Science Friday - Science Awards Of The Sillier Sort. Nov 29, 2019, Part 2

Episode Date: November 29, 2019

The 2019 Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony is a tribute to offbeat and quirky scientific studies. Here's some examples: Does pizza have a protective effect against cancer? What’s the physics behind the wombat’s unusual cubic-shaped droppings? And can dog-training clickers be used to help the medical education of orthopedic surgeons?  These projects were among 10 that were recognized at this year’s 29th first annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremonies. The prizes, selected by the editors of the Annals of Improbable Research, were awarded in September at Harvard’s Sanders Theatre. They salute work that “first makes you laugh, and then, makes you think.”  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. We do hope you had a peaceful and happy Thanksgiving. We're glad you're with us today because here at Science Friday, you know, the day after Thanksgiving is our own kind of holiday tradition. Highlights from the Ig Nobel 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 that makes you think. It's stuff that might make you say, hmm, I wonder, especially late at night after a few fine beverages. This year's celebration is the 29th first annual awards. This year's ceremonies featured a mini opera about habits, the good, the bad, and the ugly,

and prizes handed out by genuine regular Nobel laureates. Just to explain a few things. There are a few traditions at the ceremonies, like the welcome, welcome, and goodbye, goodbye speeches. There's an official who will sound an alarm if things threatened to, how shall I say, get too raunchy. And then there's Miss Sweetie Poo, a little girl who starts to whine whenever the speakers go on too long. Sometimes the speakers try to bribe her, but she always wins in the end. The theme for this year was habits. You'll hear the audience cheer whenever that word is mentioned. So here's our post- Thanksgiving habit. See what I did.

there as we take you back to earlier this year at Harvard Sanders Theater where the dignitaries and ignitaries are taking the stage. T-minus five, four, three, two. Oh, wait, wait, wait, we almost forgot. Welcome to the 29th first annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony. Four, three, two, One! Go! Ladies, gentlemen, and creatures of habit, welcome to the 29th first annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony. And now, Professor Jean Burk O'Gleason will deliver the traditional and habitual Ignobell welcome-welcome speech.

Now, please welcome our most special guests, guests, the new Ig Nobel Prize winners. This year's winners represent four continents, and here they come. Now, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, literati, glitterati, pseudo-intellectuals, quasi-soto-intellectuals, pseudo-intellectuals, pseudo-quasi-intellectuals, very stable geniuses, and the rest of you, may I introduce our our master of ceremonies, the editor of the Annals of Improbable Research, Chief Airhead Mark Abrams. We're gathered here tonight to honor some remarkable individuals and groups.

Every winner has done something that first makes people laugh, then think. The Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony is produced by the Science Humor magazine, The Annals of Improbable Research, and proudly co-sponsored by the Harvard Radcliffe Society of Physics students and the Harvard-Radcliffe Science Fiction Association. The editors of the Annals of Improbable Research have chosen a theme for this year's ceremony. That theme is Habits.

Tonight, 10 prizes will be given. The achievements speak for themselves, all too eloquently. The prizes will be physically presented to the winners by Nobel laureates. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the Nobel laureates, A 1993 Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine, Rich Roberts. A 2007 Nobel laureate in economics. Eric Maskin.

A 1990 Nobel laureate in physics, Jerome Friedman. As usual, for the 29th straight year was prevented from joining us. He appears now via the magic of video. A running joke for years has been a video sent in by noble physicist Jerome Friedman, in which he says he can't attend the ceremony, but hopes the audience is enjoying the occasion as much as he is. Well, this year, Dr. Friedman broke tradition and actually attended, along with noblist Eric Maskin and Rich Roberts.

Thank you, Professor Friedman. You can't keep me away any longer. It's Jerome Friedman. But I'm sorry to tell you, in the video there, it's an imposter. Does he really look like me? Okay, if you want to pull that gay, I'd like to see some identification, please, sir. It served the purpose. Okay.

