnetic […]
“The most viewed medical video in the world” [sex in an MRI]
French medical journalist Marc Gozlan reminds us that the most viewed article in the history of the British Medical Journal led to the creation of what became “The most viewed medical video in the world“. Here is that video: Where did that come from? Here’s the story of how that video came to be, and […]
The once-criticized excellent research adventures of David Hu
Two-time [2015 and 2019] Ig Nobel Physics Prize winner David Hu has already had more pubic adventures because of his research—including being attacked in print by a U.S. senator—than most scientists get in a lifetime. Good things, for him and for the world, have come from that. Some of those good things initially looked, to […]
Announcing the 2019 Ig Nobel Prize Winners
The 2019 Ig Nobel Prizes were awarded at the 29th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony, on Thursday, September 12, 2019, at Harvard’s Sanders Theatre. The ceremony was webcast. The 2019 Ig Nobel Prize winners MEDICINE PRIZE [ITALY, THE NETHERLANDS] Silvano Gallus, for collecting evidence that pizza might protect against illness and death, if the […]