Science Friday - A Theatrical Tribute To Unexpected Science

Episode Date: December 5, 2024

The Ig Nobel awards are a salute to achievements that, in the words of the organizers, “make people laugh, then think.”  Each year, the editors of the science humor magazine Annals of Improbable Research choose 10 lucky(?) winners who have unusual achievements in science, medicine, and other fields. This year’s awards were presented in a theatrical extravaganza in an MIT lecture hall in September.They included awards for studying coin flipping (including hundreds of thousands of real coin flips), the movements of a dead trout, and an opera about Murphy’s Law. In a Science Friday holiday tradition, Ira hosts an hour of highlights from the ceremony.Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

It's the most wonderful time of the year? And now let's get it over with, ladies, gentlemen, the awarding of the 2024 Ig Nobel Prizes. It's Thursday, December 5th. You're listening to Science Friday. I'm SciFri producer Charles Bergquist. Each year, the editors of the Annals of Improbable Research hand out awards for unusual scientific investigations.

So, you know, if you've ever wondered about the big questions in life, like, how does a dead fish swim compared to a live fish, for instance? Stay tuned. Here's Ira to whisk you away to the awards ceremony. The awards are handed out each year by the editors of the Science Humor magazine, The Annals of Improbable Research, for work in science that first makes you laugh and then makes you think. It's stuff that might make you say, hmm, I wonder.

Shower thoughts, some people call it. This year's celebration is the 34th first annual awards. And for the first time in several years, the ceremony was held post-COVID in person in a theater on the MIT campus. Glad to see them all back in the flesh. This year's ceremonies featured a mini opera about Murphy's Law. You know, if anything can go wrong, it will go wrong. And prizes handed out by genuine real Nobel laureates. Just to explain a few things before we start.

There are a few traditions at the ceremonies, like the traditional welcome, welcome, and goodbye-good-bye-bye speeches. There's an official who will sound an alarm if things threaten to get too raunchy, and then there's Miss Sweetie-Poo, a little girl who starts to whine whenever the speakers go on too long. And you know what? Sometimes the speakers try to bribe her, but she always wins in the end. So here's our post- Thanksgiving tradition, as we take you. you back to earlier this year at MIT, where the dignitaries and the ignitaries are taking the stage. Welcome. Welcome. Ladies and gentlemen and variations thereupon, welcome to the 31st, fourth annual Ignobel, oh, sorry, welcome to the 34th first annual Ignobel prize ceremony.

Tonight, we are going to award the three. the 2024 Ig Nobel Prizes. Soon we will welcome our most special guests, the new Ig Nobel Prize winners. This year's winners represent many countries and exactly one planet. Now, ladies and gentlemen, children and elders, literati, glitterati, pseudo-intellectuals, quasi-sudo-intellectuals, pseudo-quasi-intellectuals, smootts, bots, bacteria, will-bees, has-beens, victims of Murphy's law, and the rest of you, may I introduce our Master of Ceremonies, the editor of the Annals of Improbable Research, Chief Airhead, Mark Abrams. Tonight, today, no, tonight, we honor some remarkable individuals and groups.

Every Ig Nobel Prize winner has done something that first makes people laugh and then makes them think. The Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony is produced by the magazine, our magazine, the Annals of Improbable Research, and it's produced in collaboration with the MIT Press. The editors of the Annals of Improbable Research have chosen a theme for this year's Ignobel Prize ceremony. That theme is Murphy's Law. Murphy's Law is the idea that if anything can go wrong, it will go wrong. wrong. There are many other ways to phrase that. Many of them are wrong. Tonight, there are 10 prizes. The achievements speak for themselves. Yet we will speak of them. The prizes will be presented

to the winners by Nobel laureates. Please welcome the Nobel laureates who will hand out the prizes. Let's give each of them a hand. 2007 Nobel laureate in economics, Eric Maskin. A 2009, Nobel laureate in economics. Esther Duflo, a 2009 Nobel laureate in economics. Abidjit Banerjee. A 1997 Nobel laureate in economics. Robert Merton. A, 2023, Nobel laureate in chemistry.

