Ilena Rose
2006-10-07 20:24:37 UTC
Excerpt: --
MEDICINE - Francis Fesmire of the University of Tennessee College of
Medicine and the team of Majed Odeh, Harry Bassan and Arie Oliven of
Bnai Zion Medical Center in Haifa, Israel who both published studies
entitled "Termination of Intractable Hiccups with Digital Rectal
Massage."
http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=oddlyEnoughNews&storyid=2006-10-06T133013Z_01_N05250561_RTRUKOC_0_US-SCIENCE-IGNOBELS-1.xml
Stinky feet, annoying noise top IgNobel prize list
Fri Oct 6, 2006 9:30 AM ET
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Research into stinky feet, a study on the sound
of fingernails on a blackboard and a device that repels teen-agers
with an annoying high-pitched hum on Thursday won IgNobel prizes --
the humorous counterpart to this week's Nobel prizes.
Other winning research included a U.S. and Israeli team's discovery
that hiccups could be cured with a finger up the rectum and a study
into why woodpeckers do not get headaches.
"The prizes are intended to celebrate the unusual, honor the
imaginative -- and spur people's interest in science, medicine and
technology," said Marc Abrahams, editor of the science humor magazine
"Annals of Improbable Research," which sponsors the awards with the
Harvard-Radcliffe Science Fiction Association and Harvard-Radcliffe
Society of Physics Students.
All the research is real and has been published in often-prestigious
scientific and medical journals. However, unlike the Nobel prizes
awarded this week by the Swedish Academy of Sciences, IgNobel winners
receive no money, little recognition and have virtually no hope of
transforming science or medicine.
Even the name of the award, a play on the word "ignoble," is meant to
be deprecating.
But they receive their awards from real Nobel winners in an event
broadcast on the Internet at http://www.improbable.com on
Thursday evening.
Some of the 2006 IgNobel winners:
-- BIOLOGY - Bart Knols of Wageningen Agricultural University in the
Netherlands, the National Institute for Medical Research in Tanzania
and the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, Austria and
colleague Ruurd de Jong for showing that the female Anopheles gambiae
mosquito, which carries malaria, is attracted equally to the smell of
limburger cheese and to the smell of human feet.
"We have shown that three different Anopheles mosquito species prefer
to bite different parts of a naked motionless volunteer and that this
behavior is influenced by odors from those body regions," they wrote
in their report, published in the Lancet medical journal in 1996.
-- ORNITHOLOGY - Ivan Schwab of the University of California Davis,
and the late Philip R.A. May of the University of California Los
Angeles, for explaining why woodpeckers do not get headaches.
-- NUTRITION - Wasmia Al-Houty of Kuwait University and Faten
Al-Mussalam of the Kuwait Environment Public Authority, for showing
that dung beetles are finicky eaters.
-- PEACE - Howard Stapleton of Merthyr Tydfil, Wales, for inventing a
teen-ager repellent -- a device that makes a high-pitched noise that
is annoying to teen-agers but inaudible to most adults; and for later
using the technology to make cellphone ringtones that teenagers can
hear but not their teachers.
-- ACOUSTICS - D. Lynn Halpern, Randolph Blake and James Hillenbrand
of Chicago's Northwestern University for a 1986 experiment aimed at
discovering why the sound of fingernails scraping on a blackboard is
so irritating.
-- MEDICINE - Francis Fesmire of the University of Tennessee College
of Medicine and the team of Majed Odeh, Harry Bassan and Arie Oliven
of Bnai Zion Medical Center in Haifa, Israel who both published
studies entitled "Termination of Intractable Hiccups with Digital
Rectal Massage."
-- MATHEMATICS - Nic Svenson and Piers Barnes of the Australian
Commonwealth Scientific and Research Organization, for calculating the
number of shots a photographer must take to almost ensure that nobody
in a group photo will have their eyes closed.
