Winners of the Ig® Nobel Prize
For achievements that first make people LAUGH then make them THINK.
“The Ig Nobel awards are arguably the highlight of the scientific calendar.” –Nature
Yes, but think WHAT?
The 2008 Ig Nobel Prizes were awarded on Thursday night, October 2, at the 18th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony, at Harvard’s Sanders Theatre.
Just one sample of the awards this year…but it’s certainly worth checking out the rest of the list.
COGNITIVE SCIENCE PRIZE. Toshiyuki Nakagaki of Hokkaido University, Japan, Hiroyasu Yamada of Nagoya, Japan, Ryo Kobayashi of Hiroshima University, Atsushi Tero of Presto JST, Akio Ishiguro of Tohoku University, and Ãgotá Tóth of the University of Szeged, Hungary, for discovering that slime molds can solve puzzles.
REFERENCE: “Intelligence: Maze-Solving by an Amoeboid Organism,” Toshiyuki Nakagaki, Hiroyasu Yamada, and Ãgota Tóth, Nature, vol. 407, September 2000, p. 470.ECONOMICS PRIZE. Geoffrey Miller, Joshua Tybur and Brent Jordan of the University of New Mexico, USA, for discovering that a professional lap dancer’s ovulatory cycle affects her tip earnings.
REFERENCE: “Ovulatory Cycle Effects on Tip Earnings by Lap Dancers: Economic Evidence for Human Estrus?” Geoffrey Miller, Joshua M. Tybur, Brent D. Jordan, Evolution and Human Behavior, vol. 28, 2007, pp. 375-81.
OK. So I listed two of them. The sacrifices required by the researchers of the latter effort are beyond ordinary comprehension. It must have been hard for them.