Mungi, Bowendi. A 1990 Nobel laureate in physics, Jerome Friedman, is again unable to join us on this particular night. He joins us, though, as usual, via the magic of recorded video. Congratulations. I hope you are enjoying this as much as I am. And now let's get it over with, ladies, gentlemen, whoever, the awarding, whomever, the awarding of the awarding of the the 2024 Ig Nobel Prizes. We are, as you've heard several times, giving out 10 prizes. The winners do come from many nations.

They have all earned their prizes. Karen, tell them what they've won. This year's winners each get an Ig Nobel Prize. Sorry, and they get a piece of paper. This piece of paper says they've won an Ig Nobel Prize. I've been in here somewhere. Ladies and gentlemen, now I will show you the coveted Ig Nobel Prize.

Dear, Igno Bell Tries is a transparent box. The box contains historic items about the history of Murphy's Law. Some of these items are missing. And the box is almost impossible to open. The Peace Prize. The winner is from the USA. The Ig Nobel Peace Prize. Nobel Peace Prize is awarded to the late B.F. Skinner for experiments to see the feasibility

of housing live pigeons inside missiles to guide the flight paths of the missiles. Accepting on behalf of B.F. Skinner, here is his daughter, Julie Skinner, Vargas. On behalf of my father, B.F. Skinner, I want to thank you for finally acknowledging his most important contribution. People know him only for discovering operant conditioning, schedules of reinforcement, and for books like Walden 2, verbal behavior, beyond freedom D, and, and, and, and more. Even the B.F. Skinner Foundation fails to put a missile on its hat.

So thank you for finally putting the record straight. The Anatomy Prize. Did everyone hear me? This is room 10-250. It's one of the most famous rooms here at MIT. It's used for all sorts of lectures. Nobel laureates have lectured here.

MIT presidents have been introduced to the world here. Fortunately, nothing that important seems to be going on right now. Now, I'm told that if you want to take a nap during your class, the best place to do it is back there in row P. Yes, thank you. Thank you. And if you were ever to be here when it was empty, which is very unusual because it's used about 90% of the time.

But if you were ever to be here when it was empty, I'd suggest you look under your seat because it's been said that more than one MIT student leaves their slide rule behind when they graduate. Anyway, our next stop is the Infinite Carter, so we don't want to linger. We don't want to linger. The Anatomy Prize.

The Igno Bell Anatomy Prize is awarded to Marjulane Willems, Quentin Henoke, Sarah Tannon, Delara, Nicholas Cogan, Vincent Fleury, Rami Reci-Guillard, Juan Jose Cortez, Santander, Roberto Reckhanna, Julian Sterniman, and Roman Hossein Konsari, for studying whether the hair on the heads of most people in the northern hemisphere swirls in the same direction, clockwise or counterclockwise as hair on the head. of most people in the southern hemisphere. We want to thank the scientific committee

to have chosen our publication about genetic determinism and hemisphere influence on her world direction. So to make a long story short, it began with the observation of my own twin identical daughters when they just were born, I observed the same direction of the world,

but one left-sided and the other one white-sided. So I decided to investigate, and I called my friend Ossain. Yes, so we found interesting results on twins, and then we decided to check this quite a strange hypothesis, whether they would turn in opposite direction in the northern and southern hemisphere. So then we started working with colleagues from Chile,

And we realize that in fact, they do. It's nearly clockwise for everyone, but next year for the rest. We have a demonstration. Everyone here in this room, would you please look at the head of the person directly in front of you, who is slightly below your level, then please by raising your own arm in the air and twirling it, indicate in which direction clockwise... Oh, if you're wearing a hat, would you please remove it?

Please indicate by raising your arm in the air and twirling it which direction clockwise or counterclockwise the hair is swirling. We have to take a break, but we'll be right back with more from the Ig Nobel Awards in just a moment. Stay with us. Ira here, letting you know that we have a dollar-for-dollar match right now. So any donation you make will be doubled. And this week, we're celebrating Giving Tuesday, which means now is a great time to double your impact and show your support for Science Friday. A nonprofit dedicated to making science accessible to the public. So please go to science friday.com slash support to make your donation and invest in the future of science journalism. Again, that's sciencefriiday.com slash support and thanks.

