Science Friday - Candy COVID Test, Ig Nobel Prizes 2021. November 26, 2021, Part 2

Episode Date: November 26, 2021

A More Delicious COVID Screener One of the most bizarre symptoms of COVID-19—a nearly surefire way to know if you have been infected—is a loss of taste or smell. Estimates of how many people are impacted range wildly, with the highest estimates reaching 75 to 80% of COVID-19 survivors. There’s still a lot scientists don’t understand about why this happens and what part of the olfactory system or brain is actually responsible for this change. Researchers at Ohio State University are trying to figure out more about how COVID-19 impacts taste and smell using a familiar and tasty item: hard candy. Study participants eat an uncolored piece of candy each day and describe the flavor. If a participant is suddenly unable to identify which fruit the candy is emulating … well, it’s time to take a COVID test. Joining Ira to talk about this delicious research and learning more about how COVID-19 impacts our senses is Chris Simons, sensory scientist at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio.     Laugh And Learn With The Ig Nobel Prizes This year, even though many people may be still hesitant to gather together for the holidays, a Science Friday holiday tradition lives on—our annual post-Thanksgiving broadcast of highlights from the Ig Nobel Prize ceremony, now in its 31st first annual year.  Marc Abrahams, editor of the Annals of Improbable Research and master of ceremonies for the prizes, joins Ira to present some of the highlights from this year’s awards—from research into the microbiology trapped in the gum on the sidewalk to a transportation prize for scientists who discovered the best way to safely transport a rhinoceros long distances. (Dangle it upside down under a helicopter.) Tune in to hear about research involving the kinetics of crowds, the communications of cats, thoughts about the evolutionary history of human beards, and more.   Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

This is Science Friday. I'm Ira Flato. About later in the hour, our annual salute to the strange and silly in science. Yeah, it is. Time for the Ig Nobel Prizes. First up, though, we are all familiar with the symptoms of COVID infection, right? Most notably, a fever. But there is a symptom that's become a hallmark of infection, almost a surefire way to know if you have COVID-19. And that is a loss of taste or smell. Yeah, it's estimated that this loss affects somewhere,

between 5 and 75% of people who get COVID. The thing is, there are still a lot of unanswered questions about how this loss of senses works and why it happens. So researchers are turning to a different method of testing, using hard candy to see if people can tell one flavor from another. And if they can't, well, it's time to take a COVID test. Joining me now is Dr. Chris Simon, sensory scientist at Ohio State University in Columbus. Welcome to Science Friday. Thanks so much, Ira. I'm really happy to be here.

Nice to have you. So what kind of candy are we talking about here? So we're talking sort of the traditional hard candy, Jolly Rancher style. So we actually partnered with a small company in North Carolina who made these candies for us. And they're a little bit unique in the sense that they all look alike. We remove the colors that are often used to sort of signify the flavor of the candy. So they're all sort of this opaque, clear sort of color and then flavored with traditional familiar flavors that people will experience hopefully often as they're consuming candy in their everyday lives. So the trigger then that makes them realize that they have lost their sense of smell or taste. They're unable to detect the flavor of the candy.

Exactly. So there's really two pieces that we're interested in. So one is the ability to identify the flavor. So we do that by having them both smell it before they put it into the mouth, as well as actually putting it into their mouth and then identifying the flavor. But we're also interested in sort of the intensity that people perceive because it's possible with COVID that you actually have a reduced sensitivity, but you're still able to recognize the flavors. And so we want to be able to capture sort of both of those elements. So you're looking for both smell and taste?

We are actually looking for taste as well. So when I say, we're looking at what we call often retro nasal smell. So that's when we put it in your mouth. And we often do this, we call it the jelly bean test. So if you put a jelly bean in your mouth and you plug your nose, you know, pinch your nose, you can't tell what flavor it is until you release it. And it's, oh, that's the strawberry flavor or the orange flavor. So that's all retronasal smell. So we refer it to the mouth. And that's one of the problems is that oftentimes in our common everyday vernacular, we call that taste. But taste is really sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami. And those sensations are transferred to the brain via different nerves.

