As we do every year, we once again present the winners of this year’s annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony. This is a real ceremony, sort of like the Nobel Prizes, but whereas the Nobel prizes are for concepts like (this year, for example) quantum dots and attosecond pulses of light, the Ig Nobel Prizes are for things that
1. A regular non-scientist can easily see the practical applications of, and
2. Do not sound like phrases the scientists made up.
“Look, I generated attosecond pulses of light!”
“Fine, here’s a million dollars.”
Who’s gonna argue?
For example, the Psychology Prize this year went to two scientists in the U.S, for experiments on a city street to see how many passersby stop to look upward when they see strangers looking upward.
This works. Try it the next time you’re outside with a bunch of people. Like during Kiddush Levana. Or even on a week that you don’t have to say Kiddush Levana. Just walk out of Ma’ariv on Motzoei Shabbos and look up at the sky and note how many people follow suit.
The researchers did this study in New York City, though, so that’s not fair. I would look up just in case I’m about to be flattened by an air conditioner.
And to be fair, if you see people looking behind you, you’ll also turn around to see what they’re looking at, especially if they say, “Don’t turn around, but…”
As a mesivta Language Arts teacher, I can tell you this is true, because I stand at the front of the classroom and look toward the back of the room, and half the kids at any given point are also looking toward the back of the room. Not the smarter ones. Are they trying to see what I’m looking at? But then when I turn around to look at the board, I have no idea what the kids are looking at. Not the board, I don’t think.
Maybe every classroom should have a plant, like one kid who’s paid to look at the board so that the others do too. To be honest, every classroom does have a few kids who will do that for free, yet it doesn’t work. Maybe because those kids sit up front, so the kids looking back don’t see them.
But not all science is pleasant. Some of it is dirty work, but someone has to do it, and hence the prize.
For example, the prize for Mechanical Engineering this year went to a team of scientists from India, China, Malaysia, and Texas for re-animating dead spiders to use as mechanical gripping tools.
I can’t help but notice that all of these are places that I picture as having giant spiders.
Did you ever notice how when a spider is dead, its legs are usually curled together? Turns out that this is the natural position of the legs, and it takes effort on the spider’s part to keep them apart. Which, if you ask these scientists, makes these spiders the perfect model for a gripping tool. Like in those claw machines at the arcade. Which, like the spiders, can’t actually hold anything worth picking up.
The team found they could glue a hypodermic needle into a strategic location on the spider’s back, apply a puff of compressed air that is just enough not to pop the spider, and cause the spider’s legs to extend outward. Subsequently releasing this pressure allowed the legs to close and grasp objects. They’ve also released a video that may give people nightmares, demonstrating the spider gripper usefully picking up many things, such as—this is true—a second dead spider. This is useful for people who see dead spiders around the house and don’t want to touch them to throw them out, so you take your dead spider and use it to pick up the other dead spider. I mean, you don’t know that one. You don’t know where it’s been. Or whether it’s actually dead or just faking it and its plan is to come back to life when you pick it up. (“No! I was just sleeping!”) But this one you know is dead, or at the very least superglued to a needle.
The spider gripper has countless other uses, most of them pranks.
The scientists say that this invention is good for the environment, because I mean society has countless dead spiders, and frankly we aren’t using a lot of them. What a waste. Finally! A use for dead spiders!
Also the spider bodies are biodegradable. (Though the syringes are not.) They’re very into promoting this as a ma’alah, but biodegradable is not something that people with bad backs are looking for in a gripper.
And speaking of scientists who go where no one has gone before, the prize for Medicine this year went to a team in five countries for, quote, “using cadavers to explore whether there is an equal number of hairs in each of a person’s two nostrils.”
This is important stuff, people.
And it’s not easy. You need a great pair of tweezers or a spider gripper and people who are willing to work in a room that does not have a fan on. Or doors suddenly swinging open.
“What are you doing?!”
“Um… Science?”
But it is important. Hashem created nose hairs to protect you from dangerous objects going in by accident, like when you’re working really close to a dead spider and you breathe in and you’re like, “Where did it go?”
Also, for example, they say this work can be used to help people with alopecia (a condition that causes hair loss), as people with this condition are more susceptible to respiratory infections.
Anyway, now we can make them little sheitels. If people donate.
So the researchers looked into it. (Oy.) And as it turns out, only cadavers will allow you to do this without punching you. You know how there’s a place to write on your license whether you allow scientists to use your body for scientific research? This is the kind of stuff it means.
The only way to do this on live people would be to conduct a study to get people to look up on city streets, and then have a second team quickly run out with flashlights.
Anyway what they found was that most people are not 100% symmetrical. Especially in an unnoticeable way like this. They found that on average, there are 112 hairs in the right nostril and 120 in the left. Leading to a new understanding of the phrase, “L’achar me’ah v’esrim.”
The Geology Prize this year went to scientist Jan Zalasiewicz of Poland for explaining why many geologists like to lick rocks.
This is another thing where someone walks in like, “What are you doing?!” And unlike the looking-upward study, they do not join in.
But apparently, licking rocks is a common thing in the geology community.
“We do it to help the sense of sight,” says Zalasiewicz. “A wet surface shows up the mineral particles better than a dry one.”
There are other ways to get the rocks wet, you know. Like most labs have an eye wash station. You just have to wait your turn behind the guy who just saw you licking rocks.
The conclusion he didn’t want to come to was that people who like licking rocks are more likely to become geologists.
Geologists will also tell you that it’s a good way of telling if something is a rock or a piece of fossilized bone, because the latter will stick to your tongue. It’s not just a good way to get prehistoric diseases.
Archeologists are always annoyed at them for this, I am sure. It all sounds like excuses. I kind of feel like if you’re staring at rocks all day, eventually you’re going to make sure no one’s around and sneak a lick. Just out of curiosity.
And it turns out that they’re actually taught to lick rocks in their training. As well as keep track of which side of the rock they licked and which side their colleagues licked. And to always wear gloves.
I think the practical application is that if you’re ever in the Museum of Natural History, don’t touch the rocks.
And speaking of tasting things, the prize for Nutrition this year went to scientists in Japan “for conducting experiments to determine how electrifying chopsticks can change the taste of food.”
I would say it makes it taste like batteries.
“The taste of food can be changed immediately and reversibly by electrical stimulation,” says Homei Nakamura, who led the study. How exciting! I guess this is going to start appearing in recipes soon, except those that we use for Shabbos.
Imagine telling this recipe to your guests. After their first bite, I would recommend.
She said her recent research had shown that it was possible to enhance the saltiness of foods using electrical stimulation of the tongue. In other words, you can put less salt on the food and just shock the tongue while you’re eating, and you get the salty flavor! This is amazing if you have high blood pressure.
So the researchers fitted some chop sticks with a wire that went to the eater’s wristband. And the results were shocking. As it turns out, the current enhances the food’s saltiness by 1 ½ times. And logic says that to enhance it even more, like for herring, they would just need to up the voltage.
Anyway, there are no negative health ramifications from being shocked. In fact, EMTs use defibrillators to shock patients back to life! So there.
The only downside I could see is that it would affect the mealtime conversation. n
Mordechai Schmutter is a weekly humor columnist for Hamodia and is the author of seven books, published by Israel Book Shop. He also does freelance writing for hire. You can send questions, comments, or ideas to MSchmutter@gmail.com. Read more of Mordechai Schmutter’s articles at 5TJT.com.