He may be the only human being you will ever see who spent 29 years setting up a joke. In public events, it's now a habit. to have a keynote speech. There's no avoiding it. Here it is. Oh, after you. No, no, no, no. No, no, no. You first, please.

No, no. Yes, yes. Oh, okay. The theme of this year's Nobel Prize is habits. Now, let's not be overly polite about it. Some people have the habit of not paying attention when other people are talking. You see, some people, Some people have the habit of not paying attention when someone else is talking.

That's a bad habit. Yes, that is a bad habit. And some people have the habit of not really saying anything when they're giving a speech. And when some people give a speech, they don't actually say much. That too is a bad habit. Bad. Bad. Bad.

Bad. So I'd like to wrap up this keynote speech. Good. By reminding you of something said here, here on this stage, many years ago, by an Ig Nobel Prize winner, all the way from Japan, Dr. Nakamats. Well, go ahead. Say it. Oh, I'll just go ahead and say it. Dr. Nakamats said, life should be long, speeches should be short. Let's get out of here. Please, yeah, please. Thank you. And now, you can get set for something special. We've 24-7 lectures.

We've invited several of the world's top thinkers to tell us very briefly what they're thinking about. Each 24-7 lecturer will explain her or his topic twice. First, a complete technical description in 24 seconds. And then, after a brief pause, a clear summary that anyone can understand in six. words. The first 24-7 lecture will be delivered by a scientist who won the 1993 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, Rich Roberts. His topic, serendipity. First, a complete technical description of the subject in 24 seconds. On your mark, get set, go. Serendipity is exemplified when your clever

experiment fails because nature is trying to tell you something important and it leads to a Nobel Prize-winning discovery. It's also exemplified when you're booked on a plane, flying from Boston to Los Angeles on September 11th, and the meeting you're attended is moved one day earlier, and at the last minute, you have to fly on September 10th instead. This happened to me in 2001. That's it.

Well, I don't know what to say after that. Well, yes, I do. Now, a clear summary that anyone can understand in seven words. seven words. On your mark, get set, go. Serendipity means good luck has struck again. The next 24-7 lecture will be delivered by the president of the B.F. Skinner Foundation, Julie Skinner Vargas. Her topic, habit. First, a complete technical description of the subject in 24 seconds. On your mark, get set, go. A habit is an operant under discriminative control of SDs, correlated with facilitating

precedents which are delivered when emitted in their presence. And now a clear summary that anyone can understand in seven words. On your mark, get set. Go. A habit is acting as usual again. The awards are presented by the editors of the Annals of Improbable Research. You can find out more about them at improbable.com. We need to take a break.

We'll be right back with more from Sanders' Theater in just a moment. Stay with us. This is Science Friday. I'm Ira Flato, and if you're just joining us, we're playing highlights from this year's Ig Nobel Award ceremony. Research that first makes you laugh. Then makes you think it was recorded in September of this year at Harvard Sanders Theatre. Here's Ig Nobel Master of Ceremonies, Mark Abrams.

Some of our Ig Nobel Prize winners from previous years like to come back to our stage to take a bow and to help honor the new Ig Nobel Prize winners. We have several with us this year. Please welcome them. The 2015 Ig Nobel Physics Prize was awarded to Patricia Yang, David, Jonathan Pham and Jerome Chu for testing the biological principle that nearly all mammals empty their bladders in about 21 seconds, plus or minus 13 seconds. Please welcome David Hu and Patricia Yang.