And so it's actually really important for us to be able to measure both of those elements because there's some question whether or not it's smell loss that's associated with COVID, which we seem to have pretty good documentation of, or whether that may also include taste loss, which I believe there's much less empirical evidence to support. How much taste loss do you have to have? I mean, maybe people have a taste loss for some other reason. I mean, is there a limit or a threshold you have to pass to say that's, that's COVID? Yeah. So the way this test works, so we've entered into what we're calling phase two. So it's really a prospective study. So it's a way of actually allowing people to monitor their, their smell and taste over time. And so

people will evaluate a candy once a day. And essentially what, what's unique about COVID is the loss of smell and taste, potentially taste, is sudden. So it's not a sort of a gradual decrease like you see with a cold, and it's pretty significant. And so the idea is that as people are evaluating these candies over time, if the system, so if the way that they're inputting the data identifies sort of the sudden drop in their perceived intensity of those flavors or they're no longer able to recognize the flavors, it sends a flag and says, hey, you know, you've had symptoms that are consistent with COVID, you should go get tested. So we sort of use their own historical data as a way of monitoring.

You know, I've heard a lot of anecdotes from people who got COVID. Yeah. But some people lost their ability to taste a little bit. Some people lost it completely. Some people say that things taste different for them than they used to. Are you seeing this range in your study? That's what's really great about this. The way that we've designed it is that we can pick up what is called anosmia.

And I would say there's different levels of anasmia. So anosmia is basically the loss of smell. So it can be complete loss of smell. There's another phenomenon that is associated with taste, which is called a goozia. But if we sort of talk about anasmia in general, that's the loss of smell. So you can have a complete anosmia or you can have anosmia where it's reduced sensitivity. So in that case, you may still be able to identify the aroma as being cherry, for instance, but it's suddenly very weak.

And so now as you're rating the intensity, your scores drop from something like an eight or a nine down to like a three or a four. That would be indicative of somebody who has anosmia. somebody could have complete an osmia where they're they smell nothing and they're unable to both identify it. It's basically like putting in, you know, a marble in your mouth. And so you would have no idea what flavor it is. It would have any taste. Wow. Do we know why this happens in the brain, what's going on in the brain because of COVID-19 where you're losing those senses? Yeah. Well, there's a couple of different hypotheses. So we think what's going on in these acute losses. So within these sort of first two weeks of infection,

is an infection of the COVID virus into the support cells in the nasal cavity that support our olfactory neurons. These are cells that secrete mucus and sort of help those smell neurons sort of survive. Those become infected with COVID. And it looks like the COVID, when it enters those cells, it actually either kills them or essentially makes them sick. So they're no longer able to do their job. And as a consequence, the smell neurons or those smell nerves are not, are no longer able to do their job. So that mechanism has been pretty well worked out and actually worked out fairly early in the COVID sort of crisis. The same mechanism hasn't really been identified for taste nerves. And so that's why there's some question as to whether or not people are really

losing their sense of taste because the receptors that seem to be involved in binding to the COVID and bringing it into the olfactory or the smell neurons don't seem to be expressed in the taste cells. So if there is taste loss, there may be some differences in how that's being done. But this is also really different from what we are seeing in these so-called long COVID cases. So people that have experienced COVID for more than three months. And so in these cases, it's more likely that there's actually damage to the olfactory neurons likely due to inflammation or, you know, the inflammatory consequences of having the COVID infection, still not entirely known what the mechanism for this long COVID smell loss is.

So you really need a lot of research to go into this. Yeah, exactly. And this is what's kind of nice about this tool is that we can start to measure. So as people are doing this candy test, if they get COVID, we can start to measure sort of the recovery in these acute cases. So it seems like it's roughly about two to three weeks, in which case people start to recover. And then long COVID, how long do people have to experience smell loss in long COVID before they start to recovery? And this is really a question that we don't know yet.

You know, here in the U.S., Thanksgiving kicked off our holiday food season, do you think the holidays are a good time to realize you've lost your sense of taste. I'm like, I'm thinking you're sitting down at Aunt Martha's table or people have, you know, and suddenly you say, oh, I don't want to be insulting, but I don't taste, you know? Yeah, Aunt Martha, your cake doesn't taste as well as it did last year. Do you think that's happening during the holiday? Yeah, I think so. I think, you know, especially these effects are pretty dramatic.

