Move Back
ADVERTISEMENT
Skip
  • Published
    22 Images

    Genius or Goofball? The 2011 Ig Nobel Award Winners

    The 2011 Ig Nobel Awards honor achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think. The prizes celebrate the unusual, honor the imaginative—and spur people's interest in science, medicine and technology.

  • Ig Nobel 2011
    "The awards are for science that makes people laugh, then think," Gareth Jones, professor of biology at the University of Bristol and 2010 winner, told foxnews.1eye.us.
    read more
  • Medicine Prize 2011: Urinate
    Medicine Prize -- Demonstrating that people make better decisions about some kinds of things -- but worse decisions about other kinds of things, when they have a strong urge to urinate. Winners: Mirjam Tuk (of The Netherlands and the UK), Debra Trampe (of The Netherlands) and Luk Warlop (of Belgium). and jointly to Matthew Lewis, Peter Snyder and Robert Feldman (of the USA), Robert Pietrzak, David Darby, and Paul Maruff (of Australia) Pictured: Manneken Pis, bronze sculpture in Brussels, Belgium
    read more
    Donar Reiskoffer
  • Psychology Prize 2011: Sigh
    Psychology Prize -- Trying to understand why, in everyday life, people sigh. Winner: Karl Halvor Teigen of the University of Oslo, Norway
    read more
    Paramount
  • video games
    Literature Prize -- Theory of Structured Procrastination, which says: To be a high achiever, always work on something important, using it as a way to avoid doing something that's even more important Winner: John Perry of Stanford University, USA
    read more
  • Public Safety Prize 2011: Cellphone Driving
    Public Safety Prize -- Conducting a series of safety experiments in which a person drives an automobile on a major highway while a visor repeatedly flaps down over his face, blinding him. Winner: John Senders of the University of Toronto, Canada
    read more
    Ed Poor
  • Chemistry Prize 2011: Wasabi
    Chemistry Prize -- Determining the ideal density of airborne wasabi (pungent horseradish) to awaken sleeping people in case of a fire or other emergency, and for applying this knowledge to invent the wasabi alarm. Winners: Makoto Imai, Naoki Urushihata, Hideki Tanemura, Yukinobu Tajima, Hideaki Goto, Koichiro Mizoguchi and Junichi Murakami of Japan Pictured: A drawing of a wasabi plant, published in 1828 by Iwasaki Kanen
    read more
    Iwasaki Kanen
  • Mathematics Prize 2011: End of World
    Mathematics Prize -- Teaching the world to be careful when making mathematical assumptions and calculations. Winners: Dorothy Martin of the USA (who predicted the world would end in 1954), Pat Robertson of the USA (1982), Elizabeth Clare Prophet of the USA (1990), Lee Jang Rim of Korea (1992), Credonia Mwerinde of Uganda (1999), and Harold Camping of the USA (September 6, 1994 and later predicted October 21, 2011). Pictured: 2012 movie poster
    read more
    Columbia Pictures
  • Physics Prize 2011: Discus Thrower
    Physics Prize -- Trying to determine why discus throwers become dizzy, and why hammer throwers don't. Winners: Philippe Perrin, Cyril Perrot, Dominique Deviterne and Bruno Ragaru (of France), and Herman Kingma (of The Netherlands) Pictured: Modern copy of the Diskophoros, attributed to Alkamenes
    read more
    Rolf Broberg
  • Biology Prize 2011: Beetle
    Biology Prize -- Discovering that certain kinds of beetles mate with certain kinds of Australian beer bottles. Winners: Daryll Gwynne (of Canada and Australia and the USA) and David Rentz (of Australia and the USA) Pictured: A beetle, just before takeoff. The elytra and unfolding wings can clearly be seen.
    read more
  • Physiology Prize 2011: Yawn
    Physiology Prize -- Study: No Evidence of Contagious Yawning in the Red-Footed Tortoise Winners: Anna Wilkinson (of the UK), Natalie Sebanz (of The Netherlands and Hungary), Isabella Mandl (of Austria) and Ludwig Huber (of Austria)
    read more
    J. Paul Getty Museum
  • Peace Prize 2011: Tank
    Peace Prize -- Demonstrating that the problem of illegally parked luxury cars can be solved by running them over with an armored tank. Winner: Arturas Zuokas, the mayor of Vilnius, Lithuania
    read more
    U.S. Army/Cpl. Alexis Harrison
  • Ig Nobel 2010
    The 19th annual event in 2010 centered on the theme of “bacteria,” and was produced by the scientific humor magazine Annals of Improbable Research.
