Ig Nobel Prizes Take a Lighter Look at Science

Pee pressure, beer bottle-humping beetles and a wasabi-flavored fire alarm were among the top prizes awarded at Harvard University’s 21st Annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony, a more laid back version of the Nobel Prize ceremony. Nobel Prize laureates present the Ig Nobels to scientists and philosophers who have made legitimate contributions toward the sillier side of science.

Top honors in literature went to a researcher who 15 years ago wrote a paper about procrastination. Waiting a ridiculous amount of time before honoring the man is indicative of the Ig Nobel prizes. His theory holds that even the best procrastinator can successfully execute a complex task if he believes that he is working on it to avoid an even greater task.

Stanford University philosophy professor John Perry says, “To be a high achiever, always work on something important, using it as a way to avoid doing something that’s even more important.”

A Japanese team decided that during an emergency people would much rather be awoken or alerted using a fire alarm that produces the horseradishy smell of wasabi rather than a blaring sound. They won the Ig Nobel Chemistry prize for determining the correct and patent-pending density for airborne wasabi, a feat fit for a sushi restaurateur.

A group from the beer-swilling nations of Australia, Canada, the U.K. and the U.S. stumbled upon a species of beetle that is convinced it can mate with beer bottles. And not just a particular brand either.

The male jewel beetle likes the look of short, brown beer bottles, commonly called stubbies. He often mistakes them for females. Sorry St. Pauli Girl.

Another Ig Nobel prize went to an international team from Europe, the U.S. and Australia who tested the idea that people with an overwhelming need to urinate make decisions differently. During their full-blattered research they discovered that those in greatest need to relieve themselves actually exhibited the same level of clarity as a drunk person. One of the papers is titled “Inhibitory Spillover.” (PDF) Just don’t hold it and drive.

Finally, the Math prize went to a group of people predicting the Apocolypse, including Dorothy Martin of the USA (who predicted the world would end in 1954), Pat Robertson of the USA (who predicted the world would end in 1982), Elizabeth Clare Prophet of the USA (who predicted the world would end in 1990), Lee Jang Rim of KOREA (who predicted the world would end in 1992), Credonia Mwerinde of UGANDA (who predicted the world would end in 1999), and Harold Camping of the USA (who predicted the world would end on September 6, 1994 and later predicted that the world will end again on October 21, 2011). They won the prize “for teaching the world to be careful when making mathematical assumptions and calculations.”

The Nobel laureates who physically handed the Ig Nobel Prizes to the new winners:

Dudley Herschbach (chemistry, 1986)
Rich Roberts (physiology or medicine, 1993)
Roy Glauber (physics, 2005)
Eric Maskin (economics, 2007)
Peter Diamond (economics, 2010)
Louis Ignarro, (physiology or medicine, 1998)

Cover Photo: Arturas Zuokas, the mayor of Vilnius, Lithuania and winner of the Ig Nobel Peace Prize for demonstrating that the problem of illegally parked luxury cars can be solved by running them over with an armored tank.