So it just so happens that my own experiences, I actually had COVID. bit early, early on in March of 2020. And so it was before we actually even knew that smell and taste loss was a cardinal symptom. And actually, my entire family got it. We were in Spain and we came back right before the borders were closed and so forth. And it was quite interesting because we had a very varied responses. So I had anosmia, but it wasn't complete. My wife had complete anosmia. And she was a long hauler. And so she had loss of smell and taste for probably about nine months. She just started to get it back. Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that. Yeah, and it was sort of slow. And so, you know, it's interesting

studying this and then also, you know, seeing it in real time and my own family and with myself. And so I think, as you said with with Thanksgiving, I have no doubt that people, as they're sitting down at the table and the, you know, the foods that they're expecting to taste great, don't. And so that should be a signal to people that, oh, maybe I should be wearing a mask at Thanksgiving table or something like that, right? Because the effects that are seen with chemosensory loss seem to be much more telling than other symptoms, such as fever, such as, you know, aches and pains.

And that's why it's a nice way of sort of assessing people as well, because it's a better predictor of somebody who has been exposed and has potentially has a COVID, an active COVID infection. Could you, could you see the candy that you're using to test people, see it rolled out on a larger scale, and would people be benefiting by using the candy? Or could they use something else? I'm, I guess I'm asking, what could you do at home to give yourself a test? Yeah, so candy is really a fantastic tool for this because it's amenable to all age groups, right? Kids through the elderly. It's inexpensive to make. It's easily deployable. It assesses both smell and taste.

So it allows us to sort of assess both of those systems. But realistically, you can really use anything. You can use coffee. I didn't have any other symptoms besides smell loss. I was training for a marathon, so I was still running. I had zero, zero symptoms. I actually made a cocktail for myself. And I was like, oh, my gosh, this doesn't taste the same as it usually does.

And being in the field that I am, I knew that viral infection was often a cause of smell loss. And so, you know, this was before a lot of that data came out. And so, so yeah, cocktails, coffee, cinnamon rolls. You can even use, you know, the fragrances, you know, that you plug in or whatever in your house. Anything that allows you to assess your sense of smell can be used as a monitoring system. Well, Dr. Simons, thank you for those words of wisdom on how to test yourself because, you know, as we're sitting down deep all during this holiday season. I'm certainly thinking about it all the time, and I'm sure you are.

So thank you for taking time to be with us today. That's my pleasure. Thanks so much for having me. Dr. Chris Simons is a sensory scientist at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. We have to take a break, but when we come back, the Ig Nobel Prizes. Yeah, we're going on, gosh, three decades of Ig Nobel's.

Science that first makes you laugh and makes you think. Stay with us. This is Science Friday. I'm Ira Flato. We know things are still difficult. Maybe you're still wary of gathering together for the holidays the way you once did. And the Ig Nobel Prize ceremony is no exception. This is the award ceremony 31st, first annual year. But for the second straight year, it's been held online, not in the storied halls of Harvard Sanders Theater. But the tradition lives on, and so does our holiday tradition of post- Thanksgiving highlights from the ceremony. Here to help me navigate the awards is Mark Abrams, editor of the Annals of Improbable Research, and he's the ringleader of the awards ceremony, the whole shebang. Welcome back, Mark. Hi, Ira, it's good to hear you again. You two, congrats on 31 years. You know, we're celebrating our 30th, so we've been right along with you. Yeah, congratulations to you. Let's keep going, both of us. How have things changed over the decades? Any noticeable change? Oh, my, how much time you got.

Yeah, I'll mention a few things. One is the general way that the Ig Nobel Prize has been received. There was at that time a really widespread fear, especially in the science community, of people who would attack scientists and attack science. And a lot of that fear in the United States was driven by something called the Golden Fleece Award. It was done by Senator Proxmire. So the thing that he would do every year. Yeah, he would announce a list of government-funded things that seemed foolish, that seemed silly,

it seemed wasteful. And some of those things really were foolish and wasteful, but some of them weren't. Some of them were simply things that had titles that were extremely unfamiliar to people. And a lot of science, of course, is like that. So every year, science, scientists cringed when Senator Proxmire got up and did that for pretty good reason. When we started the Ig Nobel Prizes, a lot of times when we talked to an American scientist, the first question out of their mouth was, is this like the Golden Fleece Awards?