We're playing highlights from this year's Ig Nobel Award ceremony, research that first makes you laugh and then makes you think. It was recorded in September of this year on the MIT campus. Here's Ignobel Master of Ceremonies again, Mark Abrams. The Botany Prize. The winners are from... Germany, Brazil, and the USA. The Ignobel Botany Prize is awarded to Jacob White and Felipe Yamashita

for finding evidence that some real plants imitate the shapes of neighboring artificial plastic plants. Thank you. I would like to thank you the organization and also the Stifton-Sukon-Cunfayette for founding our research. and as this research was based on a plant who can mimic the leaf of other

plants and we just use a plastic leaf and this plant mimic the plastic leaf. And how they do that? Our hypothesis is this bochila plant have some sort of eye. They can see what's going around.

And how they do that? We have no idea. And we need to continue. I continue studying on this plant, but to study on this, I need a position, so I just finished my PhD and I need a job now. Thank you, and I need a job to continue this research. Thank you.

Thank you. Now get set for the 24-7 lectures. We've invited several of the world's top thinkers to tell us very briefly what they are thinking about. 24-7 lecturer will explain their subject twice. First, a complete technical description in 24 seconds, and then after a brief pause, a clear summary that anyone can understand in seven words. The first 24-7 lecture will be delivered by economist and Nobel laureate Esther Duflo. Her topic is clear.

Climate injustice. First, a complete technical description of the subject in 24 seconds. On your mark, get set. Go. Taking into account our full carbon footprint, an American in the top decile of the income distribution emits 120 times as much CO2E as an African in the bottom. However, extrapolating from the marginal impact of past weather realizations,

researchers estimate that higher temperature could lead to at least 6 million extra annual death by 2100 concentrated in poor countries which have both hotter. And now a clear summary that anyone can understand in seven words. On your mark, you get set, go. The rich consume, hit kills the poor. The next 24-7 lecture will be delivered by ornithologist Ig Nobel Prize winner and Natural History Museum director Case Moolikur. His topic, Murphy's Law and Ducks. First, a complete technical description of the subject in 24 seconds.

On your mark, get set, go. The 130 species of ducks are spread worldwide in wet habitats. In a duck's life, anything can go wrong, but ducks are resilient. They've evolved to handle predators and harsh conditions, aggressive mating, and even human impact. Their numbers and diversity show that while things do go wrong, they're builds and behave to survive, ensuring their presence in a changing world. And now a clear summary that anyone can understand in seven words. On your mark, get set, go.

Ducks prove that nature overcomes Murphy's law. medicine prize. The winners are from Switzerland, Germany, and Belgium. The Ig Nobel Medicine Prize is awarded to Levin Schenck, Taminé Fede, and Christian Buchel for demonstrating that fake medicine that causes painful side effects can be more effective than fake medicine that does not cause painful side effects. The prize will be presented by Nobel laureate Esther Duflowe. Well, thank you very much for this prize. It's a great honor, of course.

Very happy to be here. So we actually investigated if side effects and how they actually can improve treatments. And although this sounds very counterintuitive, In some cases, previous research on placebo effects actually suggests that this is the case. So we investigated it and we found that this is the case, that non-painful side effects can actually lead to a bigger pain reduction. And yeah, if you're interested in the details, I have to refer you to the paper. Thank you.

The physics prize. The winner is from the USA. The Ig Nobel Physics Prize is awarded to Jimmy Liao for demonstrating and explaining the swimming abilities of a dead trout. The prize is presented by Nobel laureate, Ruby, Orange. I discovered that a live fish moves more than a dead fish. But not for a live fish. by much. Not by much. A dead trout towed behind a stick also flaps its tail to the beat of the

current like a live fish surfing on swirling eddies, recapturing the energy in its environment. A dead fish does live fish things, using its body like a sailboat to tack upwind, its torso, undulating, acting as a lift-producing sail and a stabilizing keel at the same time. Fluids flap flexible fish forward from forces and feedback. The water swims the fish. Placid trout ignited my career and I'll forever be grateful. Thank you, Ig Nobel, for not ignoring the fun and fundamental science. Viva la Fish!

