Lord Noel Summarises The Ig Nobel Awards

What ho! Prizewinners..

Around this time of year......

....some eyes focus on the Annual Award ceremony .....

....which is the 'Ig' Nobel Awards.

These 'Ig Nobel' awards, nominated by the staff at Harvard University's Annals of Improbable Research and voted on by real Nobel Prize laureates, recently held is awards ceremony.

The Igs, as the awards are affectionately called, are an irreverent celebrations of real research that "cannot, or should not, be repeated".

This year, Igs recipients were allowed no more than 60 seconds to deliver their acceptance speech.......

...(a time limit enforced by an eight-year-old girl).

AND THE WINNERS ARE:

Switzerland 

Stephan Bolliger and colleagues at the University of Bern won the not-so-coveted Peache Prize for research on whether it is better to be smashed over the head with a full beer bottle or an empty one.

"Empty beer bottles are sturdier than full ones," the researchers reported......

"However, both full and empty bottles are theoretically capable of fracturing the human neurocranium."

Facinating!

America

Elena Bodnar of Hinsdale, Illinois, was award the Public Health prize for patenting a bra that, in an emergency, can be converted into a pair of gas masks, one for the owner and one for a needy bystander.

"It was inspired by the Chernobyl nuclear accident," said Bodnar, who is originally from Ukraine.

"This way, the mask is always readily available." 

Mexico

For Ig Nobel Chemistry -  to Javier Morales and two colleagues at the National University of Mexico for turning the national drink, tequila, into diamonds!

Yes! Thin films of diamond were produced by heating 80%-proof tequila blanco in a pressure vessel.

The man's a GENIUS!

But can he turn diamonds into Tequila?

The U.S 

...struck gold again when Donald Unger, a doctor in Thousand Oaks, California, won the Medicine Prize for cracking the knuckles of his left hand, but never those on his right, every day for 60 years to investigate whether it caused arthritis. Unger, now 83, told reporters: "After 60 years, I looked at my knuckles and there's not the slightest sign of arthritis.

I looked up to the heavens and said: 'Mother, you were wrong, you were wrong, you were wrong'."

(She would have been so proud.)

Some very agreeable Japanese telephones

Japan

walked away with the Biology Prize for research by Fumiaki Taguchi, Song Guofu and Zhang Guanglei, of the  Kitasato University graduate school of medical sciences, for demonstrating that kitchen waste can be reduced by more than 90% by using bacteria extracted from giant panda excrement.

Taguchi suspected panda feces must contain bacteria capable of breaking down even the hardiest of foods because of the bear's vast consumption of bamboo.

Ireland

...is noted for its writers and poets, so it's no surprise to that the entire police force of Ireland won the Literature Prize for issuing more than 50 penalties to a man they supposed to be the most persistent driving offender in the country: a Mr. Prawo Jazdy........

...whose name in Polish means.....

"driver's license".

Icelanders

...will probably not be thrilled that the Ig Nobel's Economics Prize went to the directors, executives and auditors of four Icelandic banks: Kaupthing bank, Landsbanki, Glitnir bank and Central Bank of Iceland, "for demonstrating that tiny banks can be rapidly transformed into huge banks, and vice versa -- and for demonstrating that similar things can be done to an entire national economy".

Tallyho!

Best Wishes - Lord Noel & Lady Jacqueline

Dress With Finesse