10/3/2012, 8:00 pm
Here is the list of the winners with a breakdown of their glorious achievements:
PSYCHOLOGY PRIZE
Anita Eerland and Rolf Zwaan from The Netherlands and Tulio Guadalupe from Peru won for research indicating that "Leaning to the Left Makes the Eiffel Tower Seem Smaller." There was a mock-up of the Eiffel Tower at the ceremony. I could not tell if the model seemed smaller when I leaned to the left as opposed to the right. (I must interject my disclaimer over this finding that correct thinking would suggest that such a finding is counterintuitive. Clearly, we all know that viewing objects from the left makes the object much larger and far more significant than when viewing it from the right.)
PEACE PRIZE
The Russian SKN Company won the Peace Prize for converting old Russian ammunition into new diamonds. I want to know these people better...
ACOUSTICS PRIZE
Kazutaka Kurihara and Koji Tsukada of Japan won for creating the SpeechJammer. This is a machine that disrupts a person's speech by making them hear their own spoken words at a very slight delay. There was an extremely cool demonstration involving a Nobel laureate and a Shakespeare reading.
NEUROSCIENCE PRIZE
U.S. scientists Craig Bennett, Abigail Baird, Michael Miller, and George Wolford won the Ig Nobel Neuroscience award for revealing brain researchers, using complicated instruments and simple statistics, can see meaningful brain activity anywhere -- even in a dead salmon. The goal was to use humor and possibly humiliation to get researchers to apply statistics in a meaningful fashion. I believe they succeeded. Sadly, salmon lost their lives to achieve this goal.
CHEMISTRY PRIZE
Johan Pettersson (Sweden and Rwanda) solved the puzzle of why your blonde hair might turn green in certain houses in the town of Anderslöv, Sweden. The solution involved taking cold showers, so I imagine many people have green hair in this community.
LITERATURE PRIZE The U.S. Government General Accountability Office won this award for reporting about reports about reports. No one appeared to accept the prize.
PHYSICS PRIZE
U.S. researchers Joseph Keller and Raymond Goldstein and Patrick Warren and Robin Ball (UK) earned the prize for calculating the balance of forces that shape and move the hair in a human ponytail. Basically, they explained why ponytails swish from side to side even though joggers bounce up and down.
FLUID DYNAMICS PRIZE
U.S. scientists Rouslan Krechetnikov and Hans Mayer won the 2012 Ig Nobel Prize for studying the dynamics of liquid-sloshing. Specifically, they described the events that occur when a person walks and carries a cup of coffee.
ANATOMY PRIZE
Frans de Waal (The Netherlands) and Jennifer Pokorny (United States) discovered chimpanzees can identify other chimps from photographs of their rears.
MEDICINE PRIZE
Emmanuel Ben-Soussan and Michel Antonietti from France earned the Ig Nobel prize in medicine educating doctors performing colonoscopies how to minimize the chance of causing explosions. Who knew you could explode during this procedure?
https://chemistry.about.com/b/2012/09/21/winner-of-the-2012-ig-nobel-prize-winners-list.htm
PSYCHOLOGY PRIZE
Anita Eerland and Rolf Zwaan from The Netherlands and Tulio Guadalupe from Peru won for research indicating that "Leaning to the Left Makes the Eiffel Tower Seem Smaller." There was a mock-up of the Eiffel Tower at the ceremony. I could not tell if the model seemed smaller when I leaned to the left as opposed to the right. (I must interject my disclaimer over this finding that correct thinking would suggest that such a finding is counterintuitive. Clearly, we all know that viewing objects from the left makes the object much larger and far more significant than when viewing it from the right.)
PEACE PRIZE
The Russian SKN Company won the Peace Prize for converting old Russian ammunition into new diamonds. I want to know these people better...
ACOUSTICS PRIZE
Kazutaka Kurihara and Koji Tsukada of Japan won for creating the SpeechJammer. This is a machine that disrupts a person's speech by making them hear their own spoken words at a very slight delay. There was an extremely cool demonstration involving a Nobel laureate and a Shakespeare reading.
NEUROSCIENCE PRIZE
U.S. scientists Craig Bennett, Abigail Baird, Michael Miller, and George Wolford won the Ig Nobel Neuroscience award for revealing brain researchers, using complicated instruments and simple statistics, can see meaningful brain activity anywhere -- even in a dead salmon. The goal was to use humor and possibly humiliation to get researchers to apply statistics in a meaningful fashion. I believe they succeeded. Sadly, salmon lost their lives to achieve this goal.
CHEMISTRY PRIZE
Johan Pettersson (Sweden and Rwanda) solved the puzzle of why your blonde hair might turn green in certain houses in the town of Anderslöv, Sweden. The solution involved taking cold showers, so I imagine many people have green hair in this community.
LITERATURE PRIZE The U.S. Government General Accountability Office won this award for reporting about reports about reports. No one appeared to accept the prize.
PHYSICS PRIZE
U.S. researchers Joseph Keller and Raymond Goldstein and Patrick Warren and Robin Ball (UK) earned the prize for calculating the balance of forces that shape and move the hair in a human ponytail. Basically, they explained why ponytails swish from side to side even though joggers bounce up and down.
FLUID DYNAMICS PRIZE
U.S. scientists Rouslan Krechetnikov and Hans Mayer won the 2012 Ig Nobel Prize for studying the dynamics of liquid-sloshing. Specifically, they described the events that occur when a person walks and carries a cup of coffee.
ANATOMY PRIZE
Frans de Waal (The Netherlands) and Jennifer Pokorny (United States) discovered chimpanzees can identify other chimps from photographs of their rears.
MEDICINE PRIZE
Emmanuel Ben-Soussan and Michel Antonietti from France earned the Ig Nobel prize in medicine educating doctors performing colonoscopies how to minimize the chance of causing explosions. Who knew you could explode during this procedure?
https://chemistry.about.com/b/2012/09/21/winner-of-the-2012-ig-nobel-prize-winners-list.htm