The 2009 Ig Nobel Chemistry Prize was awarded to Javier Morales-Castillo, Miguel Apatica, and Victor Castagnos of Universidad Nacional Autonomo de Mejia. for creating diamonds from liquid, specifically from tequila. Please welcome Javier Morales Castillo. The 2008 Ig Nobel Chemistry Prize was awarded to two teams of scientists, one of whom discovered that Coca-Cola is an effective spermicide, and the other team discovered that it's not. Please welcome Dr. Deborah Anderson and the 2000

The 2012 Ig Nobel Acoustics Prize was awarded to Kazutaka Kurehara and Koji Tsukata of Japan for creating the speech jammer. Speech jammer is a machine that disrupts a person's speech by making them hear their own spoken words at a very slight delay. Please welcome Kazutaka Kuriara and Koji Tsukata. Now let's get it over with the ladies and gentlemen the awarding of the 2019 Iggy Nobel Prizes. We're giving out 10 prizes. The winners come from many nations. They've truly earned their prizes. Karen, tell them what they've won. This year's winners will each receive an Ig Nobel Prize. You don't say. That's not all. Oh, what? They also get a piece of paper. It says they've won an Ig Nobel Prize. This piece of paper

It's signed by several Nobel laureates. Oh. Do they get any money? Ten trillion dollars. Ten trillion dollars? Ten trillion dollars. Ten trillion American dollars? Zimbabwean dollars.

A Zimbabwean ten trillion dollar bill. What else do they get? They get a handshake from a Nobel laureate. What else? Nothing. How nice. Thank you, Karen. This year's prize is a cup full of habits. It's a coffee cup with a wad of chewed gum, a cigarette butt, a mobile phone, and evidence of several other habits.

Ladies and gentlemen, the Ig Nobel Prize. The Medicine Prize. The winner is for. from Italy and the Netherlands. The prize goes to Silvano Gallus for collecting evidence that pizza might protect against illness and death if the pizza is made and eaten in Italy. Please welcome Silvano Gallus.

What did we find in our research? We found that analyzing data from a combination of large Italian epidemiological studies, we found that people who raised regularly consumed pizza had decreased the risk of digestive drug cancer and acute myocardial infarction. Our interpretation is that in Italy, pizza may represent a general indicator, a marker of the Italian diet that has other Mediterranean diets has been shown to have major health

benefits. In conclusion, we recommend eating Italian pizza, but It should be Italian and therefore, but please hold the pepperoni for health reasons and also pineapple as a matter of taste. Collect your $10 trillion bill from the Nobel laureates over there. The Medical Education Prize. The winners are from the USA. The prize goes to Karen Pryor and Teresa McKeon for using a simple animal training technique called Clicker Training to train surgeons to perform orthopedic surgery.

Please welcome Karen Pryor and Teresa McKin. Well Karen and I would like to thank everybody, Ig Nobel, for this honor, but we'd also like to thank the people who worked on the research and really put to the test of teaching methodology that highlights and builds on success and and focuses on positive and timely reinforcement. And with so much of our world focused on that which is not successful, it may be worth having a way to focus on things that are successful. Thank you very much. The Economics Prize.

The winners are from Turkey, the Netherlands, and Germany. The prize goes to Habib Gettik, Timothy Röhm. Vos and Andreas Voss for testing which country's paper money is best at transmitting dangerous bacteria. Please welcome Andreas Voss and Timothy Voss, poor father and son. When staying in a foreign country, had you ever had the feeling that the money that normally flows through your hands get sticked on your fingers and is kind of dirty? The question is, is it contaminated with anything that causes a health risk. So we have a look into that.

And the fact is that bank notes that who feel sticky or dirty do not have to be contaminated. Actually, the Romanian lie and the dollar were one of the worst things there is. So we have a proposition for you to get risk of the health risk in your wallet. We please ask you to take your crispy dollar notes, fold them into an airplane, and throw it.

throw them away during the next period. For all others, we just accept wash your hands even when you have contact with GAL. Thank you very much. Please get a little alcohol. Please be very sure to collect your $10 trillion bill. The next 24-7 lecture will be delivered by a professor of cognitive science at Hampshire College,

Joanna Morris. Her topic, theory of mind. First, a complete technical description of the subject in 24 seconds. On your mark, get set, go. Theory of mind is the ability to impute mental states, beliefs, intense, and desires, emotions to oneself and to others, and to understand that others have beliefs, desires, and intentions that are different from one's own. The theory of mind is probably viewed as a theory because mental states are not directly observable. Each human can only intuit the existence of his or her own mind

through introspection and no one has direct access to the mind of another. The presumption that others have a mind enables one to understand that mental states you know, go well. And now a clear summary that anyone can understand in seven words. On your mark, get set, go.

