Ig Nobel Prizes

[Wolfe, Skip]

I thought those interested in taking a brief break from _GR_ might enjoy the 
following summary.  Those who were also here for the popular and 
controversial "Sokal thread" several months ago may want to skip straight to 
the Literature award . . .
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1996-10-04      The 1996 Ig Nobel Prizewinners

Here are the winners of the 1996 Ig Nobel Prizes, presented at the
Sixth First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony, held at Sanders
Theater, Harvard University on Thursday evening, October 3, 1996.
The Prizes were handed out by genuine Nobel Laureates Dudley
Herschbach, William Lipscomb, and others.

The Prizes honor people whose achievements "cannot or should not
be reproduced."

This year's ceremony featured the world premiere of "Lament
Del Cockroach," a mini-opera starring mezzo-sopranos Margot
McLaughlin and scientist/Supermodel Symmetra as cockroaches and
the Nobel Laureates as insects eager to mate. At the opera's
conclusion, a meteorite from Mars eradicated the roaches while
three plants sang Handel's  Hallelujah Chorus ("Hallelujah!
Hallelujah! Hallelujah!  The roaches are gone!") and Earth's other
life forms danced the macarena.


Here are the 1996 Ig Nobel Prize winners:

BIOLOGY  Anders Baerheim and Hogne Sandvik of the University of
Bergen, Norway, for their tasty and tasteful report, "Effect of
Ale, Garlic, and Soured Cream on the Appetite of Leeches." [The
report was published in "British Medical Journal," vol. 309, Dec
24-31, 1994, p. 1689.] Drs. Baerheim and Sandvik sent a videotaped
acceptance speech, and watched the ceremony live on the Internet.

MEDICINE  James Johnston of R.J. Reynolds, Joseph Taddeo of U.S.
Tobaccco, Andrew Tisch of Lorillard, William Campbell of Philip
Morris, and the late Thomas E. Sandefur, Jr., chairman of Brown
and Williamson Tobacco Co. for their unshakable discovery, as
testified before the US Congress, that nicotine is not addictive.

PHYSICS  Robert Matthews of Aston University, England, for his
studies of Murphy's Law, and especially for demonstrating that
toast always falls on the buttered side. [The report, "Tumbling
toast, Murphy's Law and the fundamental constants" was published
in "European Journal of Physics," vol.16, no.4, July 18, 1995, p.
172-6.] Professor Matthews sent an audiotaped acceptance speech.

PEACE  Jacques Chirac, President of France, for commemorating the
fiftieth anniversary of Hiroshima with atomic bomb tests in the
Pacific.

PUBLIC HEALTH  Ellen Kleist of Nuuk, Greenland and Harald Moi of
Oslo, Norway, for their cautionary medical report "Transmission of
Gonorrhea Through an Inflatable Doll." [The report was published
in "Genitourinary Medicine," vol. 69, no. 4, Aug. 1993, p. 322.]
Dr. Moi traveled from Oslo to Cambridge -- at his own expense --
to accept the Prize. During the trip, Dr. Moi also delivered a
lecture at Harvard Medical School about his achievement.

CHEMISTRY  George Goble of Purdue University, for his blistering,
world record time for igniting a barbeque grill -- three seconds,
using charcoal and liquid oxygen. Professor Goble's colleague Joe
Cychosz traveled to Cambridge to accept the Prize.

BIODIVERSITY  Chonosuke Okamura of the Okamura Fossil Laboratory
in Nagoya, Japan, for discovering the fossils of dinosaurs,
horses, dragons, princesses, and more than 1000 other extinct
"mini-species," each of which is less than 1/100 of an inch in
length. [For details see the series "Reports of the Okamura Fossil
Laboratory," published by the Okamura Fossil Laboratory in Nagoya,
Japan during the 1970s and 1980s.]

LITERATURE  The editors of the journal "Social Text," for eagerly
publishing research that they could not understand, that the
author said was meaningless, and which claimed that reality does
not exist. [The paper was "Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a
Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity," Alan Sokal,
"Social Text," Spring/Summer 1996, pp. 217-252.]

ECONOMICS  Dr. Robert J. Genco of the University of Buffalo for
his discovery that "financial strain is a risk indicator for
destructive periodontal disease."

ART  Don Featherstone of Fitchburg, Massachusetts, for his
ornamentally evolutionary invention, the plastic pink flamingo.
Mr. Featherstone traveled to Cambridge to accept the Prize.

The ceremony also included an auction of plaster casts of the left
feet of four Nobel Laureates, and several tributes to the concept
of "Biodiversity." Thirteen-year old Kate Eppers, spokesperson for
the Committee for Bacterial Rights, said:

"We live in a diverse society. Our biggest ethnic groups are not
the Asians, the Africans or the Caucasians. Our biggest ethnic
groups are the Bacteria. I used to wash my hands every day. My mom
made me. But then I learned about ethnic cleansing. Every time you
wash your hands, you wipe out billions and billions of Bacteria.
That's not fair. Bacteria have rights, too. So let's be grown-ups
about this. When mom asks you to wash your hands, just say No."

Further details -- including shocking photos -- will be posted in
our web site (http://www.improb.com) during the coming months.