{"id":649848,"date":"2013-04-01T11:45:33","date_gmt":"2013-04-01T15:45:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.ted.com\/?p=73977"},"modified":"2013-04-01T11:46:00","modified_gmt":"2013-04-01T15:46:00","slug":"not-just-for-april-fools-day-8-winners-of-the-ig-nobel-prize-whose-scientific-works-sounds-funny-but-is-actually-perfectly-serious-mostly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/649848","title":{"rendered":"Not just for April Fools’ Day: 8 winners of the Ig Nobel Prize, whose scientific works sounds funny but is actually perfectly serious, mostly"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo:<\/p>\n

Photo: James Duncan Davidson<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

In 1995, Kees Moeliker heard a loud bang coming from the Natural History Museum Rotterdam<\/a>\u2019s new wing. He knew exactly what it was. \"KeesKees Moeliker: How a dead duck changed my life<\/span><\/a> A curator at the museum, Moeliker had gotten used to the sound of birds hitting the glass exterior of the new wing, and had even taken to stuffing the dead birds for the museum\u2019s collection. But, as Moeliker explains in this humorous talk from TED2013<\/a>, the duck that met its death on this particular day \u201cchanged his life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just how the duck qualified as a life-changing event sounds like an April Fools\u2019 Day joke. It is not.<\/p>\n

Soon after the male mallard duck died, a live male duck from the same species approached it, mounted it, and — to put it in layperson\u2019s terms — humped it for over an hour. Amazed, Moeliker did what any curious biologist would do: he grabbed his camera and his notebook, and recorded what happened. Moeliker described his bizarre observations six years later in a paper aptly titled \u201cThe first case of homosexual necrophilia in the mallard <\/a>Anas platyrhynchos<\/a> <\/i>(Aves: Anatidae).\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2003, this work earned Moeliker the Ig Nobel Prize in Biology. A parody of the Nobel Prize, the Ig Nobels<\/a> honor research and work that \u201cfirst make[s] people laugh and then make[s] them think.\u201d In other words, just because research sounds ridiculous doesn\u2019t mean it has no merit. As Ig Nobel founder Marc Abrahams tells the TED Blog over email: \u201cScience is the continuing quest to discover — and to not overlook — things beyond or outside what we expect. The truly unexpected is surprising, sometimes funny, and, who knows, might even turn out to be important.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even Moeliker\u2019s dead duck research has a practical side. Each year on June 5th<\/sup> Moeliker and the victimized duck, which he naturally had stuffed<\/a>, co-lead a public discussion on how to prevent birds from hitting windows — a major cause of bird death worldwide. As Moeliker shares in his talk, it could be that the mixed-up sexual behavior of animals points to something larger — that our continuous morphing of landscapes may have an affect animal behavior and species\u2019 ability to thrive.<\/p>\n

For a full list of past Ig Nobel winners, head to their website<\/a>. Or read on for a few of our favorites\u2026<\/p>\n

Category:<\/b> Entomology
\nYear:<\/b> 1994
\nWinner:<\/b> Robert A. Lopez \u201cfor his series of experiments in obtaining ear mites from cats, inserting them into his own ear, and carefully observing and analyzing the results.\u201d
\nWhy he did it: <\/b>Sounds uncomfortable, and it was by all accounts. Still, as Marc Abrahams reports in The Guardian<\/a><\/i>, Lopez\u2019s itchy experiment helped him prove that Otodectes cynotis<\/i> mites could infect humans, which he suspected was the cause of at least one rash in a young girl who liked cuddling her mite-ridden cats.<\/p>\n

Category: <\/b>Public Health
\nYear: <\/b>2009
\nWinners: <\/b>Elena Bodnar, Raphael Lee, and Sandra Marijan \u201cfor inventing a brassiere that, in an emergency, can be quickly converted into a pair of protective face masks, one for the brassiere wearer and one to be given to some needy bystander.\u201d
\nWhy they did it: <\/b>The concept for this invention may seem silly, and the drawings in the team\u2019s patent<\/a> don\u2019t help, but during a biological or chemical terror attack you probably wouldn\u2019t care.<\/p>\n

Category: <\/b>Safety Engineering
\nYear: <\/b>1998
\nWinner: <\/b>Troy Hurtubise \u201cfor developing, and personally testing a suit of armor\u00a0that is impervious to grizzly bears.\u201d
\nWhy he did it: <\/b>Well, to see if he could survive a grizzly attack. But, according to Wikipedia<\/a>, the suit may also have applications in riots, explosions and other dangerous situations in which you\u2019d want protection.<\/p>\n

Category: <\/b>Peace
\nYear: <\/b>2000
\nWinner: <\/b>The British Royal Navy\u00a0\u201cfor ordering its sailors to stop using live cannon shells, and to instead just shout \u201cBang!\u201d
\nWhy they did it: <\/b>According to the BBC<\/a>, the Navy decided to forego live ammunition for the childlike verbal \u201cbangs\u201d after the government drastically cut military budgets.<\/p>\n

Category: <\/b>Biology
\nYear: <\/b>2002
\nWinners: <\/b>N. Bubier, Charles Paxton, Phil Bowers and D. Charles Deeming \u201cfor their report \u2018Courtship Behaviour of Ostriches Towards Humans Under Farming Conditions in Britain.\u2019\u201d
\nWhy they did it: <\/b>According to the authors<\/a>, an increase in ostrich farms and a lack of knowledge on how they breed in captivity spurred the research. Anecdotal evidence showed the birds got frisky whenever people were nearby, so the researchers decided to confirm whether it was true. It was. The authors concluded: \u201cCourtship behaviour towards humans may be important in the reproductive success of ostriches in a farming environment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Category: <\/b>Engineering
\nYear: <\/b>2010
\nWinners: <\/b>Karina Acevedo-Whitehouse and Agnes Rocha-Gosselin \u201cfor perfecting a method to collect whale snot using a remote-control helicopter.\u201d
\nWhy they did it: <\/b>Being a whale doctor isn\u2019t easy, especially when your patient weighs multiple tons and is swimming in the ocean. One way to monitor health is to check the microbes living in and on the whale to see if they may be causing disease. As these winners have shown<\/a>, it\u2019s possible to collect at least some of those whale microbes with the marvels of modern technology.<\/p>\n

Category: <\/b>Physics
\nYear: <\/b>2003
\nWinners: <\/b>Jack Harvey, John Culvenor, Warren Payne, Steve Cowley, Michael Lawrance, David Stuart, and Robyn Williams \u201cfor their irresistible report \u2018An Analysis of the Forces Required to Drag Sheep over Various Surfaces<\/a>.\u2019\u201d
\nWhy they did it: <\/b>As this Abrahams Q&A with Wired<\/a><\/i> explains, the research took place in Australia, where sheep shearing is a major industry. Dragging the sheep to the equipment is difficult and dangerous and the scientists researched various floor configurations and materials to see what which surfaces made the job easiest.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Photo: James Duncan Davidson In 1995, Kees Moeliker heard a loud bang coming from the Natural History Museum Rotterdam\u2019s new wing. He knew exactly what it was. Kees Moeliker: How a dead duck changed my life A curator at the museum, Moeliker had gotten used to the sound of birds hitting the glass exterior of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7514,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-649848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7514"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=649848"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649848\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=649848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=649848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=649848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}