The Physiology Prize. The winners are from Japan and the USA. The Ig Nobel Physiology Prize is awarded to Rio Okabe, Toyofumi, Chen Yoshikawa, Yoshke Yoniyama, Yuhei Yoka Yama, Satona Tanaka, Akahiko Yosehasawa, Wendy Thompson, Goku Kanan, Aiji Kobayashi, Hiroshi Date, and Takanori Takabe. for discovering that many mammals are capable of breathing through their anus. Prize is presented to them by Nobel laureate Robert Merton.

First and foremost, thank you so much for believing the potential of anus for breathing potential. So in Japan, we have a very interesting creature called low cheese low cheese that has a capacity to suck up oxygen from the bats. So why we can't do that? So that was the question we started. So let me show how it works with this, you know, extraordinary colleagues. So we start from, you know, making oxygenated liquids and then preparing that beforehand.

Then, you know, this, you know, very talented professors in the surgery in prominent university in Japan, these are a flu professors, by the way. and operating every day, but he's just, you know, helping to, you know, pick model first and try to inject. Thank you so much. So, as if low cheese, they are injecting lots of bubbles in the butt, and they eventually pump it up, enjoying the extraordinary capacity to suck up the oxygen,

eventually leading to improvements of respiratory failure conditions. Okay? I'm so sorry. Now we survive. It's time for the next 24-7 lectures. This 24-7 lecture will be delivered by the permanent acting interim executive director of Moba, the Museum of Bad Art. Louise Riley Sacco, her topic, bad art. First, a complete technical description of the subject in 24 seconds.

On your mark, get set, go. Museum quality bad art is first of all art, created by someone seriously attempting to make an artistic statement but has gone horribly awry in concept or execution. Poor technique is not sufficient unless the lack of drawing ability, perspective, or sense of color results in a compelling image. Many works contain over-the-top imagery

whether or not the artist's intent is decipherable by the artist or the audience. And now a clear summary that anyone can understand in seven words. On your mark, get set, go. It's art too bad to be ignored. The next 24-7 lecture will be delivered by economist and Nobel laureate Eric Maskin. His topic, Murphy's Law and economics. First, a complete technical description of the subject in 24 seconds.

On your mark, get set, go. In the pandemic, the government sent checks to low-income individuals. This had the dual purpose of tiding the neediest people over and propping up demand to avoid a downward recessionary spiral. Unfortunately, a perfect storm of broken supply chains meant that demand exceeded supply, causing notable inflation. In other words, if you conduct fiscal policy before your chickens have hatched, You might end up with egg on your face.

And now a clear summary that anyone can understand in seven words. On your mark, get set, go. The fiscal stimulus won't cause inflation. Oops. The final 24-7 lecture will be delivered by Rockstar and Human Curtinrod, Amanda Palmer. topic, Murphy's Law, and musical performance. First, a complete technical description of the subject in 24 seconds. On your mark? Get set. Go. You're a musician, so don't throw me under the bus. The one time you decide to select the two-leg, hella-cheap Iceland air flight from Boston to London

to kick off a tour will coincide with the exact afternoon that the infamous Ash Club volcano erupts thereby grounding your flight in Reykjavik and trapping you in Iceland. The decision to book a tiny unnecessary gig in Christchurch, New Zealand will coincide with the exact afternoon that the Christchurch earthquake kills almost 200 people destroying the venue that you were meant to be performing in five hours later. Grouting your flight and trapping you in northern New Zealand. I got two thirds in. Now, a clear summary that anyone can understand in seven words.