Surprise, other people are just like you. The next 24-7 lecture will be delivered by an economist who won the 2007 Nobel Prize in Economics. Eric Maskin. His topic. Voting. First, a complete technical description of the subject in 24 seconds.

On your mark, get set. Go. In most American elections, each citizen votes for one candidate and the one with the most votes wins. This is a flawed system. It led to Donald Trump. Trump won Republican primary is by less than a majority because the anti-Trump vote was split over 15 other candidates. Better system lets vote. rank candidates. If no one gets a majority of first place votes, the least favorite is dropped,

second ranked choices move into first place, and the process continues until there is a majority. And now, a clear summary that anyone can understand in seven words. On your mark, get set, go. Let a majority choose who's in authority. The biology president. The winners are from Singapore, China, Australia, Poland, the USA, and Bulgaria. The prize goes to Lingjun Kong, Herbert Kripaz, Anyeshke Goreka, Alexander Urbanek, Rainer Dumpke, and Thomas Potarek for discovering that dead magnetized cockroaches behave differently than living magnetized cockroaches. Please welcome Thomas Padereck, Herbert Popaz, and Raynor Dunke.

Thank you very much. First of all, many thanks to the organizers for this wonderful ceremony and for awarding us. Indeed, one of our findings is that dead magnetized cockroaches, no, that dead cockroaches stay magnetized longer than alive cockroaches. We have a video that over-dramatizes this a bit. Dear Bob, please play. and to add the drama there I'll be reading, safety first. Now, this is a fridge. This is a dead cockroach. Click.

This is a live cockroach. No click. Consistently. Thank you very much. We can collect your $10 trillion bill from the Nobel laureates over there. The Anatomy Prize. The winners are from France. The prize goes to Roger Mucei and Boris Ben-Guffida

for measuring scrotal temperature asymmetry in naked and clothed postmen in France. The winners were not able to travel to the ceremony tonight. Here, though, to give a short tribute to the winners is a postman from the United States Postal Service. Please welcome Eric Eymold. I guess you're wondering about my package. We postmen take good care of every package.

On behalf of my fellow American postman, I say thank you to the two scientists in France. They care about packages just as much as we do. This scientific research is very exciting. We knew that French postmen are, cool. Now we know exactly how cool they are. We American postmen, we send our warmest regards to the two French scientists and especially to all the French postmen, our brothers in good standing.

Now we have a demonstration. The not safe for work indicator has called off the demonstration. We have a special treat. A really quick lecture by Karen. Pryor. Karen Pryor is one of the founders of Clicker Training. And there may be some people who are not familiar with clicker training. Karen Pryor will tell us ever so briefly about clicker training. Here's Karen Pryor. Oh goody. This device may not all have one in your pocket, but you will someday. It's a clear, sharp sound. And what it tells you, when someone has made a move that you like, and you click during the move,

you have learned that they did exactly the right thing, and they have learned that and they feel successful. And you're right, they are successful. It adds up quickly to a clear form of communication between different people. All positive information, and what we communicate this way will be true,

will work for you, and furthermore, it works for all, for all animals down to guppies. That's it. One tradition at the Iggs involves sessions of audience paper airplane throwing. The origami plane soar from the balconies

until the stage is littered with them. Roy Glauber, a theoretical physicist, was a beloved Ig Nobel participant and for over 20 years held the title of Keeper of the Broome, leading the efforts to clear away the discarded airplanes. even before he won his own real Nobel Prize.

