SoT 74: The 2012 Ig Nobel Prizes

October 3, 2012

Download Now!Hosts: Ed Brown, Dr. Shayne Joseph, Penny Dumsday, Dr. Maia Sauren.

The Ig Nobel Prizes honour achievements that first make us laugh, then make us think. We take a look at this year’s winners: from ponytails to reports about reports about reports.

Psychology prize: Lean a little to the left, do I look shorter to you?
Peace prize: Ammo is a girl’s best friend?
Acoustics prize: The SpeechJammer. The shut up machine for the passive aggressive.
Neuroscience prize: Scanning Dead Salmon in fMRI Machine Highlights Risk of Red Herrings
Chemistry prize: Why Did Hair Turn Green for Residents of a Certain Town?
Literature prize: I think we need another report.
Physics prize: Like How Your Hair Hangs? Praise the Laws of Physics
Fluid dynamics prize: Physicists Dive into Oscillation Frequency of Coffee
Anatomy prize: Chimps can recognise friends by their behinds
Medicine prize: When people explode during colonoscopies

 

Rolf Zwaan and Anita Eerland could not travel to Harvard to collect the Ig Nobel Prize For  Psychology for their study “Leaning to the Left Makes the Eiffel Tower Seem Smaller“. They were busy getting married!
Their co-winner Tulio Guadalupe did travel to the Ig Nobel ceremony, where he accepted the prize for the trio.
Image: Anja Euser, via Improbable.com

Dr. Maia Sauren is an electrical engineer. She recently completed a PhD looking at the anatomic differences in people’s heads, and how those affect whether they’re safe while using mobile phones.

Download here. Duration: [0:43:04]