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IgNobel 2020

Discussion in 'Fred's House of Pancakes' started by tochatihu, Sep 18, 2020.

  1. tochatihu

    tochatihu Senior Member

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    the link

    Improbable Research

    They do publish a journal that can be found in waiting rooms of world's finest medical professionals. Which is not an advert, for which I might be banned...

    or is it?
     
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  2. tochatihu

    tochatihu Senior Member

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  3. bwilson4web

    bwilson4web BMW i3 and Model 3

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    I have the raw research for human physiology:

    "The physics of drinking a beverage while reviewing Improbable Research "

    Bob Wilson
     
  4. tochatihu

    tochatihu Senior Member

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  5. ETC(SS)

    ETC(SS) The OTHER One Percenter.....

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    @ IgNobel
    You mean there's a difference?

    I'm not the least bit surprised.
    In Germany, bier is serious, serious stuff!!

    They still have the Reinheitsgebot, literally, 'purity order' for their mostly, sometimes golden beverage - going back nearly 500 years!
    Bier at the time was only allowed to have three ingredients: Water, Hops, Barley.
    They didn't even understand at that time that there was a necessary "not an animal, not a plant" fourth ingredient......yeast!
    So yeah...
    Germans study all things beer with their usual efficiency and intensity!

    NOT surprised that das Germans would invest many lumens of brain energy in coaster aeronautics.
    SOMEWHAT surprised that it hasn't made it to the Ig-free Nobels.....but then some of the hard sciences still have remnants of their OWN standards... Just like like of Germany's Reinheitsgebot. :D

    Fun fact:

    Reinheitsgebot was actually something of a 'thing' during reunification.
    The East Germans, ever incompetent, allowed a monastery brewer (Neuzeller) to add sugar to one of their brews under their more liberal brewing laws, and it became a minor flap-a-doodle. There have also been court battles involving the EU.
    Ever the buzz-kills....the non-celiac gluten sensitive folks have even gotten into the game....and thus (properly IMHO) Germany's law has devolved into yet another labeling standard.
     
  6. hkmb

    hkmb Senior Member

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    This year's awards are out.

    Upside down rhinos and nose-clearing orgasm studies win Ig Nobel prize | Science | The Guardian

    Surely going to artisinal coffee roasters and gin microdistilleries and doing this test on the ground would have been, if not more scientific, at least of more value to society?

    If it is physically unblocking your nose:
    (a) You're doing it wrong.
    (b) You have very wide nostrils.
     
  7. ETC(SS)

    ETC(SS) The OTHER One Percenter.....

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    Meh.

    Nobel prizes and their Ignoble contemporaries are following in Time's footsteps.....
    HOWEVER (comma!)
    The folks in Oslo at least call it a PRIZE, which may be split amongst many people or even not-people without calling into question the original purpose of the award.
    They also practice better money management.

    Both are private entities, so I'll let them be....them.

    Interestingly enough (at least to me) I was reading Robert Kurson's book "Rocket Men" the other day - which I recommend unreservedly, and he writes that in 1968 Time changed their "human(s)" of the year from 'the demonstrator' to the Apollo 8 astronauts (Borman, Lovell, Anders.)
    NOT the first time that Time punked out of making a choice by not choosing a singular person - NOR the first time that Time changed their election results in the eleventh hour.....IF......Kurson is right.....and he's pretty good at noodling out the facts.
    1950 was the first time that the MOTY was awarded collectively, and 1936 was the first time that the MOTY was.......a woman...named "Bessie."

    ALL things that remind me that there is NOTHING new under (or around) the sun.
     
  8. burrito

    burrito Active Member

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    Sexual activity causes excitatory and stimulatory activity throughout the body. The heart rate, blood pressure increase, and demand for oxygen increase. It is entire understandable that the catecholamine response decreases swelling in the nose; after all, we give it therapeutically for its anti-inflammatory properties.

    Besides, if you can't continue because you run out of air, you'll be less likely to pass on your genes.

    I'm surprised no one mentioned the Ig Nobel prize for Economics this year!
     
  9. ETC(SS)

    ETC(SS) The OTHER One Percenter.....

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  10. burrito

    burrito Active Member

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    #10 burrito, Sep 10, 2021
    Last edited: Sep 11, 2021
  11. tochatihu

    tochatihu Senior Member

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  12. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    they found me :oops:
     
  13. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    i don't consider religion or smoking a hobby, but what do i know? even television doesn't quite fit the term imo
     
  14. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    do people actually get compensated for producing nonsense? sounds boring
     
  15. tochatihu

    tochatihu Senior Member

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    If we are critiquing their lists, I wish to say that 'observing animals' covers quite a lot of the exciting - boring spectrum.
    A fella I know had the job of watching elephant seals. They basically lay on the beach and do nothing. However, when the girls are 'in season' and the boys wake up, one had better do the watching from far away with binoculars etc.
    Poisonous and venomous and really, all large grumpy animals are very unboring to observe.
     
  16. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    agreed, and i have seen many bird watchers get extremely excited at the spotting of a spotted something or other
     
  17. tochatihu

    tochatihu Senior Member

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    None more excited than Tom Murray :)

    Massachusetts Rare Birds Photo Gallery by Tom Murray at pbase.com

    ==
    I was very excited to see a tree full of Bohemian waxwings in Merida, Yucatan, Mexico. Boringly abundant there, but context: I'd never seen one before.

    ==
    Aside from an occasional territorial owl (they claw scrape your bicycle helmet of you are lucky enough to be wearing it), or the more-common precision poopers, bird watching is a safe sport. But time travel back 80 to 65 million years. Bird-ancestor watching would have been quite a sport then.
     
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  18. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    i still get excited by bluebirds and hummingbirds. even my little cardinals are fun.

    i got nailed by a seagull a few years back in disney world. now old ben franklin should have called them a bird of bad moral character!
     
  19. ETC(SS)

    ETC(SS) The OTHER One Percenter.....

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    Cardinals are my dear wife's favorite.
    Hummingbirds are tolerated, and we've even fed them some in the past but they insist on cheesing for out outdoor Wyze cams which they probably mistake for feeders.
    The embedded AI in the cameras will sometimes mistake them for humans - which informs me that AI....isn't (yet) but hey....the little ESP32 processor is doing the best it can.

    I generally observe the Prime Directive when it comes to birds, and thus eschew bird (cat) feeders.

    Seagulls are not birds.
    They're rats with wings.
     
  20. Mendel Leisk

    Mendel Leisk Senior Member

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    Years back, changing our youngest's (disposable) diaper at a beach, a seagull grabbed the rolled-up used one and flew off. I tried to chase it down but it "won".

    Oh, another incident, another beach, same youngest: he was sitting with the lunches, a bit up the beach, and me, wife, and older two kids were down at the waterline. After a bit he toddled down, tried to tell us something about "crows". When we went back up to the lunches they were somewhat pecked open and strewn about.

    Currently, walking our (getting on in years) Shiba Inu: his appetite is kinda waning, but he likes to chase tidbits on our walks, so I'll toss them out ahead. We've gotten a rep with a few local crows, and I've got to feed them a few bits too. They always seem to come in pairs, and one will invariably muscle-in, get virtually all the bits; so the challenge is to get a few to number two also.
     
    #20 Mendel Leisk, Mar 21, 2022
    Last edited: Mar 21, 2022