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BOSTON—If you always thought there was something oddly
intelligent about that slime slithering across your
garden, you can rest assured that your hunch is
supported by award-winning scientific research.
And if
it crossed your mind that you could go to a strip club,
observe lap dancers up close, call it research and win
an award to boot, a career in science may be for you.
But
don’t attempt to use a Coca-Cola douche to avoid
pregnancy. New prize-winning research shows Coke does
kill sperm, but not quickly enough.
These
are real research projects and the award that applauds
them for their absurdity is the infamous Ig Nobel,
handed out Thursday in a zany ceremony at Harvard
University to honor published, peer-reviewed research
that seems to take science too far.
 Ten
studies in all were feted in a ceremony that featured
renowned scientists, real Nobel winners and Ig Nobel
awardees from all over the world.
The
ceremony is led by its mastermind, Marc Abrahams,
publisher of the Annals of Improbable Research,
and includes a cast of dozens of costumed scientists,
musicians and assistants ranging in age from 8 to 84.
“If you
didn’t win an Ig Nobel prize tonight—and especially if
you did—better luck next year,” Abrahams told the crowd.
The
Nobel Laureates who took part in the rowdy ceremony
included Jerome Friedman (Physics, 1990), Roy Glauber
(Physics, 2005), Dudley Herschbach (Chemistry, 1986) and
William Lipscomb (Chemistry, 1976).
Lipscomb, dressed like most in a white laboratory coat,
handed out the Ig Nobel prizes, along with help in the
form of a dummy likeness of fellow Nobel winner Frank
Wilczek (Physics, 2004), toted around by his daughter,
Mira.
Brent
Jordan and Geoffrey Miller of the University of New
Mexico won the Ig Nobel Economics prize for discovering
that lap dancers make better tips when they are
ovulating. Each winning team was allowed 60 seconds for
an acceptance speech.
“Scientists can learn a lot from lap dancers,” Jordan
said in accepting his prize in front of the boisterous
crowd.
Deborah
Anderson, of Boston University Medical School, tried to
explain what compelled her to study the effectiveness of
Coca-Cola as a form of birth control, published in the
New England Journal of Medicine.
“Our
seminal paper,” she began, was inspired by a practice in
vogue by girls attending a Catholic boarding school in
Puerto Rico. “Coca-Cola does kill sperm in one minute,”
but that is not fast enough, she reported. “So we don’t
advocate douching with Coke for contraception.”
The two
human “V-chip monitors,” whose job it was to intervene
in case of any distasteful subject matter, did not allow
a demonstration of the birth control method.
C.Y.
Hong, of Taipei Medical University in Taiwan, also
tested Coke and came to the same conclusion. His
daughter, Wan Hong accepted the Ig Nobel.
“I am 24
and it was precisely in 1984 that they tried it,” she
said.
Toshiyuki Nakagaki, of Hokkaido University in Japan, and
two colleagues accepted an Ig Nobel for their study,
“Maze-solving by an Amoeboid Organism,” published in the
prestigious journal Nature, about whether slime molds
could indeed solve puzzles.
The
three walked to the podium and sang their acceptance
speech, while a cartoon was projected on a large screen
behind them of a Rubik’s cube being stared down by a
slime mold.
“I’m
happy to be rid of it,” Nakagaki told Inter Press
Service (IPS) later, and it was unclear if he was
referring to the study or to the award.
Ig
Nobels were also awarded to: Brazilian researchers who
studied the impact of a large armadillo on an
archeological dig; Italian researchers for a study of
whether a crunchy sound enhances the perceived
crispiness of a potato chip; French researchers who
discovered that fleas on dogs jump higher than fleas on
cats; US researchers who found that high-priced fake
medicines work better than low-priced fake medicines; US
researchers who used math to prove that string and hair
will knot spontaneously; a British researcher for his
research on indignation within organizations, that
resulted in a book titled You Bastard: A Narrative
Exploration; and to the Swiss for adopting a legal
principle that plants have dignity.
“Have
you ever forgotten to water a plant and had to throw it
away? Did that make you feel uneasy? Our law is for
you,” said Urs Thurnherr, of the Swiss Federal Ethics
Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology.
A
highlight of the evening was the “Win a date with a
Nobel Laureate contest,” in which a supposedly
unsuspecting female, always attractive and young, is
chosen to go on a date with Lipscomb, 84.
Two
“human spotlights,” covered hair-to-toe in silver paint,
highlighted the winner.
The
evening also showcased a three-part mini-opera, about
redundancy.
The
audience directly participated in the ceremony by
throwing hundreds of paper airplanes at the stage, an Ig
Nobel tradition that was disallowed by Harvard
University in the six years following the September 11
attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, for
security reasons, they said.
By the
middle of the ceremony, Abrahams had a paper airplane
lodged in his rumpled top hat. Asked later whether his
display was out of happiness that airplane-throwing was
nearly back to normal, he told IPS: “I’m all giddy.”
High
drama had kicked off the ceremony when Dan Meyer, a
professional sword swallower and subject of a past Ig
Nobel award, came on stage and gulped down a large
sheath, then removed it gracefully with a flourish. |