~~~~~~~~~~~
www.BreastImplantAwareness.org/QuackWatchWatch.htm
MEDICINE - Francis Fesmire of the University of Tennessee College of
Medicine and the team of Majed Odeh, Harry Bassan and Arie Oliven of
Bnai Zion Medical Center in Haifa, Israel who both published studies
entitled "Termination of Intractable Hiccups with Digital Rectal
Massage."
http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=oddlyEnoughNews&storyid=2006-10-06T133013Z_01_N05250561_RTRUKOC_0_US-SCIENCE-IGNOBELS-1.xml
Stinky feet, annoying noise top IgNobel prize list
Fri Oct 6, 2006 9:30 AM ET
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Research into stinky feet, a study on the sound
of fingernails on a blackboard and a device that repels teen-agers
with an annoying high-pitched hum on Thursday won IgNobel prizes --
the humorous counterpart to this week's Nobel prizes.
Other winning research included a U.S. and Israeli team's discovery
that hiccups could be cured with a finger up the rectum and a study
into why woodpeckers do not get headaches.
"The prizes are intended to celebrate the unusual, honor the
imaginative -- and spur people's interest in science, medicine and
technology," said Marc Abrahams, editor of the science humor magazine
"Annals of Improbable Research," which sponsors the awards with the
Harvard-Radcliffe Science Fiction Association and Harvard-Radcliffe
Society of Physics Students.
All the research is real and has been published in often-prestigious
scientific and medical journals. However, unlike the Nobel prizes
awarded this week by the Swedish Academy of Sciences, IgNobel winners
receive no money, little recognition and have virtually no hope of
transforming science or medicine.
Even the name of the award, a play on the word "ignoble," is meant to
be deprecating.
But they receive their awards from real Nobel winners in an event
broadcast on the Internet at http://www.improbable.com on
Thursday evening.
Some of the 2006 IgNobel winners:
-- BIOLOGY - Bart Knols of Wageningen Agricultural University in the
Netherlands, the National Institute for Medical Research in Tanzania
and the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, Austria and
colleague Ruurd de Jong for showing that the female Anopheles gambiae
mosquito, which carries malaria, is attracted equally to the smell of
limburger cheese and to the smell of human feet.
"We have shown that three different Anopheles mosquito species prefer
to bite different parts of a naked motionless volunteer and that this
behavior is influenced by odors from those body regions," they wrote
in their report, published in the Lancet medical journal in 1996.
-- ORNITHOLOGY - Ivan Schwab of the University of California Davis,
and the late Philip R.A. May of the University of California Los
Angeles, for explaining why woodpeckers do not get headaches.
-- NUTRITION - Wasmia Al-Houty of Kuwait University and Faten
Al-Mussalam of the Kuwait Environment Public Authority, for showing
that dung beetles are finicky eaters.
-- PEACE - Howard Stapleton of Merthyr Tydfil, Wales, for inventing a
teen-ager repellent -- a device that makes a high-pitched noise that
is annoying to teen-agers but inaudible to most adults; and for later
using the technology to make cellphone ringtones that teenagers can
hear but not their teachers.
-- ACOUSTICS - D. Lynn Halpern, Randolph Blake and James Hillenbrand
of Chicago's Northwestern University for a 1986 experiment aimed at
discovering why the sound of fingernails scraping on a blackboard is
so irritating.
-- MEDICINE - Francis Fesmire of the University of Tennessee College
of Medicine and the team of Majed Odeh, Harry Bassan and Arie Oliven
of Bnai Zion Medical Center in Haifa, Israel who both published
studies entitled "Termination of Intractable Hiccups with Digital
Rectal Massage."
-- MATHEMATICS - Nic Svenson and Piers Barnes of the Australian
Commonwealth Scientific and Research Organization, for calculating the
number of shots a photographer must take to almost ensure that nobody
in a group photo will have their eyes closed.
~~~~~~~~~~~
www.BreastImplantAwareness.org/QuackWatchWatch.htm