2012 ig Nobel Prize Winners
Posted: Fri 21 Sep, 2012 3:56 pmIGNOBEL WINNERS 2012
The Ig Nobel Prizes honor achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think. The prizes are intended to celebrate the unusual, honor the imaginative — and spur people's interest in science, medicine, and technology.
Psychology prize: Anita Eerland, Rolf Zwaan and Tulio Guadalupe, for their study entitled Leaning to the Left Makes the Eiffel Tower Seem Smaller.
Peace prize: The SKN company, for using technology to convert old Russian ammunition into new diamonds.
Acoustics prize: Kazutaka Kurihara and Koji Tsukada for creating the SpeechJammer, a machine that disrupts a person's speech by making them hear their own spoken words at a very slight delay.
Neuroscience prize: Craig Bennett, Abigail Baird, Michael Miller, and George Wolford, for demonstrating that brain researchers, by using complicated instruments and simple statistics, can see meaningful brain activity anywhere – even in a dead salmon.
Chemistry prize: Johan Pettersson for solving the puzzle of why, in certain houses in the town of Anderslöv, Sweden, people's hair turned green.
Literature prize: The US government general accountability office, for issuing a report about reports about reports that recommends the preparation of a report about the report about reports about reports.
Physics prize: Joseph Keller, Raymond Goldstein, Patrick Warren and Robin Ball, for calculating the balance of forces that shape and move the hair in a human ponytail.
Fluid dynamics prize: Rouslan Krechetnikov and Hans Mayer, for studying the dynamics of liquid sloshing, to learn what happens when a person walks while carrying a cup of coffee
Anatomy prize: Frans de Waal and Jennifer Pokorny, for discovering that chimpanzees can identify specific other chimpanzees from seeing photographs of their rear ends.
Medicine prize: Emmanuel Ben-Soussan, for advising doctors who perform colonoscopies how to minimise the chance of their patients exploding.
And from earlier years:
2010 Chemistry Prize
Eric Adams of MIT, Scott Socolofsky of Texas A&M University, Stephen Masutani of the University of Hawaii, and BP [British Petroleum], for disproving the old belief that oil and water don't mix.
2009 Economics Prize
The directors, executives, and auditors of four Icelandic banks — Kaupthing Bank, Landsbanki, Glitnir Bank, and Central Bank of Iceland — for demonstrating that tiny banks can be rapidly transformed into huge banks, and vice versa — and for demonstrating that similar things can be done to an entire national economy.
The Ig Nobel Prizes honor achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think. The prizes are intended to celebrate the unusual, honor the imaginative — and spur people's interest in science, medicine, and technology.
Psychology prize: Anita Eerland, Rolf Zwaan and Tulio Guadalupe, for their study entitled Leaning to the Left Makes the Eiffel Tower Seem Smaller.
Peace prize: The SKN company, for using technology to convert old Russian ammunition into new diamonds.
Acoustics prize: Kazutaka Kurihara and Koji Tsukada for creating the SpeechJammer, a machine that disrupts a person's speech by making them hear their own spoken words at a very slight delay.
Neuroscience prize: Craig Bennett, Abigail Baird, Michael Miller, and George Wolford, for demonstrating that brain researchers, by using complicated instruments and simple statistics, can see meaningful brain activity anywhere – even in a dead salmon.
Chemistry prize: Johan Pettersson for solving the puzzle of why, in certain houses in the town of Anderslöv, Sweden, people's hair turned green.
Literature prize: The US government general accountability office, for issuing a report about reports about reports that recommends the preparation of a report about the report about reports about reports.
Physics prize: Joseph Keller, Raymond Goldstein, Patrick Warren and Robin Ball, for calculating the balance of forces that shape and move the hair in a human ponytail.
Fluid dynamics prize: Rouslan Krechetnikov and Hans Mayer, for studying the dynamics of liquid sloshing, to learn what happens when a person walks while carrying a cup of coffee
Anatomy prize: Frans de Waal and Jennifer Pokorny, for discovering that chimpanzees can identify specific other chimpanzees from seeing photographs of their rear ends.
Medicine prize: Emmanuel Ben-Soussan, for advising doctors who perform colonoscopies how to minimise the chance of their patients exploding.
And from earlier years:
2010 Chemistry Prize
Eric Adams of MIT, Scott Socolofsky of Texas A&M University, Stephen Masutani of the University of Hawaii, and BP [British Petroleum], for disproving the old belief that oil and water don't mix.
2009 Economics Prize
The directors, executives, and auditors of four Icelandic banks — Kaupthing Bank, Landsbanki, Glitnir Bank, and Central Bank of Iceland — for demonstrating that tiny banks can be rapidly transformed into huge banks, and vice versa — and for demonstrating that similar things can be done to an entire national economy.
