With a spirit somewhat akin to that of Ig Nobel Prize winner Troy (built a suit of armor to protect against grizzly bears) Hurtubise, comes “One man’s dream project to fly from Ireland to Africa by lawnmower gets under way this week“. The story is reported, with that headline, in The Journal: A FEW MONTHS […]
Tag: Ireland
The Mysterious Case of the Loaded Leprechaun
“The [Loaded] Leprechaun has been owned and operated as a private company since its founding in 1948 by the O’Shaughnessy family of Boston, MA. One of the great traditions at the Leprechaun is the ‘Dollar Holler.’ Patrons personalize dollar bills by writing a message or drawing a picture with a permanent marker and then staple […]
A proudly random organization
In Ireland dwells an organization that emphatically, insistently describes itself as being random. They offer this description [presented here only in part]: RANDOM.ORG is a true random number service that generates randomness via atmospheric noise. This page explains how RANDOM.ORG came about back in 1997 and how it has progressed through different stages to the […]
‘The night Dublin dissected an elephant’
Mary Mulvihill did a five-minute talk about ‘The night Dublin dissected an elephant’. It (the night Dublin dissected an elephant — not Mulvihill’s talk!) was was a big, smelly moment in the history of science. Here’s video of her talk: Allen Mullin did the dissection, way back when, in 1681. He described it in a […]
Lithium for the people of Ireland
Gordon Deegan, in The Irish Times, reports (on December 3, 2011): Psychiatrist calls for lithium to be added to water A consultant psychiatrist last night called on Government to add lithium salts to the public water supply in a bid to lower the suicide rate and depression among the general population. At a mental health […]
Irish court ruling notes Ig Nobel aspect
The Irish Times reports today that an Ig Nobel Prize played a peripheral role in a ruling by the High Court: UCC lecturer has sanctions quashed A lecturer at University College Cork has won a High Court order quashing sanctions imposed on him following an inquiry into sexual harassment allegations made by a female colleague […]
Ig Nobel acceptance speech: Driving license
A highlight from the 2009 Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony [AIR 15:6]: Acceptance speech for the 2009 prize for literature [for presenting more than fifty traffic tickets to the most frequent driving offender in the country—Prawo Jazdy—whose name in Polish means “Driving License”] The winner, Ireland’s police service (An Garda Siochana), could not or would not attend the ceremony. […]