34th First Annual Ig Nobel Prizes Awarded (improbable.com) 16
Longtime Slashdot reader davidwr writes: Winners of the 34th First Annual Ig Nobel Prizes included studies on hair swirling (natural, not from grade-school bathroom torture), mammals that breath through their anal orifices, and a study on pigeon-guided missiles. There were also prizes for the study of the swimming abilities of a formerly-living trout. "Honors" were also bestowed for research in coin-flipping (no, it's not 50/50), why cows spew milk, and drunken worms, among other topics. Prizes included $10,000,000,000 (in now-worthless Zimbabwe dollars) and items related to Murphy's Law.
Media coverage includes AP, CNN, Gizmodo, Ars Technica, and by the time you read this, probably much more.
Media coverage includes AP, CNN, Gizmodo, Ars Technica, and by the time you read this, probably much more.
Re: (Score:2)
> Sounds like a foxymoron if they've previously had 33 of them.
"The Ig Nobel Prize is a satiric prize awarded annually since 1991 to celebrate ten unusual or trivial achievements in scientific research. Its aim is to "honor achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think." The name of the award is a pun on the Nobel Prize, which it parodies, and on the word ignoble.
"Organized by the scientific humor magazine Annals of Improbable Research (AIR), the Ig Nobel Prizes are presented by Nob
Some of the studies were intriguing (Score:5, Interesting)
Demography
Dr Saul Newman at the University of Oxford bagged the demography prize for showing that many claims of people living extraordinarily long lives come from places with short life spans, no birth certificates, and where clerical errors and pension fraud abound. “Extreme old age records are a statistical basket case,” he said. “From the level of individual cases, up to broad population patterns, virtually none of our old-age data makes sense.”
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/704080v3 [biorxiv.org], although the summary (copied from the Guardian) is far more reader-friendly than the actual study.
Botany
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8903786/ [nih.gov] investigated a "woody vine from temperate rainforests of southern Chile" where the leaves mimic those of their host. One theory was that "horizontal gene transfer" was responsible, but they ruled that out by having the vine climbing up a plastic plant. There was more to it and the study was surprisingly readable.
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https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8903786/ [nih.gov] investigated a "woody vine from temperate rainforests of southern Chile" where the leaves mimic those of their host. One theory was that "horizontal gene transfer" was responsible, but they ruled that out by having the vine climbing up a plastic plant. There was more to it and the study was surprisingly readable.
It would certainly be astounding if there were some mechanism that could do that. But what on earth could it be? Mysterious vision receptors? Some sort of sonar mapping, lol?
Re:Some of the studies were intriguing (Score:4, Informative)
Their conclusions were in the paper I linked to, but yes - "Our present analysis favors plant vision based on plant-specific leaf ocelli."
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In biology class ages ago, I suggested that plants have color vision. This after learning some of the biochemistry of photosynthesis, not only do they turn light into energy, but it is color-dependent and helper chemicals change the efficiency of various colors. Which looked to me a lot like they're turning color light into chemical signal (one pixelish and atrocious framerate) -- possibly enough to identify a competitor. No lens and no nervous system though, so a very long way from detailed vision, and of
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On the botany prize:
It is interesting "The incredible mimicry of Boquila trifoliolata" https://deceptionbydesign.com/... [deceptionbydesign.com]
But it might need more research too "Can Plants See? In the Wake of a Controversial Study, the Answer’s Still Unclear" https://www.the-scientist.com/... [the-scientist.com]
I have my suspicions (Score:4, Funny)
First, there was the neurological activity of a frozen salmon, and now the swimming ability of a dead trout.
This is clearly evidence that the Illuminati are planning to create an army of undead zombie fish, who will conquer Britain after launching a surprise attack from fish and chip shops.
Re:I have my suspicions (Score:4, Funny)
Is that an explanation as to how Liz Truss got to Number 10?
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First, there was the neurological activity of a frozen salmon, and now the swimming ability of a dead trout.
These studies led directly to the decision to have Joe Biden handle that first debate.
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Sweetie Poo (Score:2)
Je t'adore Sweetie Poo.
My friends lives would have been much better if she had been there whenever I started talking.
Does anyone know her favorite ice cream flavor?
pigeons (Score:2)
Isn't this what B.F. Skinner is noted for around 1950? Operant conditioning. "During World War II, Skinner worked on a program called Project Pigeon – also known as Project Orcon, short for Organic Control – an experimental project to create pigeon-guided missiles." -- https://hackeducation.com/2018... [hackeducation.com]
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1960. It's actually a very late award to Skinner, accepted by his daughter.