Dr. Glauber passed away last year, so this year's ceremony featured a tribute to Roy Glauber, along with a ceremonial passing of the broom to a new keeper. Our condolences to Dr. Glauber's friends and family. We'll be back with more Ig Nobel silliness after this. This is Science Friday. I'm Ira Plato, and we now return you to Harvard Sanders Theater. for more highlights from this year's Ig Nobel Award ceremony.

Here's a taste of this year's Ig Nobel Mini Opera, Creatures of Habit. Bad, bad, bad, bad habits. Digit, fidgets, five two fidgets, guard two fidgets with five digits. Wait a minute, just a minute. Each decision has with it. Surge east, nostril left or right. Oh, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, it's not a time.

Sometimes when I don't know what to say, I somehow managed still to talk about me, that's what people would do if I did not clean my house. Fancy people, Feltiebillie me in front of all. Jangling demands upon my time required deliberation. Saving something to somebody is the only way to say that I still have an appetite to search these nostril lev, right so. Later, later, exclamator, slowly, slowly, so unholy. Twist and fool and self and jiggle, rhyme, and fidgets, make it twiggle.

No, no, no, no, no! Don't you know? Minds me, I'm a story! The winners are from the UK, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, and the USA. The prize goes to Gada A. Bin Saif, Alexandro Papayu, Lillianna Benari, Francis McGlone, Sean Quattra, Yongwak Chan, and Gil Yosipovich, for trying to measure the pleasurability of scratching an itch. the winners could not travel to the ceremony so instead they sent this video acceptance speech

hey it's francis mcglone here from the united kingdom i'm awfully sorry mark and i'm not able to join you at their amazing ceremony for all of us are so grateful for winning your amazing ignoble prize you can work out for yourself where on this particular effigyte on the side of my shoulder you would like to scratch and then send me an email. Anyway, have a great day, everybody, and thanks again very much for this honor. And on behalf of all of my co-authors, thank you. Thank you, Dr. McGlone. Engineering Prize.

The winner is from Iran. The prize goes to Iman Farabakhs for inventing a diaper-changing machine for use on human infants. The winner could not travel. to the ceremony, he planned to send us a video acceptance speech. That video has not yet arrived. The Psychology Prize. The winner is from Germany. The prize goes to Fritzstrak for discovering that holding a pen in one's mouth

makes one smile, which makes one happier, and for then discovering that it does not. Please welcome. Fritz Strach. The replication ballot, not an opera, just the ballot. A study once found that a pencil is a valuable research utensil. The procedure was used to make people amused and to show that a smile is extensible. Years after this shocking result, no reason was left to exalt. Trying to replicate, some failed to get it straight.

But after some serious thinking, the literature gets it. an inkling. A cam caused a sham, producing much spam, and the proof was pretty convincing. Kodam, if this story has a moral, it is to end a useless quarrel. To claim a finding is not real, has a lot of sex appeal, but rather than insinuate, return to science and debate. Thank you. Don't forget to collect your $10 trillion bill. The next 24-7 lecture will be delivered by a graduate student at Harvard's Center for the Fundamental Laws of Nature. Carrie Cesarotti, her topic, LHC, the Large Hadron Collider. First, a complete technical description of the subject in 24 seconds.

On your mark, get set, go. The LHC is a 27-kilometer ring that pumps protons with energy as they cycle around. Any driver knows that fast objects don't make sharp turns, and the large radius is needed to keep the protons on track. When the protons finally collide, we can probe their particle substructure to a billionth of a billionth of a meter, and their energy is converted to sprays of new, heavy, or exotic particles to unstable for our world. And now a clear summary that anyone can understand in seven words. On your mark, get set, go.