And we had to explain no. That was part of the reason at the beginning, at the very first year, that I invited a bunch of very famous scientists who had Nobel Prizes to be part of it. of the reason was we just thought it'd be fun and kind of absurd. The fact that we have always had famous scientists as part of it has been very helpful in that way, though, to as a sign to everybody that, hey, these people would not be part of it if we were out to do damage. And a lot of the ceremony this year was essentially a big video call with those real Nobel laureates interacting with the Ig Nobel winners, right? Oh, it was a big constellation of calls. We had to do a lot of

logistics to make this thing work. You know, we keep the prizes top secret until Ig Nobel Day, until the whole thing is webcast. And in order to keep things secret, of course, you need everybody involved to keep things secret. The winners are spread around the world, and the Nobel laureates who are handing out the prizes are spread all over the place, too. So we had a whole series of secret Zoom calls, some of them involving people on five or six different continents, and got all that stuff jumbled together. And then in the end, you know, mash it together, add some sugar or the equivalent, and hey, we've got an Ig Nobel Prize ceremony. Yeah. Yeah. And you do it so well every year. And speaking of every year, what's the actual award this year? Like last year, we had the problem

to overcome that the heart of the ceremony, the magic moments, are the 10 times when we announce a prize and a Nobel Prize winner shakes the hand of the Ig Nobel Nobel. Prize winner and physically hands them an Ig Nobel Prize. Well, the handshake was out because 10,000 miles is a long way to do that. But what we did last year and again this year was make a prize with a very special kind of design. Now, ladies and gentlemen, now I will show you the coveted Ig Nobel Prize. This year's prize is a PDF. It's a document that can be even, mailed and printed, and then assembled to make a gear with human teeth. Wow, a real gear?

Yes, a real gear made of paper. With real human teeth? Well, no, it's just pictures of human teeth, you know, printed on the paper. Then when we had each presentation, I would announce the prize, and the Nobel laureate, would say whatever they wanted to say, pick up the prize, hold it in front of the camera, and then shove it off to the side of the frame, outside the video frame. And then you could see across the world, the winner, or sometimes six or eight winners, if it was a team, would reach out the side of their video frame and pull in the Ig Nobel Prize.

That's cool. I like that. That's kind of nice. Maybe an NFT is in your future for these documents. Oh, my. you just raised such a confusing idea. Let me think about that. I'll let you think about it for a while, maybe next year.

Okay, let's get into some of the awards. Everyone on the internet loves cats. So it's fitting that you have a prize linked to cat communication, the biology prize. Tell us about that. Yeah, it's three scientists at Lund University in Sweden. They won this year's Ig Nobel Biology Prize for analyzing variations in purring,

chirping, chattering, trilling, twiddling, murmuring, meowing, moaning, squeaking, hissing, yowling, howling, growling, and other modes of cat human communication. Thank you. I'm so honored to receive this price. As you may know, domestic cats have a large vocal repertoire, and they also vary their voices and their melodic patterns when they communicate using sounds. I became really interested in this variation and I used the methods that I normally used to study human speech sounds, phonetic analysis, to describe the different cat-call types and the variation within each type. However, I couldn't have done this without the help of my colleagues in my research project,

Joost van de Weyer and Robert Eklund, all the wonderful people working in the Lund University Humanities Lab, And, of course, I could never have done this without the help of these guys. So again, thank you so much. During the ceremony, Suzanne Schutz, who is the main researcher in this, demonstrated each of those means of communication, which was quite entrancing. And then we asked her if she could turn those instantly into a piece of music. We have musicians who are involved in the ceremony.

we had a trombonist, Julia Lunetta, who was doing a little trombone fanfare when we presented the prize. So Julia Lunetta on trombone and Professor Suzanne Schutz, acting as a cat, did this first time ever performance of a quick survey of all the communication sounds that cats and humans use when they speak together. You know, in this show, we love the microbiome, and I understand this year, the Ecology Prize is tied into that. Let's hear about the Ecology Prize. The Ecology Prize went to a team in Spain who used genetic analysis to identify the different species of bacteria that live in wads of discarded. chewing gum stuck onto pavements in various countries.

