News & Views item - September 2011 |
The
2011 Ig Nobel Prize Winners
Click the image to access the video of the ceremony
Winners were announced and awarded on Thursday night, September 29. The ceremony
was
webcast live. For more information, check
the
ceremony page.
PHYSIOLOGY PRIZE:
Anna Wilkinson (of the UK),
Natalie Sebanz (of THE NETHERLANDS,
HUNGARY, and AUSTRIA), Isabella Mandl (of AUSTRIA) and
Ludwig Huber
(of AUSTRIA) for their study "No
Evidence of Contagious Yawning in the Red-Footed Tortoise."
REFERENCE: 'No Evidence Of Contagious Yawning in the Red-Footed Tortoise
Geochelone carbonaria," Anna Wilkinson, Natalie Sebanz, Isabella Mandl, Ludwig
Huber, Current Zoology, vol. 57, no. 4, 2011. pp. 477-84.
ATTENDING THE CEREMONY: Ludwig Huber
CHEMISTRY PRIZE:
Makoto Imai, Naoki Urushihata, Hideki
Tanemura,
Yukinobu Tajima, Hideaki Goto, Koichiro
Mizoguchi and Junichi Murakami of JAPAN, for determining the ideal density of
airborne wasabi (pungent horseradish) to awaken sleeping people in case of a
fire or other emergency, and for applying this knowledge to invent the wasabi
alarm.
REFERENCE:
US patent application 2010/0308995 A1.
Filing date: Feb 5, 2009.
ATTENDING THE CEREMONY: Makoto Imai, Hideki Tanemura, Yukinobu Tajima, Hideaki
Goto, Koichiro Mizoguchi and Junichi Murakami
MEDICINE PRIZE:
Mirjam Tuk (of THE NETHERLANDS and the UK), Debra Trampe (of THE
NETHERLANDS) and
Luk Warlop (of BELGIUM). and jointly to
Matthew Lewis,
Peter Snyder and
Robert Feldman (of the USA),
Robert Pietrzak,
David Darby, and
Paul Maruff (of AUSTRALIA) for
demonstrating that people make better decisions about some kinds of things — but
worse decisions about other kinds of things‚ when they have a strong urge to
urinate.
REFERENCE: "Inhibitory
Spillover: Increased Urination Urgency Facilitates Impulse Control in Unrelated
Domains," Mirjam A. Tuk, Debra Trampe and Luk Warlop, Psychological
Science, vol. 22, no. 5, May 2011, pp. 627-633.
REFERENCE: "The
Effect of Acute Increase in Urge to Void on Cognitive Function in Healthy Adults,"
Matthew S. Lewis, Peter J. Snyder, Robert H. Pietrzak, David Darby, Robert A.
Feldman, Paul T. Maruff, Neurology and Urodynamics, vol. 30, no. 1, January
2011, pp. 183-7.
ATTENDING THE CEREMONY: Mirjam Tuk, Luk Warlop, Peter Snyder, Robert Feldman,
David Darb
PSYCHOLOGY PRIZE:
Karl Halvor Teigen of the University of
Oslo, NORWAY, for trying to understand why, in everyday life, people sigh.
REFERENCE: "Is
a Sigh 'Just a Sigh'? Sighs as Emotional Signals and Responses to a
Difficult Task," Karl Halvor Teigen, Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, vol.
49, no. 1, 2008, pp. 49–57.
ATTENDING THE CEREMONY: Karl Halvor Teigen
LITERATURE PRIZE:
John
Perry of Stanford University, USA, for his Theory of Structured
Procrastination, which 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.
REFERENCE: "How
to Procrastinate and Still Get Things Done," John Perry, Chronicle of
Higher Education, February 23, 1996. Later republished elsewhere under the title
"Structured Procrastination."
ATTENDING THE CEREMONY: Colleague Deborah Wilkes accepted the prize on behalf of
Professor Perry.
BIOLOGY PRIZE:
Darryl
Gwynne (of CANADA and AUSTRALIA and the UK and the USA) and
David Rentz
(of AUSTRALIA and the USA) for discovering that a certain kind of beetle mates
with a certain kind of Australian beer bottle
REFERENCE: "Beetles
on the Bottle: Male Buprestids Mistake Stubbies for Females (Coleoptera),"
D.T. Gwynne, and D.C.F. Rentz, Journal of the Australian Entomological Society,
vol. 22, , no. 1, 1983, pp. 79-80
REFERENCE: "Beetles on the Bottle," D.T. Gwynne and D.C.F. Rentz, Antenna:
Proceedings (A) of the Royal Entomological Society London, vol. 8, no. 3, 1984,
pp. 116-7.
ATTENDING THE CEREMONY: Darryl Gwynne and David Rentz
PHYSICS PRIZE:
Philippe Perrin, Cyril Perrot, Dominique
Deviterne and Bruno Ragaru (of FRANCE), and
Herman Kingma (of THE NETHERLANDS), for
determining why discus throwers become dizzy, and why hammer throwers don't.
REFERENCE: "Dizziness
in Discus Throwers is Related to Motion Sickness Generated While Spinning,"
Philippe Perrin, Cyril Perrot, Dominique Deviterne, Bruno Ragaru and Herman
Kingma, Acta Oto-laryngologica, vol. 120, no. 3, March 2000, pp. 390–5.
ATTENDING THE CEREMONY: The winners accepted via recorded video.
MATHEMATICS PRIZE:
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 on October 21, 2011), for teaching the world to be careful when making
mathematical assumptions and calculations.
PEACE PRIZE:
Arturas Zuokas,
the mayor of Vilnius, LITHUANIA, for demonstrating that the problem of illegally
parked luxury cars can be solved by running them over with an armored tank.
REFERENCE:
VIDEO and
OFFICIAL CITY INFO
ATTENDING THE CEREMONY: Arturas Zuokas
PUBLIC SAFETY PRIZE:
John Senders of the University of Toronto, CANADA, for conducting a
series of safety experiments in which a person drives an automobile on a major
highway while a visor repeatedly flaps down over his face, blinding him.
REFERENCE: "The Attentional Demand of Automobile Driving," John W. Senders, et
al., Highway Research Record, vol. 195, 1967, pp. 15-33.
VIDEO
ATTENDING THE CEREMONY: John Senders