Measure small by building big, size matters. The final 24-7 lecture will. will be delivered by Associate Dean of the Harvard College curriculum and a lecturer on computer science, Rebecca Nesson. Her topic, mathematical truth. First, a complete technical description of the subject in 24 seconds. On your mark, get set, go. Goodall proved that no consistent formal system that's expressive enough for arithmetic could derive all mathematical truths. In his system, each proposition encodes both an arithmetical and a logical claim. His proposition P is an arithmetical proposition,

which encodes also the logical claim that it's not provable. If P is provable, then it's false, but also true. And now a clear summary that anyone can understand in seven words. On your mark, get set, go. We can know truths that we can't prove. The Chemistry Prize. The winners are from Japan. The prize goes to Shigeru Watanabe, Minaku Onishi, Kaori, Imai,

Iji Kewano, and Seiji Igarashi for estimating the total saliva volume produced per day by a typical five-year-old child. Please welcome Shiguru Watanabe. and his adult sons who were some of the research subjects 35 years ago. Thank you, Chairman, and thank you so much for this honorable award. We found out an important fact that total saliva volume per day in five years old children to be 500 militer. How do we measure saliva? Do you want to know?

Okay. I'll show you here. This is balance and I measured food weight and cup. They are my sons. Who are my subject for 35 years ago? From Japan. Are you ready? Are you ready?

Okay. Eat. Join. Chewing. Chewing. Join. Join. Join.

And spit out. I made that again. Oh. You can collect your $10 trillion bill from the Nobel laureates over there. The physics prize. The winners are from the USA. Taiwan, Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, and the UK. The prize goes to Patricia Yang, Alexander Lee, Miles Chan,

Alin Martin, Ashley Edwards, Scott Carver, and David Hu, for studying how and why wombatts make cube-shaped poo. Please note, this is the second Ig Nobel Prize that was awarded to Patricia Yang and David Hu. In the year, in the year, in the year 2015, they and some other colleagues were awarded the Ig Nobel Physics Prize for testing the biological principle that nearly all mammals empty their bladders in about 21 seconds, plus or minus 13 seconds.

Today, please welcome Patricia Yang, David Hu, Alexander Lee, Scott Carver, and Ashley Edwards. Thank you. wombat's a solitary herbivorous marsupials. They produce cube-shaped scats, which they place on a rock, a log, or a stump to communicate with one another. See, the cubing prevents them from rolling away.

So naturally, we asked, how do they produce cubed poo in a soft intestine? A wombat's feces is only two-thirds as wet as your own feces. When feces dry, it contracts and forms cracks. The formation of cubes is similar to the cooling of lava into hexagons like those found in Giant Causeway, Ireland. The process is assisted by the muscles that move food among the lower intestine. These muscles vary in thickness as much as three times that shape the corners of cubes. One best are scientific proof that you can squeeze a square peg into a round hole.

to study more feces in the future such as moths that generate bond-shaped feces, bears that generate big cylindrical feces, fears that generate pellet-shaped feces, cows that generate cow pie, fish that generate poop sand, and bats that generate fecal cream. Professor Jean Berko Gleason will deliver the traditional Ig Nobel goodbye, goodbye, by speech. Now on behalf of the Harvard-Radcliffe Society, physics students, and the Harvard-Radcliffe Science Fiction Association,

and especially from all of us at the Annals of Improbable Research, please remember this final thought. If you didn't win an Ig Nobel Prize this year, and especially if you did, better luck next year. Thank you. That about wraps it up for us. Thanks to Mark Abrams and everyone at the Annals of Improbable Research and to audio engineers Miles Smith and Frank Cunningham

for their help in recording the ceremonies. Thanks also to Kevin Wolfe, Lisa Gosselin, and Rich Kim for their technical assistance. And if you missed any part of this program or you would like to hear it again, subscribe to our podcasts, audio and video, or point your tablet or smartphone to our website at ScienceFriety.com. And if you like us, then like us on Facebook and continue a week-long discussion on Twitter at SciFri. And if you like to write us, please, please send your letters to Science Friday, 19-West 44th Street, Room 412, New York, New York, 10036. And you can always email us. The address is SciFri at ScienceFri.com.

In New York, I'm Ira Flato. Happy holidays.