On your mark, get set. Go. If it's all going well, just wait. A public service announcement. Did anyone lose an Ig Nobel Prize and a $10 trillion bill here? In this year's Ignobel Mini Opera, the International Murphy's Law Song Competition Contest Opera about a competition to see who can perform the most Murphy-esque song about Murphy's Law. And of course, during the opera, things went wrong.

Here's a taste of the opera. A law that will give people some protection To ease the suffering and vile sensation that comes from fairness, yes, and from frustration With everything that pan and will go wrong, we know it will We need a law requiring punishment or firing for whenever someone is successful because it is distressful for the rest of us to see head cruelty and the unfair my life is a man prison them they are deserving and when they fail to fail it is unnerving if they think that the bad times are behind them the legal system really must re Mind them, we must succeed in making people fail. If they should fail to fail, send them to jail.

Will not, will not let a single, single, single thing goes right, we must require that it go even says some real protection. Coming up, more highlights from this year's 34th, first annual Ig Nobel Awards. Stay with us. And we now return you to highlights from this year's Ig Nobel Awards Ceremony. The awards are presented by the editors of the Science Humor magazine, Annals of Improbable Research, and you can find out more about them at improbable.com. Here's Master of Ceremonies, Mark Abrams, with more of the awards.

The second paper airplane deluge is about to commence. Please prepare your paper airplanes for the second paper airplane deluge. But remember, safety first. Throw your paper airplanes only at the designated target. Prepare your airplanes for launch. The Probability Prize. The winners are from the Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, and the Czech Republic. The Ignobel Probability Prize is awarded to Frantyshek Bartas, Eric Jan Wagner,

Alexandra Sir Foglu, Hendrik Godman, and many colleagues for showing both in theory and by 350,750757 experiments that when you flip a coin, it tends to land on the same side as it started. Prize of being presented by Nobel laureate Al-Mashah Banner-Jew.

So we flip coins over. 300,000 times, which means 650 hours of constant coin flipping or about 81 work days. It might seem ridiculous at first, and perhaps it was. We wanted to test a prediction from Dioconis, Holmes and Montgomery, who argued that when people flip coins, the coins wobble in the air. Because of this wobble, coins presumably tend to land on the same side they started. But the effect is very small, possibly only 1%. We found compelling evidence for the effect.

Also, some people show effects larger than others. Finally, there seems to be learning effects, and the more coins you flip, the less bias you become. So we would encourage everybody to pick up this fascinating line of research and maybe attempt replication of our experiment as well. Good luck. We have a demonstration, and we ask for a volunteer from the audience. To do this demonstration, we will give you a coin, some paper, and a pencil, and then you,

you will replicate the experiment rapidly the full number of times. If you would like to volunteer, just raise your arm, please. Okay. All right. Thank you. When the ceremony ends, if you have not finished doing the full number of experiments, you can remain here in the lecture hall for as many months as you need. The Demography Prize.

The winner is from Australia and the UK. The Ig Nobel Demography Prize is awarded to Saul Justin Newman for Detective Work, to discover that many of the people famous for having the longest lives lived in places that had lousy birth and death record keeping. Prize is presented by Nobel laureate, Ricky Goende. Okay, I was working away in my little lab, undisturbed by Buncombe and Wu. When I was told the way not to get old was the Blue Zone's lifestyle breakthrough. At a stroke of a pen they had solved medicine and shown how geriatrics keep breathing.

Long living, they said, in the abstract I read, had as a secret of heavy in breeding. And when that didn't sell, they thought grandly well, we shall play out the long game in sales, and went searching about for a secret to tout us a way to outlive all the whales. But the secrets fell over like a lover in clover when I checked the government books.

The blue zones are poor, the records no more, the 100-year-olds are all crooks. So the secret it seems to live out your dreams and make sure you keep living, not dying, is to move where birth certificates are rare. Teach your kids pension fraud and start lying. And I'd like to thank my mom, my dad. I'd like to thank all the old people who are collecting the pension while they're dead.