They actually picked up the gum off the street and analyzed the microbiome? Oh, they went further than that. They put the gum down. And then they picked it up again much, much later, and analyzed over time what the population of bacteria looked like. Wow. And how that population changed over time in each of those little. wads of discarded chewing gum. During the ceremony, Francis Arnold was the Nobel laureate who presented the prize to them. And as she was presenting it, she was herself chewing a big mother

wad, a chewing gum. Only fitting. The winners also were too. I want to thank you for this very important contribution to mankind and to our deep knowledge of our built environment. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. The team will now present its acceptance speech, which was pre-recorded. All the Chi-Wing, all the Chi-Wing, God is on the street.

How can you top that? Sometimes I understand that the prizes can be a bit political, like this year's economics prize. Obesity of a country's politicians may be a good indicator of that country's corruption. It is great fun receiving this award. Let me just steal 55 seconds of your attention to tell you what this award is all about. So I downloaded pictures of politicians from internet and I ran them through an artificial neural network. This neural network was trained not only to recognize human faces, but also to estimate body mass index. I found that countries that are perceived as relatively corrupt have relatively high estimated body mass index of a median cabinet minister, whereas countries that are perceived as less corrupt have slimmer politicians.

In a follow-up work, I also found that there is intertemporal correlation between obesity of politicians and perceived corruption. So, grand political corruption is literally visible from this. the faces of politicians. Lots of times on this show, we tell our listeners, don't try this at home. But your next prize, the Medicine Prize, does not need that warning, I don't think. Well, it depends on who's in your home.

At the time you're doing this, I suppose. The Medicine Prize went to a team based in Germany who demonstrated that sexual orgasms can be as effective as decongestant medicines at improving nasal breathing. The prize will be presented by Nobel laureate Robert Lefkowitz. Well, I'd like to offer my heartfelt congratulations to this outstanding team for this groundbreaking piece of work. I know how hard you've all worked on this project, and certainly this award is a fitting climax for all the work that,

that you've done. As the famous soliloquy by Hamlet, I would quote those words, a consummation devoutly to be wished. And so again, my heartiest congratulations as I present this Ig Nobel Prize to your team. On behalf of my entire team, I would like to thank you for this prize.

We are very honored. Instead of preparing a long acceptance speech, they actually made a little video to explain our research and findings in a number. a fun way. We hope you enjoy it. Thank you again. This is Zickman Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis and one of his best buddies, Wilhelm Fleece, a German physician. In 1897, they theorized on a connection between the nose and genitals, postulating genital spots located inside the nose. Fleece even performed surgery on Freud to prove this link. In the century since, their theory has been all

but forgotten. In 2020, these guys, Chem and Ralph picked up the idea. They found out that sexual intercourse with orgasm can improve nasal breathing to the same degree as the congestive nasal spray. So if you're your partner suffer from a block nose, there might be a natural solution with positive side effects. Give it a try. You're welcome. Wow. Trying to think of the idea when that first came up to test that out. Yeah. And also about the discussions that probably had to happen between the various people who were invited to become part of that. research effort. This is Science Friday from WNYC Studios.

Tough to top that prize, but let's try with the always popular Peace Prize. Tell us about the Peace Prize. When we awarded the Peace Prize this year, the winners didn't realize which prize they were getting until that moment, and they were shocked and delighted. They thought maybe they were going to get the biology prize, or maybe they were going to get another prize. But we thought this is a fitting peace prize. It's a team in the United States who tested the hypothesis they came up with, the guests they came up with, that humans evolved beards to protect themselves from punches to the face. Prize will be presented by Nobel laureate,

Eric Masking. This is it. You richly deserve it. And let me give it to you. We're pleased. we're honored to receive the ignoble peace prize. Our question came from the observations that humans are unique among the great apes in having facial hair in males, but not in females, and that male beards cover some parts of the face that are most vulnerable when one is punched. We ultimately decided against testing our hypothesis

by punching each other both with and without beards. Instead, we use the sheep fleece model to model the hair and an epoxy composite sheet to model the facial bones. We then use a device that drops a known weight, test the samples, and measure the energy required, fracture them both with and without a fleece coating. We found that the total energy absorbed by the samples was 37% greater when the sample was covered with the fleece.

This result is consistent with the hypothesis that humans are anatomically specialized for fighting with fists. There is no doubt that humans are the most empathetic and cooperative species on the planet, but given that reducing violence, and the future is a goal that we all share. It is important to keep in mind that our anatomy reminds us that in certain circumstances, we can and sometimes do respond with aggression.

