Ig Nobel Prizes, 1998

[Guest guest]

>One of my favorite humor sites: the Annals of Improbable Research.

>Each year they give Ig Nobel awards to research which cannot or should

>not be reproduced. Enjoy. Barbara

>-----

>1998-10-04 The 1998 Ig Nobel Prize Winners

>

>The 1998 Ig Nobel Prize Winners were awarded at the Eight 1st

>Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony on Thursday evening, Oct 8, 1998 at

>Sanders Theatre, Harvard University. Nobel Laureates Richard

>Roberts, William Lipscomb, Dudley Herschbach and Sheldon Glashow

>handed the prizes to the winners. A bevy of other laureates

>participated via slides and audiotape. More than half of the

>winners either attended the ceremony or sent representatives in

>their stead.

> A full account will appear in the Jan/Feb 1999 issue of

>Annals of Improbable Research. In the meantime, you can see a

>number of lurid and lively press accounts (and some photos!) by

>going to the AIR home page (http:///www.improbable.com) and

>clicking on "What the rest of the press is saying about us."

> [A number of scientific celebrities also participated in the

>ceremony, among them James (the Amazing) Randi, Journal of the

>American Medical Assn. deputy editor Richard Glass, 11-year-old

>science hero Emily Rosa (who accepted the Science Education Prize

>on behalf of the winner), "Listening to Prozac" author Peter

>Kramer, grizzly bear researcher Colin Gillen, Materials Scientist

>Robert Rose, eminence grise Jerome Lettvin, Duck® Tape

>manufacturer Manco, duct tape researcher Max Sherman, physicist-

>sweeper Roy Glauber, Woodman's restaurant (inventors of fried

>clams), and Randall Seed, son of cloning pioneer Richard.]

> Here are this year's winners.

>

>

SAFETY ENGINEERING. Troy Hurtubise, of North Bay, Ontario,

>for developing, and personally testing a suit of armor that is

>impervious to grizzly bears.

>REFERENCE: The Canadian Film Board Documentary "Project Grizzly."

>The film is available in Canada from the NFB, and in the US from

>First Run Features (800 488 6652).

>

BIOLOGY. Peter Fong of Gettysburg College, Gettysburg,

>Pennsylvania, for contributing to the happiness of clams by giving

>them Prozac.

>REFERENCE: "Induction and Potentiation of Parturition in

>Fingernail Clams (Sphaerium striatinum) by Selective Serotonin Re-

>Uptake Inhibitors (SSRIs)," Peter F. Fong, Peter T. Huminski, and

>Lynette M. D'urso, "Journal of Experimental Zoology, vol. 280,

>1998, pp. 260-64.

>

PEACE. Prime Minister Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee of India and

>Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif of Pakistan for their aggressively

>peaceful explosions of atomic bombs.

>

CHEMISTRY. Jacques Benveniste of France for his homeopathic

>discovery that not only does water have memory, but that the

>information can be transmitted over telephone lines and the

>Internet. [NOTE: Benveniste also won the 1991 Ig Nobel Chemistry

>Prize.]

>REFERENCE:"Transatlantic Transfer of Digitized Antigen Signal by

>Telephone Link," J. Benveniste, P. Jurgens, W. Hsueh and J. Aissa,

>"Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology - Program and

>abstracts of papers to be presented during scientific sessions

>AAAAI/AAI.CIS Joint Meeting February 21-26, 1997."

>

SCIENCE EDUCATION. Dolores Krieger, Professor Emerita, New

>York University, "for demonstrating the merits of therapeutic

>touch, a method by which nurses manipulate the energy fields of

>ailing patients by carefully avoiding physical contact with those

>patients."

>

STATISTICS. Jerald Bain of Mt. Sinai Hospital in Toronto and

>Kerry Siminoski of the University of Alberta for their carefully

>measured report, "The Relationship Among Height, Penile Length,

>and Foot Size."

>REFERENCE: The paper was published in "Annals of Sex Research,"

>vol. 6, no. 3, 1993, pp. 231-5.

>

PHYSICS. Deepak Chopra of The Chopra Center for Well Being,

>La Jolla, California, for his unique interpretation of quantum

>physics as it applies to life, liberty, and the pursuit of

>economic happiness.

>REFERENCE: Deepak Chopra's books "Quantum Healing,Ageless Body,

>Timeless Mind," etc. and www.chopra.com

> ECONOMICS. Richard Seed of Chicago for his efforts to stoke

>up the world economy by cloning himself and other human beings.

>CONTACT: Richard Seed, 708-442-0500, FAX 708-442-1500

><ljseed (AT) pol (DOT) net>

>

MEDICINE. To Patient Y and to his doctors, Caroline Mills,

>Meirion Llewelyn, David Kelly, and Peter Holt, of Royal Gwent

>Hospital, in Newport, Wales, for the cautionary medical report, "A

>Man Who Pricked His Finger and Smelled Putrid for 5 Years."

>REFERENCE: The paper was published in "The Lancet," vol. 348,

>November 9, 1996, p. 1282.

>

LITERATURE. Dr. Mara Sidoli of Washington, DC, for her

>illuminating report, "Farting as a Defence Against Unspeakable

>Dread."

>REFERENCE: "Farting as a Defence Against Unspeakable Dread," Mara

>Sidoli, "Journal of Analytical Psychology," vol. 41, no. 2, 1996,

>pp. 165-78.

>

>NOTE 1: You can download a free nifty Ig '98 poster from the AIR

>web site (see the "Ig Nobel" section).

>

>NOTE 2: Cheesy videotapes of

> (a).. the Ig Ceremony and

> (b).. this year's Ig lectures (delivered the following day

> by Jerald Bain, Emily Rosa, and Troy Hurtubise)

>are available from: AIR, PO Box 380853, Cambridge MA 03338 USA.

>All tapes are priced at $25 each (outside the US: $30 per tape).

>VHS format only. Tapes of the '95, '96, and '97 ceremonies are

>also available, for the same prices.

>

>

>----------------------------

>--

>Barbara Scheele

>BSOBC (AT) CUNYVM (DOT) CUNY.EDU

>

 

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