The Nobel Prize is awarded for outstanding scientific research, revolutionary inventions or major
What unites the answers to the following questions:
- Why are belly button hairs always blue?
- Can you walk on water on the moon?
- how to turn a bra into a gas mask?
- What happens to grasshoppers while watching Star Wars?
In fact, there is only one thing in common:all these achievements in different years were awarded the Ig Nobel Prize. This year, 10 more scientific papers received their prizes: paper cylinders "to store all the knowledge they have", as well as 10 trillion Zimbabwean dollars, which have been withdrawn from circulation.
Lovers' hearts
Dating - especially blind dates - can bespecial hell until something “clicks” between two people and they feel an inner connection and mutual attraction, scientists say. To understand how this happens, a group of researchers from the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, the UK, Sweden and the self-governing state of Aruba decided to figure out what needs to happen for two people to like each other.
They recruited 142 participants for their study.(71 couples) at three separate events in the Netherlands: a music festival, an art and science festival and a science film festival. Participants were introduced two by two into a "dating booth" where they sat at opposite ends of a table with a plastic partition between them. The barrier opened for three seconds and immediately closed. This, as conceived by the authors, gave the participants a quick first visual impression.
Research indicators during a date
Then it opened two more times for two minutes,for the couple to communicate verbally and non-verbally. After that, the members had to decide if they would go on a new date. There were only 17% of such couples. The researchers measured every possible indicator, but it turned out that the signs of success were a synchronous heartbeat and a match in the electrical conductivity of the skin.
For finding and finding evidence that when new romantic partners meet for the first time and feel attracted to each other, their heartbeats synchronize.
Ig Nobel Prize in Practical Cardiology
Ice cream for chemotherapy
In cancer patients undergoing chemotherapyand radiation therapy, there is a high chance of developing a condition known as oral mucositis. This is because the toxic treatment destroys the epithelial cells that line the gastrointestinal tract, making them vulnerable to infection. As a result, patients develop ulcers in their mouth, gums, or tongue, and it becomes difficult for them to swallow.
Usually, to combat this effect, usecryotherapy: the patient needs to dissolve the ice, but this is unpleasant and many patients miss treatment, especially children. Polish scientists have found an alternative: ice cream.
For their study, they recruited 74a patient who received a stem cell transplant as part of their cancer treatment. Their cryotherapy included three "doses" of ice cream selected from the hospital canteen (either popsicles or dairy products). The results showed that only 28.85% of patients treated with ice cream developed oral mucositis. For comparison, in the control group that consumed ice, this figure was 59%.
For proving that the side effects of chemotherapy are reduced by replacing one of the components of the treatment with ice cream.
Ig Nobel Prize in Biology
crash moose
Moose are frequent participants in road accidents in Scandinavia:about 13 such collisions occur annually in Sweden alone, most in May. It was then that the moose mother gave up her one-year-old offspring so that the cub could learn to fend for itself. Young moose calves run out onto the roads and often die themselves or cause consequences for those involved in the accident.
Swedish explorer Magnus Gens drewattention that the cars are tested for safety for passengers, but the threats of meeting with wild animals are ignored. The researcher, together with Saab, decided to build a viable crash test dummy that car manufacturers could use in their safety research and development.
The scientist conducted an anatomical study andcomputer simulations that showed how a moose's mass is distributed and how the animal's body reacts to impact. After some 3D modeling, he built his mannequin from 116 rubber plates, complete with various steel pieces that hold them together.
Crash moose. Photo: Magnus Gens
Gens originally planned to model the legsusing steel wire or chains, but this would not match how evenly the mass is distributed on the elk's leg. Instead, he used four thin wires with rubber discs.
After assembly, the scientist tested the mannequin onSaab plant, using a modern model of this manufacturer and one old Volvo. The scientist conducted two collisions of cars moving at a speed of 92 and 72 km / h, respectively. The results showed that "the wrecked cars are very similar to the cars involved in real moose crashes" and the dummy is reliable and can be reused in multiple crash tests.
For developing the elk crash test dummy.
Ig Nobel Prize for Engineering Safety
legal letter
Contracts, agreements, laws and otherlegal documents are known for their impenetrable jargon and complex sentence structure. Perhaps that is why few people read the confidentiality agreement or the software license. Some scientists say that such complexity is rational, because it is a special system of expert knowledge, others - that the laws are built on simple concepts that can be easily explained.
Researchers from Canada, USA, UK andAustralia decided to test which of these hypotheses is correct and whether the laws can be understood. They first analyzed a database of legal contracts and court documents from 2018 to 2020 and compared this analysis with a database of standard English documents.
The researchers looked for how commondifferent features of legal documents in ordinary texts. They looked for, for example, phrases written in capital letters, the use of slang terms and the passive voice. The volunteers were then asked to read excerpts from legal documents. It turned out that the most difficult for the reader is the central embedding, when the legal jargon is included in the intricate syntax.
For analyzing what makes legal documents unnecessarily difficult to understand.
Ig Nobel Prize for Literature
What else was the award for?
Ig Nobel Prize in Biology to scientists from Brazil and Colombia
For studying whether and how constipation affects mating prospects for scorpions
Engineering Ig Nobel Prize for Researchers from Japan
For attempting to discover the most efficient way for people to use their fingers to turn a handle.
Ig Nobel Prize in Art History for a group of scientists from the Netherlands, Guatemala, USA and Austria
For an interdisciplinary approach to scenes of ritual enemas on ancient Maya pottery
Ig Nobel Prize in Physics for two groups of researchers from China, the UK, Turkey and the USA
For trying to understand how ducklings manage to swim in formation
Ig Nobel Peace Prize to scientists from different countries
For developing an algorithm to help gossipers decide when to tell the truth and when to lie
Ig Nobel Prize in Economics for Italian Researchers
For the mathematical explanation of why success most often goes not to the most talented people, but to the most successful.
Read more:
Scientists have come close to unraveling the secrets of the pyramids: how ancient people were able to build them
The mechanism of maintaining liver health in old age is revealed
Physicists explain Hawking's 'cosmic mismatch': how it will change science