Armadillos Inspire Ig Nobel Winners
October 03, 2008
There is no Nobel Prize for Archaeology, but Brazilian archaeologists Astolfo Gomes de Mello Araujo and Jose Carlos Marcelino have at least won an Ig Nobel.
Awarded on Thursday at Harvard University by the Annals of Improbable Research magazine, Ig Nobels showcase the humorous side of research, rewarding those studies that "first make people laugh, and then make them think".
The two Brazilians demostrated that that armadillos can change the course of history by turning the contents of an archaeological dig upside down.
Other winners last night included researches that showed coca cola was an effective spermicide; and that fleas on dogs jump higher than fleas on cats. Here is the full list of winners:
NUTRITION: Massimiliano Zampini and Charles Spence for demonstrating that food actually tastes better if it sounds crunchier.
PEACE: The Swiss Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology and the citizens of Switzerland for adopting the legal principle that plants have dignity.
ARCHAEOLOGY: Astolfo Gomes de Mello Araujo and Jose Carlos Marcelino for showing armadillos can scramble the contents of an archaeological dig.
BIOLOGY: Marie-Christine Cadiergues, Christel Joubert and Michel Franc for discovering that fleas that live on a dog can jump higher than fleas that live on a cat.
MEDICINE: Dan Ariely for demonstrating that expensive fake medicine is more effective than cheap fake medicine.
COGNITIVE SCIENCE: Toshiyuki Nakagaki, Hiroyasu Yamada, Ryo Kobayashi, Atsushi Tero, Akio Ishiguro and Agota Toth for discovering that slime molds can solve puzzles.
ECONOMICS: Geoffrey Miller, Joshua Tyber and Brent Jordan for discovering that exotic dancers earn more when at peak fertility.
PHYSICS: Dorian Raymer and Douglas Smith for proving that heaps of string or hair will inevitably tangle.
CHEMISTRY: Sheree Umpierre, Joseph Hill and Deborah Anderson for discovering that Coca-Cola is an effective spermicide, and C.Y. Hong, C.C. Shieh, P. Wu and B.N. Chiang for proving it is not.
LITERATURE: David Sims for his study "You Bastard: A Narrative Exploration of the Experience of Indignation within Organizations."
Your story on the "Ancient Peru Pyramid Spotted by Satellite" at http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/10/03/peru-cahuachi.html is very interesting, but seems to contain a massive sub-editing error that I expect needs correction.
Surely the result was not actually "a detailed visualization of a pyramid extending over a 9,000-square-mile area." My guess is it's 900m2 (i.e. meters squared), but then the quoted base measurements "300-by-328-foot base" are questionable too.
I'd be interested to know the correct dimensions.
Posted by: AJ | October 04, 2008 at 09:35 PM