A new mini-opera called “The Know-It-All Club” will premiere as part of the 32nd First Annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony, on Thursday, September 15, 2022. The theme of the 2022 ceremony, evinced in the opera and other bits, is: Knowledge. The ceremony will be webcast. You can watch it here at http://www.improbable.com The opera plot: Every […]
“Tracking the Air Exhaled by an Opera Singer” [by Philippe Bourrianne, Paul R. Kaneelil, Manouk Abkarian, and Howard A. Stone, Physical Review Fluids, vol. 6, no. 11, 2021] is one of the studies featured in “Viruses Research Review: Group Sex, Singer, Saint, Count“, which is a featured article in the special Viruses and Pandemics issue […]
The airflow from a trained opera singer has been studied intensively. It led to this video, a year ago, and now to a published study (and a new video, too). The study is “Tracking the Air Exhaled by an Opera Singer,” Philippe Bourrianne, Paul R. Kaneelil, Manouk Abkarian, and Howard A. Stone, Physical Review Fluids, […]
The theme of the 2021 Ig Nobel Prize ceremony, evinced in the opera and other bits, is ENGINEERING. The ceremony will include the premiere of a new mini-opera called “A Bridge Between People”. The crude drawing you see here summarizes the opera’s plot.
The opera “Dream, Little Cockroach” premiered as part of the 30th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony, on September 17, 2020. Here’s video of the opera, by itself. Plot summary: A man dreams that, although he was always a cockroach, he has been transformed into a human being. His family, and scientists, and the whole […]
Which (opera) singers tend to live longer – sopranos, contraltos, tenors or basses? This question was formally investigated in 2011 by researchers Abel EL, Kruger MM and Pandya K. of the Departments of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Psychology, Wayne State University, Detroit, US. Pertinent answers may be found in : Sopranos but not tenors live […]
Every Ig Nobel Prize ceremony since 1996 has included a new mini-opera, performed by professional opera singers (with Nobel Laureates acting in supporting roles). These mini-operas honor the tradition of the classic Bugs Bunny cartoons “What’s Opera, Doc?” and “Rabbit of Seville“—each mini-opera is a pasticcio that marries a brand new story & words to beloved […]
The All-Meat Diet was fictional when it was the centerpiece of “The Atkins Diet Opera” in 2004. Now someone is promoting the All-Meat Diet as a real diet for real people to follow. That someone is Mikhaila Peterson. Stephanie Lee reports, in Buzzfeed: Mikhaila Peterson, 26, is now making money off a new kind of […]
The New York Times reports, on May 30, 2018: Big Banks to Get Reprieve from Volcker Rule Big banks are getting a big reprieve from a post-crisis rule aimed at curbing risky behavior on Wall Street. Federal bank regulators on Wednesday unveiled a sweeping plan to soften the Volcker Rule, opening the door for banks […]
Biologist Dakota McCoy, (seen here performing with a tray of drinks in hand, in “The Incompetence Opera,” part of the Ig Nobel Prize ceremony) has a new study about color in birds. McCoy, together with colleagues Teresa Feo, Todd Alan Harvey, and Richard O. Prum, published “Structural absorption by barbule microstructures of super black bird of paradise feathers,” […]