The radio program Audacious with Chion Wolf [on Connecticut Public Radio] took a joyous, 50-minute adventure ride into the world of the Ig Nobel Prizes. Listen to it online: “Laugh and then think: What it’s like to win the Ig Nobel Prize” Here’s the Audacious summary of what you’ll hear: Almost 1000 people have won […]
Paper-Airplane-Throwing is a gleeful tradition in the Ig Nobel Prize ceremony. You or your institution can submit a video to be included in the 2022 ceremony — The deadline for that is July 31, 2022. We especially welcome schools and libraries (feel free to display your school or library name blatantly, if you wish!). Have […]
Vfacts produced this ten-minute video titled “Bra Masks And Top 7 Funniest Ig Nobel Prizes That Will Make You Shut Up!!!”:
In the hands of a scientist, musical instruments can do many sorts of things. This study tells how some instruments can be used to distinguish between different kinds of physical materials. “Musical Instruments as Sensors,” Heran C. Bhakta, Vamsi K. Choday, and William H. Grover, ACS Omega, vol. 3, 2018, pp. 11026−11032. The authors, at […]
If you are reading this on a smartphone, please monitor your sighing activity. As you read, and as you sigh, consider the details presented in the following study: “Reading on a Smartphone Affects Sigh Generation, Brain Activity, and Comprehension,” Motoyasu Honma, Yuri Masaoka, Natsuko Iizuka, Sayaka Wada, Sawa Kamimura, Akira Yoshikawa, Rika Moriya, Shotaro Kamijo, […]
The mystery of spice-induced lip tingling succumbed, partially, to investigation in the year 2013. Details are in this study: “Food Vibrations: Asian Spice Sets Lips Trembling,” Nobuhiro Hagura, Harry Barber, and Patrick Haggard, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, vol. 280, no. 1770, 2013: 20131680. The authors, at University College London, report: Szechuan […]
‘Struth, it is, that Struth is a co-author of this essay that deals with strategies for proving truths: “Proof Strategies,” Moller and Georg Struth [pictured here], in the book Modelling Computing Systems, pp. 131-154. Springer, London, 2013. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-84800-322-4_6
The Ig Nobel Prizes exhibition in Taiwan has begun! The exhibition opened on June 25, and runs through September 11, 2022. It’s at the National Taiwan Science Education Center, in Taipei.
The ceremony web page tells how to make your paper-plane-throwing video, and submit it.
Sit down, if you can, and read this study about what it takes to get a folding plastic chair to the point where you can sit in it: “A study of design demand of applying quality function deployment in plastic folding chairs,” Chun Tung Chen, Applied Mechanics and Materials, vol. 284, pp. 3632-3636. The author, […]