How in the world did you come to this research topic? So this, actually, this work came out of an argument I had with a colleague a decade or so ago. We were arguing about sperm whales at a meeting in the hall and the conversation sort of got out of hand. And at one point, he waved his fist in my face and he said, I can hit you with this, but that's not why it evolved. And while he was doing that, I was thinking, well, wait, maybe, maybe there is something to that. I didn't say anything to him because he was so upset.

But we looked at the role that this posture may play in hand anatomy. Then from there we went to the face and the face led us to ears. That's science for you. You know, I think that's a worthy follow-up to the medicine prize, I think. Okay, I'm sitting here now thinking about what somebody, if they're taking all of your suggestions and planning to do them one day, what that person's day would be like. Yeah, and would they have another day? Each year you have a musical salute.

Here's just a taste of this year's mini opera about engineering a bridge. What kind of bridge is the very best bridge? A sewer near the bridge, the best, best bridge. What is the local best kind of bridge? The best kind of bridge is the best kind of bridge is plenty pleasing. Level of the ladders, you're freezing. Always out of amazing. In suspension, it's a big suspension.

Bridge. Bridge. Bridge. We need to take a break, and we'll be back with more from this year's virtual 31st, first annual Ig Nobel Prizes. Stay with us. This is Science Friday from WNYC Studio. This is Science Friday. I'm Ira Flato. In case you're just joining us, we're talking with Mark Abrams, editor of the Annals of Improbable Research and Master of Ceremonies for the Ig Nobel Prize ceremony, now in its 31st first annual year. Tell me how people get selected for this high honor, the Ig Nobel Prize. Anybody can send in a nomination and anybody can nominate themselves, and lots of people do.

In a typical year, we get something like 10,000 new nominations. We also consider things from the past. And the Ig Nobel Board of Governors, a large group, which is spread around the world, looks at those things, and every year we choose 10. The criterion is always the same. The criterion is fairly simple. It's everything that wins a prize has done something that makes people laugh and then think. There should be something about it that can be described,

really concisely, and when anybody, anywhere from any background, hears that, their first reaction should be to laugh. There should also be something about this achievement that sticks in people's minds so that after they laugh, even a week or so later, they're still thinking about it, and they want to tell their friends about it and argue about it. Let's move on to a prize for something I would have never guessed was a real problem. the entomology prize for a new method of cockroach control on submarines. Tell us about it. Yeah, well, that was the title of a research paper that they published back in 1971,

a new method of cockroach control on submarines. Let me ask you to consider something. A few years ago, there was a movie called Snakes on a plane. Now, I think it's not too difficult to imagine somebody making a movie called cockroaches on a submarine. The entomology prize is awarded to John Mulrennan Jr., Roger Grottas, Charles Hammond, and Jay Lambden for their research study a new method of cockroach control on submarines. The prize will be presented by Nobel laureate Francis Arnold. I'm thrilled to be able to award you this prize for your contributions to an age,

old battle of man versus cockroach. A battle we have not yet won, but your contributions were important. Thank you. I've been out of the Navy for out. I've retired in 1979 from the Navy. So it's been a long time. Back in those days, we were limited on what we could do. The procedure that had been used for years was to fumigate the submarines with carboxide gas. Coboxide gas is a combination of carbon dioxide and ethylene oxide. And the reason we had to do what we did was because

up in New London, we had an incident where a submarine was fumigated with coboxide in the wintertime. And after they aerated the submarine and the crew went back aboard, the ethylene oxide had condemned into a liquid form. And when they heated the submarine back up, the ethylene oxide went back into a gas to state, and we had an incident where one of the crew members was affected by the gas.

