This week the Ig Nobel Prizes made another appearance on the Jeopardy! TV game show, this time as an answer. It refers to the 2011 Ig Nobel Chemistry Prize, which honored the inventor who tried to determine the ideal density of airborne wasabi (pungent horseradish) to awaken sleeping people in case of a fire or other […]
The National Museum of Scotland includes in its vast collection this item, number T.2012.28: Description Fire alarm for waking deaf people by nasal irritation with synthesized wasabi, awarded 2011 Ig Nobel prize in chemistry, designed by Makoto Imai, Naoki Urushihata, Hideki Tanemura, Yukinobu Tajima, Hideaki Goto, Koichiro Mizoguchi and Junichi Murakami, Japan, 2012 Inventor Makoto Imai himself […]
An historically pungent press conference occurred at the Japan National Press Club in Tokyo on October 26. Several of the co-inventors of the wasabi alarm, joined by several of their business associates, discussed the importance of their work and the import of being awarded the 2011 Ig Nobel Prize in chemistry. [The prize was awarded, […]
The Japan Times reports: Team behind wasabi smoke detector reveals their long road to triumph By JUN HONGO, Staff writer Genius, as Thomas Edison put it, may be 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration, but inventing the groundbreaking wasabi-scented smoke detector also involved respiration, and literally a lot of lost sleep, the winners of this […]