It's really excellent work. I like to thank the world's oldest man for having three birthdays. I'd like to thank... Okay. The Chemistry Prize. The winners are from the Netherlands and France. The Ig Nobel Chemistry Prize is awarded to Hess Heromans, Antoine de Blay, Daniel Bonn, and Sonder Voterson,

for using chromatis. to separate drunk and sober worms. This is presented to them by Nobel laureate, Eric Maskin. So if you show a long, slender, wiggly object to a chemist, he will tell you it's a polymer, but if you show the same thing to a biologist, he will tell you it's a worm that moves because it's looking for food.

The naive question we asked is what the actual difference. actual difference between the two systems is. And to answer this question we said, let's do worm chromatography. So we made the worms flow through a maze, which you see there. But before doing that, we made half of them drunk, inactive, and we painted them blue. So now we're going to reproduce the experiment on It was a rafting race between a sober red worm and a drunk blue worm. Sets?

The, this is the 10th and final prize. The, I said the already. Mind if I say it again? The biology prize. The winners are from the USA. The Ig Nobel Biology Prize is a world. awarded to the late Fortes E. Lee and the late William E. Peterson for exploding a paper bag next to a cat that's standing on the back of a cow to explore how and when cows spew their milk.

Here to accept the prize on behalf of the winners are the the daughter and grandson of Fortes Ely, Matt Wells and Jane Wells. The prize is presented to them by Nobel laureate Esther Duflo. An excerpt from this work. It was thought that there might be a difference in the response of the two halves of the utter as measured by the rate of ejection of milk if the cow was severely frightened. Accordingly, the cow was systematically frightened as the mechanical milker was attached. Frightening at first consisted in placing a cat on the cow's back and exploding paper bags

every ten seconds for two minutes. Later, the cat was dispensed with as unnecessary. We have a demonstration. For which we ask the five Nobel laureates, to assist us. Would the minor domos please bring out the cow, the cat, and some paper bags. Thank you.

Thank you. As you leave the lecture hall, as you leave the lecture hall in about two minutes, possibly, please help us tidy up. There are some stray paper airplanes. And if you gather them,

perhaps you'd like to bring one of those stray paper airplanes to an Ig Nobel Prize winner and get an autograph, transforming it into a historic item of some sort. Now, Barry Duncan will give the traditional Ig Nobel goodbye, goodbye speech. Goodbye, goodbye. Thank you for joining us at the 34th first annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony. We estimate that next year's ceremony will be the 35th first annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony. Now, on behalf of Improbable Research and the MIT Press, and everyone here, please remember this final thought.

If you didn't win an Ig Nobel Prize tonight, and especially if you did, better luck next year. Thank you. And that about wraps it up for us. Thanks to Mark Abrams and everybody at the Annals of Improbable Research, you can find out more about them at improbable.com. We're going to leave you with a selection from this year's Ig Nobel Mini Opera, entitled The International Murphy's Law Song Competition Contest Opera.

Great, A-O-K mate, happy laughter. Ha-ha-ha. But just wait, mate, your luck will mutate. It's your fate, mate. It's Murphy's Law. First the day breaks, then your phone breaks, then your car's brakes start to fail. Then some jerk makes you get headaches.

That jerk. Will these bad brakes make you quail? Then some old schmock screws with your lock. And your coffee fails to perk. Then you get struck by a tub truck. Is it just lock? Just some quirk. than one time in your lifetime you smelled solid sweet success but so often it goes soft then it becomes a

a crappy mess you've worked so hard always on guard sending off each Fate off law. But it's no good. No way you could have with Scott. Murphy's Law. One more thing before we go. The end of the year is almost here, and we need your help to recap the best science stories from 2024.

Tell us your favorite science news stories or discovery from this year. Your submission might even be featured in our recap. Share your thoughts and find out how you can attend our New York City event on December 6th, all on our website, ScienceFriday.com slash Science 2024. That's it for today. Lots of folks help make this show happen, including Jordan Smudjik, Rasha Eredi, Shoshana Bucksbaum, Danielle Johnson, and many more. Tomorrow, we'll check in on some of the top stories from the Week in Science.

But for now, I'm SciFri producer Charles Berkwist. Thanks for listening. We'll see you soon.