PSA: The Ig Noble Prizes
Thursday, 6 October 2005 05:28 pmTonight's the night of the Ig Nobles. The webcast starts at 7:15 Eastern Time (Note Edit from 7:30).
What, you may ask, are the Ig Noble Prizes? Each year, ten Ig Nobel Prizes are awarded. The selection criterion is simple. The prizes are for "achievements that cannot or should not be reproduced."
Previous winners include Don Featherstone (Ig Nobel Art Prize, 1996), the creator of the plastic pink flamingo, and James Gundlach and Steven Stack (Ig Nobel in Medicine, 2004), who did a study suggesting that country music music seems to increase people's risk of suicide.
Some of my favourites among Ig Nobles include these studies that definitely should not be reproduced:
"Jacques Benveniste (Ig Nobel Chemistry Prize, 1991 and 1998) and his discoveries that water molecules remember things and that the memories can be transmitted over telephone lines; for Louis Kervran (Ig Nobel Physics Prize, 1993) and his discovery that the calcium in chickens' eggshells is created by a process of cold fusion; for Shigeru Watanabe, Junko Sakamoto, and Masumi Wakita (Ig Nobel Psychology Prize, 1995) and their achievement in training pigeons to discriminate between the paintings of Picasso and those of Monet."
I have no idea if it makes good video; I've never watched them before. But, I intend to tonight!
What, you may ask, are the Ig Noble Prizes? Each year, ten Ig Nobel Prizes are awarded. The selection criterion is simple. The prizes are for "achievements that cannot or should not be reproduced."
Previous winners include Don Featherstone (Ig Nobel Art Prize, 1996), the creator of the plastic pink flamingo, and James Gundlach and Steven Stack (Ig Nobel in Medicine, 2004), who did a study suggesting that country music music seems to increase people's risk of suicide.
Some of my favourites among Ig Nobles include these studies that definitely should not be reproduced:
"Jacques Benveniste (Ig Nobel Chemistry Prize, 1991 and 1998) and his discoveries that water molecules remember things and that the memories can be transmitted over telephone lines; for Louis Kervran (Ig Nobel Physics Prize, 1993) and his discovery that the calcium in chickens' eggshells is created by a process of cold fusion; for Shigeru Watanabe, Junko Sakamoto, and Masumi Wakita (Ig Nobel Psychology Prize, 1995) and their achievement in training pigeons to discriminate between the paintings of Picasso and those of Monet."
I have no idea if it makes good video; I've never watched them before. But, I intend to tonight!