And that was one of the problems they had. And in fact, it was fatality when one of those incidents, we had to find some other way to do it that was safer. And that's what we did. it was safer, it was more economical, and it was just effective or more effective than the gas. So it worked out. That was our mission, and I think we accomplished our mission, and the Navy was happy at the time. I don't know what they're doing now, to be honest with you. That was really cool. Okay. Our next prize is... The chemistry prize. The winners represent these countries, Germany, the UK, New Zealand,

Greece, Cyprus, and Austria. The Chemistry Prize is awarded to Jorg Vicker, Nicholas Crowter, Bettina Derström, Christoph Stoner, Estradius Borkutsukidis, Achim Edbauer, Jochen Wolfe, Thomas Kluppel, Stefan Kramer, and Jonathan Williams for chemically analyzing the air inside movie theaters

to test whether the odors produced by an audience reliably indicate the levels of violence, sex, antisocial behavior, drug use, and bad language in the movie the audience is watching. The prize will be presented by Nobel laureate Barry Sharpless. Research on smell is undervalued and it's very important. It either makes us dreadfully fearful or disgusted or happy there's food down the road. And that was true for little guys, too, just bacteria. And so I think the, I really look forward to meeting you. I hope I can get to Germany or you get over here in San Diego.

And I love to talk to you about it. Thanks. And now the prize? Oh, the prize. Yeah, prize. Okay. This is the prize. And now the winners will present their acceptance speech by pre-recorded video.

The instruments that you can see and here behind me are normally used to investigate the chemistry going on over the Amazon rainforests. But for this project, we took these instruments to our local movie theatre. And here in the movie theatre, if you measure the air composition continuously, you'll see that some chemicals vary in sync with scenes in the film. And what that means is that the audience is broadcasting out chemicals as a sense. they respond emotionally to the contents. Okay, let's move on to a pair of prizes for research that certainly impacts me, and pun intended there. First, the physics prize.

And then I want to hear exactly how this impacted you. This was a pair of prizes, different groups, not at all working together, although it turned out that they were aware of each other, and not aware of each other's research, just aware that each other existed. And it turned out these two prizes really fit together well. The physics prize went to a team from the Netherlands, Italy, Taiwan, and the USA, who conducted some experiments to learn why pedestrians do not constantly collide with other pedestrians. The prize will be presented by Nobel laureate, Marty Chalfi.

It's a real pleasure to present you with this year's Ig Nobel Prize in Physics. Congratulations to all of you. I only have one real question, though. Was this study done with or without cell phones? Well, it depends. Who has the cell phone? He had the cell phone. But it depends.

There were people with and without cell phone. We have five millions. So I assume, yeah. I just wondered if the people that were looking at their cell phones collided more with other people. Oh, that's a very good question. I mean, this is something we need to look into, but we don't have resolution to these distinguished people with cell phone without, for the moment, at the moment. So this is something we cannot yet do, but yeah, this is a very good point. Greetings from the Netherlands, from California and from Italy.

First of all, we wish to thank the committee for the award of this, Nobel Prize. We are flattered that people laugh and then thought because of our work. So thanks. Thank you. Thank you so much. And now to the matter. You still think that physics can only be used to explain how people move. Actually, you can use physics to explain the hydrogen atom. Physics can even be used to describe gases of interacting molecules which resemble human crowds. In our work, we started millions of pedestrian trajectories and we assured that we can explain the dynamics in a robust way, of course, from a statistical point of view. Gas molecules in a crowd can also kiss each other or run. Remember, even if you think you can choose your destination, regardless you are a person in a crowd, or a gas molecule. Physics can predict your statistics.

Do you have any questions that you would like to ask Marty Chalfi? How do we get the Nobel Prize ourselves? I think this is a very good start. Work on something no one else has ever worked on. Okay, you asked me why I talked about this impacting me because here in New York, the streets are so congested all the time that you really have to weave your way through the pedestrians not to hit any other pedestrian.

And therefore, sort of, the Ig Nobel Prize for Kinetics, went to a team in Japan, Switzerland, and Italy for conducting some experiments to learn why pedestrians do sometimes collide with other pedestrians. Part of their experiment was what I think you're probably hinting at, which was they're looking at what happens when some of the pedestrians are looking at cell phones in their hand while they're walking. And what they found was, hey, guess what? They're a little more liable to collide with other people. We are super happy to accept Jig Nobel Prize.

We discovered mutual anticipation between pedestrians facilitates the ordered flow of movements in human crowds. In our experiment of bad directional flow, we visually distracted only some of the pedestrians to disturb their anticipatory abilities. Then, we observed the destruction clearly delayed the collective father formation. Surprisingly, not only distracted pedestrians but also non-distructed ones had trouble avoiding collision in advance while navigating.