    read more
  • Management Prize 2010: Office Space
    Management Prize -- Demonstrating mathematically that organizations would become more efficient if they promoted people at random. Winners: Alessandro Pluchino, Andrea Rapisarda, and Cesare Garofalo of the University of Catania, Italy
    read more
    20th Century Fox
  • Peace Prize 2010: Swearing
    Peace Prize -- Confirming the widely held belief that swearing relieves pain. Winners: Richard Stephens, John Atkins, and Andrew Kingston of Keele University, UK
    read more
    Tomia/Polylerus/Wikipedia
  • Physics Prize 2010: Socks
    Physics Prize -- Demonstrating that, on icy footpaths in wintertime, people slip and fall elss often if they wear socks on the outside of their shoes. Winners: Lianne Parkin, Sheila Williams, and Patricia Priest of the University of Otago, New Zealand
    read more
    Loggie-log/Wikipedia
  • Transportation Planning Prize 2010: Slime Mold
    Transportation Planning Prize -- Using slime mold to determine the optimal routes for railroad tracks. Winners: Toshiyuki Nakagaki, Atsushi Tero, Seiji Takagi, Tetsu Saigusa, Kentaro Ito, Kenji Yumiki, Ryo Kobayashi of Japan, and Dan Bebber, Mark Fricker of the UK
    read more
    Dr. Jonathan Gott/Center for RNA Molecular Biology, Case Western Reserve University
  • Medicine Prize 2010: Rollercoaster
    Medicine Prize -- Discovering that symptoms of asthma can be treated with a roller-coaster ride. Winners: Simon Rietveld of the University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands, and Ilja van Beest of Tilburg University, The Netherlands
    read more
    Suedepop/Wikipedia
  • Chemistry Prize 2010: Oil Spill
    Chemistry Prize -- Disproving the old belief that oil and water don't mix. Winners: Eric Adams of MIT, Scott Socolofsky of Texas A&M University, Stephen Masutani of the University of Hawaii, and BP [British Petroleum],
    read more
    NASA
  • Biology Prize 2010: Fruitbat
    Biology Prize -- Scientifically documenting fellatio in fruit bats. Winners: Libiao Zhang, Min Tan, Guangjian Zhu, Jianping Ye, Tiyu Hong, Shanyi Zhou, and Shuyi Zhang of China, and Gareth Jones of the University of Bristol, UK
    read more
    Adrian Pingstone
  • Economis Prize 2010: Finance
    Economics Prize -- Creating and promoting new ways to invest money -- ways that maximize financial gain and minimize financial risk for the world economy, or for a portion thereof. Winners: The executives and directors of Goldman Sachs, AIG, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, and Magnetar
    read more
    Banco Carregosa
  • Engineering Prize 2010: Whale Snot
    Engineering Prize -- Perfecting a method to collect whale snot, using a remote-control helicopter. Winners: Karina Acevedo-Whitehouse and Agnes Rocha-Gosselin of the Zoological Society of London, UK, and Diane Gendron of Instituto Politecnico Nacional, Baja California Sur, Mexico
    read more
    Whit Welles
  • Public Health Prize 2010: Galileo
    Public Health Prize -- Determining by experiment that microbes cling to bearded scientists. Winners: Manuel Barbeito, Charles Mathews, and Larry Taylor of the Industrial Health and Safety Office, Fort Detrick, Maryland, USA Pictured: A bearded Galileo
    read more
  • Published
    22 Images

    Genius or Goofball? The 2011 Ig Nobel Award Winners

    The 2011 Ig Nobel Awards honor achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think. The prizes celebrate the unusual, honor the imaginative—and spur people's interest in science, medicine and technology.

Move Forward
  • Genius or Goofball? The 2011 Ig Nobel Award Winners
  • Ig Nobel 2011
  • Medicine Prize 2011: Urinate
  • Psychology Prize 2011: Sigh
  • video games
  • Public Safety Prize 2011: Cellphone Driving
  • Chemistry Prize 2011: Wasabi
  • Mathematics Prize 2011: End of World
  • Physics Prize 2011: Discus Thrower
  • Biology Prize 2011: Beetle
  • Physiology Prize 2011: Yawn
  • Peace Prize 2011: Tank
  • Ig Nobel 2010
  • Management Prize 2010: Office Space
  • Peace Prize 2010: Swearing
  • Physics Prize 2010: Socks
  • Transportation Planning Prize 2010: Slime Mold
  • Medicine Prize 2010: Rollercoaster
  • Chemistry Prize 2010: Oil Spill
  • Biology Prize 2010: Fruitbat
  • Economis Prize 2010: Finance
  • Engineering Prize 2010: Whale Snot
  • Public Health Prize 2010: Galileo