-- Bad Science

[Lerwick DeTocqueville-Grabcocque <quasi@xxxxxxxxx>]

The 2004 Ig Nobel Prize Winners

The 2004 Ig Nobel Prizes were awarded on Thursday evening, September 30, 
at the 14th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony, at Harvard's Sanders 
Theatre.

MEDICINE
Steven Stack of Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan, USA and James 
Gundlach of Auburn University, Auburn, Alabama, USA, for their published 
report "The Effect of Country Music on Suicide."
PUBLISHED IN: Social Forces, vol. 71, no. 1, September 1992, pp. 211-8.
WHO ATTENDED THE IG NOBEL CEREMONY: James Gundlach.

PHYSICS
Ramesh Balasubramaniam of the University of Ottowa, and Michael Turvey 
of the University of Connecticut and Yale University, for exploring and 
explaining the dynamics of hula-hooping.
REFERENCE: "Coordination Modes in the Multisegmental Dynamics of Hula 
Hooping," Ramesh Balasubramaniam and Michael T. Turvey, Biological 
Cybernetics, vol. 90, no. 3, March 2004, pp. 176-90.
WHO ATTENDED THE IG NOBEL CEREMONY: Ramesh Balasubramaniam and Michael 
Turvey.

PUBLIC HEALTH
Jillian Clarke of the Chicago High School for Agricultural Sciences, and 
then Howard University, for investigating the scientific validity of the 
Five-Second Rule about whether it's safe to eat food that's been dropped 
on the floor.
WHO ATTENDED THE IG NOBEL CEREMONY: Jillian Clarke

CHEMISTRY
The Coca-Cola Company of Great Britain, for using advanced technology to 
convert liquid from the River Thames into Dasani, a transparent form of 
water, which for precautionary reasons has been made unavailable to 
consumers.

ENGINEERING
Donald J. Smith and his father, the late Frank J. Smith, of Orlando 
Florida, USA, for patenting the combover (U.S. Patent #4,022,227).
WHO ATTENDED THE IG NOBEL CEREMONY: Donald Smith's son, Scott Jackson 
Smith, and daughter, Heather Smith.

LITERATURE
The American Nudist Research Library of Kissimmee, Florida, USA, for 
preserving nudist history so that everyone can see it.
WHO ATTENDED THE IG NOBEL CEREMONY: Pamela Chestek, the daughter of ANRL 
director Helen Fisher.

PSYCHOLOGY
Daniel Simons of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and 
Christopher Chabris of Harvard University, for demonstrating that when 
people pay close attention to something, it's all too easy to overlook 
anything else -- even a man in a gorilla suit.
REFERENCE: "Gorillas in Our Midst," Daniel J. Simons and Christopher F. 
Chabris, vol. 28, Perception, 1999, pages 1059-74.
DEMO: <http://viscog.beckman.uiuc.edu/media/ig.html>
WHO ATTENDED THE IG NOBEL CEREMONY: Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris.

ECONOMICS
The Vatican, for outsourcing prayers to India.

PEACE
Daisuke Inoue of Hyogo, Japan, for inventing karaoke, thereby providing 
an entirely new way for people to learn to tolerate each other
WHO ATTENDED THE IG NOBEL CEREMONY: Daisuke Inoue.

BIOLOGY
Ben Wilson of the University of British Columbia, Lawrence Dill of Simon 
Fraser University [Canada], Robert Batty of the Scottish Association for 
Marine Science, Magnus Whalberg of the University of Aarhus [Denmark], 
and Hakan Westerberg of Sweden's National Board of Fisheries, for 
showing that herrings apparently communicate by farting.
REFERENCE: "Sounds Produced by Herring (Clupea harengus) Bubble 
Release," Magnus Wahlberg and Håkan Westerberg, Aquatic Living 
Resources, vol. 16, 2003, pp. 271-5.
REFERENCE: "Pacific and Atlantic Herring Produce Burst Pulse Sounds," 
Ben Wilson, Robert S. Batty and Lawrence M. Dill, Biology Letters, vol. 
271, 2003, pp. S95-S97.
WHO ATTENDED THE IG NOBEL CEREMONY: Lawrence Dill, Robert Batty, Magnus 
Whalberg, Hakan Westerberg.


---

Martin Coxall is a cheat and he steal my pen.


* Last Subject: Re: [b] -- home help --*
* Last Date: Fri, 01 Oct 2004 17:41:03 +0100 --*
* 10:92-92 --*