So we can see that anticipation is mutual. To distract pedestrians, we got participants to use this. That is, mobile use while walking. However, we hope you are not just distracted by the risk of mobile use, but interested in the remarkable human interaction ability when mobiles are not used. We consider mutual anticipation is important to understand the barrier of self-organizing systems. They also discovered something they said that I find pretty interesting, that when people are walking on crowded sidewalks,

everybody is doing a lot more watching and on some level calculating than they realize. everybody is paying a lot more attention than they probably realize to what everybody else is doing about is there a collision imminent. This is Science Friday from WNYC Studios. Do you have a favorite award this year, your own personal favorite? Oh, boy, that's always a difficult question, and you know that. Yeah, I know. Put you on the spot. Just say, you can say the usual, you know, like my children, I can't pick out anyone.

Okay, here's one. And if you asked me yesterday, we would have got a different answer. But the final prize of the ceremony this year was the prize to an international team that did the research that showed them that probably the safest way to transport a rhinoceros over a long distance is to dangle it from a helicopter upside down. The prize will be presented by Nobel laureate, Rich Roberts. Here's the prize and I have to say when I have to be transported to a safer place, I hope not to be doing it upside down. But many congratulations. We were asked Robin for conservation purposes to move a significant number of rhino from a core breeding area to other very remote regions.

Captural east was going to be in really difficult places to get to so we looked at the options and decided that moving the rhino slung under a helicopter would probably be the safest, most effective and animal-friendly way of doing it. Pete? So we came up with a plan of lifting them up by their feet, having them upside down. We then lifted a rhino with a crane. It managed that okay. And we were good to go, good to lift a rhino with the helicopter. The thing I love about wildlife veterinarians is you guys have to really think on your feet and think outside the box. And I think hanging rhinos upside down is a good example. You have to be ingenious and creative and sometimes even a little bit crazy to move rhinos this way. Rich, you've had a glimpse at what all of these people did to win their prize.

Yeah, I felt sorry for the rhinoceros, I must say. Well, should he feel sorry for the rhinoceros? No. Why? Because they're being moved. move to a safe area where they're protected. That I know, it was just the manner of transportation that I was concerned about. Well, that's why we did our research.

The rhinos in the experiments were only two inches off the ground. Maybe six inches, Dr. Glead. Did you run any tests before you had a large rhinoceros using any of yourselves? Actually, we first tested on a lot of other animals before we got to the rhino, and of course, including a few human beings. So, yep, we didn't start with rhino, that's for sure. Wow. Wow. Mark, do you think now that you're in 31 years, did you ever expect that it would be as long lasting as it has been? Expect, no. Hope, yeah. When you start something, of course, you always hope it's going to have a long lifetime, and you can, you know, you hope it's hope it's

hope it's longer than your lifetime. I really never expected the dangling upside down rhinoceroses. Me neither. I'm hoping for your next year back in Cambridge. Thanks. That's a big question. Fly that rhino in for the show. Oh, oh, that's an idea. Who would think of such an idea? Not me. Do you have any final thoughts? And you want to deliver a standard final thoughts? for the winners. Yeah, two, two thoughts, in fact. One is if you, you listening know of somebody or you run across somebody or even read about somebody who's done something that you really think deserves an Ig Nobel Prize, it makes you laugh and it really makes you think and you think it will happen that same way to other people. Let us know about it. That's how we learn about

most of the things that win a prize. One person somewhere heard about it and told us about it. And the final thought, as always, is if you didn't win an Ig Nobel Prize this year, and especially if you did, better luck next year. And there you have it, Mark. And congratulations again on 31 years. Thanks. And congratulations to you and everybody at Science Friday on 30 really wonderful years. Thank you very much.

We've run out of time. I'd like to thank Mark Abrams, editor of the Annals of Improbable Research and ringleader of the Ig Nobel Prize Award ceremony. Let's hope for next year back in the theater. And that's about all the time we have for today. We want to welcome our new listeners on WBEZ Chicago. Yay! Nice to have you aboard. If you missed any part of this program or you'd like to hear it again.

Subscribe to our podcasts or ask your smart speaker to play Science Friday. Of course, you can say hi to us all week on social media. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or email us the classic way, SciFri at Science Friday.com. Have a great weekend, wishing a happy Hanukkah to those of you celebrating. We'll see you next week. I'm Ira Flato.