Childrens' Spits, Magnetized Cockroaches and Cubic Wombat Feces: Ten scientific studies that "make you laugh first and then stimulate your thinking" have been awarded the "Ig Nobel Prize" at the US elite Harvard University (pronounced "ignoble") is called unworthy).
The traditionally jam-packed gala with more than a thousand spectators took place on the night of Friday for the 29th time. This time she was under the main topic "habits".
According to the organizers, the undated prices should "celebrate the unusual and honor the imaginative". In between fly at the one and a half hour award ceremony paper planes through the air, there are skits and bizarre short operas. Like every year real Nobel Prize winners traveled again.
- Scientists from Germany were also among the winners this year: Heidelberg University Professor Andreas Voß and his son Timothy, together with Habip Gedik, won the award in the Economy category for a study on which paper money best spreads dangerous bacteria out of which country. "Bills that feel sticky or dirty need not be contaminated," said Timothy Voss in his acceptance speech. "But the Romanian leu and the US dollar were among the worst currencies, and we can only give you one piece of advice: fold them into paper planes and throw them away."
AP / Elise Amendola
Soil money researcher from Heidelberg: Andreas Voß and his son Timothy
- In addition, the German researcher Fritz Strack of the University of Würzburg in the category Psychology for his discovery that it makes people smile and makes happy, if they hold a pen in the mouth - and then to discover that this is not true. Strack thanked him on the stage with a poem.
- In the category of medicine , a scientist won evidence to prove that pizza protects against disease and death - when it is made and eaten in Italy. The Italian diet is just very healthy, explained researcher Silvano Gallus on stage. "But keep your hands off the salami."
DPA
Pizza doctor Silvano Gallus from Italy
- In the category of biology , scientists from Singapore, China, Australia, Poland, Bulgaria, and the United States have come to the discovery that dead magnetized cockroaches behave differently than living magnetized cockroaches.
- Scientists from Japan received the award in the Chemistry category for estimating the volume of spit produced by a typical five-year-old child per day. This is 500 milliliters, revealed one of the researchers - and brought with him his now grown three sons who had served as test objects many years ago. Researchers from France were honored for measuring temperature asymmetries on the scrotum of naked and dressed postmen in France.
- A scientist from Iran received the prize in the category of technology for the invention of a winding machine for human babies.
- Researchers from the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, Singapore and the United States received the award in the Peace category for trying to measure the pleasure of scratching an itchy spot on the body.
- Scientists from the USA, Taiwan, Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, and the United Kingdom were honored in the physics category for researching how and why shit wombats cubically. A detailed explanation of these research results (and why the cube shape actually gives the animals a decisive advantage) can be found here:
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As usual, host Marc Abrahams, editor of a scientific journal on curious research, ended the gala with his traditional final words: "If you did not win an Ig Nobel Prize this year, and especially if you won one, more luck next year! "
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