Panda Poop Wins an Ig Nobel Prize

Other Winners - A Gas Mask Bra and Why Pregnant Women Don't Tip Over

Oct 2, 2009

The 2009 Ig Nobel prizes are awarded for research, ideas, and inventions that make people laugh, then make them think. This year's prizes are no exception.

The tongue-in-cheek prizes were presented in a ceremony at Harvard University organized by the science humor magazine Annals of Improbable Research.

The 19th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony

The Penny-Wise Guys band performed a short cabaret act before the ceremony, paying a special tribute to Bernie Madoff. Genuine Nobel laureates presented the individual prizes, as follows:

Biology - Benefits of Panda Poo

Fumiaki Taguchi, Song Guofu and Zhang Guanglei of Kitasato University Graduate School of Medical Sciences in Sagamihara, Japan, showed that kitchen waste can be reduced more than 90% in mass using bacteria from the feces of giant pandas.

Reference: "Microbial Treatment of Kitchen Refuse With Enzyme-Producing Thermophilic Bacteria From Giant Panda Feces," Fumiaki Taguchia, Song Guofua, and Zhang Guanglei, Seibutsu-kogaku Kaishi, vol. 79, no 12, 2001, pp. 463-9. [and abstracted in Journal of Bioscience and Bioengineering, vol. 92, no. 6, 2001, p. 602.]

Public Health - The Gas Mask Bra

Elena N Bodnar, Raphael C Lee, and Sandra Marijan of Chicago, USA, have invented a brassiere that can be converted into two gas masks - one for the wearer and one to be given to a needy bystander.

Reference: U.S. patent # 7255627, granted August 14, 2007 for a “Garment Device Convertible to One or More Facemasks.”

Literature - The Polish Driving Offender

Awarded to Ireland's police service for writing over 50 traffic tickets to the most frequent driving offender in the country - Prawo Jazdy. Only later did they discover that 'prawo jazdy' is Polish for 'driving license'.

Physics - How Pregnant Women Don't Tip Over

Katherine K Whitcome, University of Cincinnati; Daniel E Lieberman, Harvard University and Liza J. Shapiro, University of Texas for analytically determining why pregnant women do not tip over.

Reference: "Fetal Load and the Evolution of Lumbar Lordosis in Bipedal Hominins," Katherine K. Whitcome, Liza J. Shapiro & Daniel E. Lieberman, Nature, vol. 450, 1075-1078 (December 13, 2007). DOI:10.1038/nature06342.

Peace - Better Beer Bottle Battering

Stephan Bolliger, Steffen Ross, Lars Oesterhelweg, Michael Thali and Beat Kneubuehl of the University of Bern, Switzerland, for determining whether it is better to be smashed over the head with a full or an empty bottle of beer. Answer? Either will do the job.

Reference: "Are Full or Empty Beer Bottles Sturdier and Does Their Fracture-Threshold Suffice to Break the Human Skull?" Stephan A. Bolliger, Steffen Ross, Lars Oesterhelweg, Michael J. Thali and Beat P. Kneubuehl, Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine, vol. 16, no. 3, April 2009, pp. 138-42. DOI:10.1016/j.jflm.2008.07.013.

Medicine - Keep On Knuckle Cracking

Donald L Unger of Thousand Oaks, California, US, investigated a possible cause of arthritis of the fingers. He cracked the knuckles of his left hand but not his right hand every day for more than 60 years.

Reference: "Does Knuckle Cracking Lead to Arthritis of the Fingers?", Donald L. Unger, Arthritis and Rheumatism, vol. 41, no. 5, 1998, pp. 949-50.

Veterinary Medicine - Betsy is Better Than What's-Her-Name

Catherine Douglas and Peter Rowlinson of Newcastle University, UK, showed that cows with names give more milk than cows that are nameless.

Reference: "Exploring Stock Managers' Perceptions of the Human-Animal Relationship on Dairy Farms and an Association with Milk Production," Catherine Bertenshaw [Douglas] and Peter Rowlinson, Anthrozoos, vol. 22, no. 1, March 2009, pp. 59-69. DOI: 10.2752/175303708X390473.

Other Prizes

Prizes were also awarded for Economics to four Icelandic banks, Chemistry for making diamonds from Tequila, and Mathematics to the governor of Zimbabwe's reserve bank.

Sources

The copyright of the article Panda Poop Wins an Ig Nobel Prize in International Cultural Affairs is owned by Roger Tunsley. Permission to republish Panda Poop Wins an Ig Nobel Prize in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.