The Ig Nobel Prizes
http://improbable.com/ig/
The 2006 ceremony will be held on Thursday evening, October 5. TICKETS: contact the Harvard Box Office. (+1) 617-496-2222.
A related event, the Ig Informal Lectures, happens Saturday afternoon, October 7.
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2006
"for their discovery of RNA interference - gene silencing by double-stranded RNA"
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/2006/
Andrew Z. Fire
USA
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Cambridge, MA, USA; Stanford University School of Medicine
Stanford, CA, USA
b. 1959
Craig C. Mello
USA
Harvard University
Boston, MA, USA; University of Massachusetts Medical School
Worcester, MA, USA
b. 1960
Potent and specific genetic interference by double-stranded RNA in Caenorhabditis elegans.
Fire A, Xu S, Montgomery MK, Kostas SA, Driver SE, Mello CC.
Nature. 1998 Feb 19;391(6669):806-11.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=9486653&query_hl=22&itool=pubmed_docsum
The Nobel Prize in Physics 2006
"for their discovery of the blackbody form and anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background radiation"
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2006/
The 2006 Ig Nobel Prize winners
http://improbable.com/ig/ig-pastwinners.html#ig2006
The 2006 Ig Nobel Prize Winners
The 2006 Ig Nobel Prize winners were awarded on Thursday night, October 5, at the 16th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony, at Harvard's Sanders Theatre.
The ceremony was webcast at www.improbable.com. Recorded video will be posted here soon.
Two days after the ceremon y -- on Saturday, October 7 -- the new winners will give free public lectures at the Ig Informal Lectures.
ORNITHOLOGY: Ivan R. Schwab, of the University of California Davis, and the late Philip R.A. May of the University of California Los Angeles, for exploring and explaining why woodpeckers don't get headaches.
REFERENCE: "Cure for a Headache," Ivan R Schwab, British Journal of Ophthalmology, vol. 86, 2002, p. 843.
REFERENCE: "Woodpeckers and Head Injury," Philip R.A. May, Joaquin M. Fuster, Paul Newman and Ada Hirschman, Lancet, vol. 307, no. 7957, February 28, 1976, pp. 454-5.
REFERENCE: "Woodpeckers and Head Injury," Philip R.A. May, Joaquin M. Fuster, Paul Newman and Ada Hirschman, Lancet, vol. 307, no. 7973, June 19, 1976, pp. 1347-8.
WHO ATTENDED THE IG NOBEL PRIZE CEREMONY: Ivan Schwab
NUTRITION: Wasmia Al-Houty of Kuwait University and Faten Al-Mussalam of the Kuwait Environment Public Authority, for showing that dung beetles are finicky eaters.
REFERENCE: "Dung Preference of the Dung Beetle Scarabaeus cristatus Fab (Coleoptera-Scarabaeidae) from Kuwait," Wasmia Al-Houty and Faten Al-Musalam, Journal of Arid Environments, vol. 35, no. 3, 1997, pp. 511-6.
WHO ATTENDED THE IG NOBEL PRIZE CEREMONY: Faten Al-Musalam
PEACE: Howard Stapleton of Merthyr Tydfil, Wales, for inventing an electromechanical teenager repellant -- a device that makes annoying noise designed to be audible to teenagers but not to adults; and for later using that same technology to make telephone ringtones that are audible to teenagers but not to their teachers.
REFERENCE: http://www.compoundsecurity.co.uk
WHO ATTENDED THE IG NOBEL PRIZE CEREMONY: Howard Stapleton planned to attend, but his plans were interrupted by a family medical situation.
ACOUSTICS: D. Lynn Halpern (of Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates, and Brandeis University, and Northwestern University), Randolph Blake (of Vanderbilt University and Northwestern University) and James Hillenbrand (of Western Michigan University and Northwestern University) for conducting experiments to learn why people dislike the sound of fingernails scraping on a blackboard.
REFERENCE: "Psychoacoustics of a Chilling Sound," D. Lynn Halpern, Randolph Blake and James Hillenbrand, Perception and Psychophysics, vol. 39,1986, pp. 77-80.
WHO ATTENDED THE IG NOBEL PRIZE CEREMONY: Lynn Halpern and Randolph Blake
MATHEMATICS: Nic Svenson and Piers Barnes of the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Research Organization, for calculating the number of photographs you must take to (almost) ensure that nobody in a group photo will have their eyes closed
REFERENCE: "Blink-Free Photos, Guaranteed," Velocity, June 2006,
WHO ATTENDED THE IG NOBEL PRIZE CEREMONY: Nic Svenson and Piers Barnes
CONTACT: Nic Svenson, Communications Officer, CSIRO Industrial Physics, Phone: +61 (2) 9413 7643, Fax: +61 (2) 9413 7644, nic.svenson@csiro.au
CONTACT: Dr. Piers Barnes, Post Doctoral Fellow, CSIRO Industrial Physics, Office: +61 2 9413 7179, Mobile: +61 410 273 353, Fax: +61 2 9413 7200, <piers.barnes@csiro.au>
LITERATURE: Daniel Oppenheimer of Princeton University for his report "Consequences of Erudite Vernacular Utilized Irrespective of Necessity: Problems with Using Long Words Needlessly."
REFERENCE: "Consequences of Erudite Vernacular Utilized Irrespective of Necessity: Problems with Using Long Words Needlessly," Daniel M. Oppenheimer, Applied Cognitive Psychology, vol. 20, no. 2, March 2006, pp. 139-56.
WHO ATTENDED THE IG NOBEL PRIZE CEREMONY: Daniel Oppenheimer
MEDICINE: Francis M. Fesmire of the University of Tennessee College of Medicine, for his medical case report "Termination of Intractable Hiccups with Digital Rectal Massage"; and Majed Odeh, Harry Bassan, and Arie Oliven of Bnai Zion Medical Center, Haifa, Israel, for their subsequent medical case report also titled "Termination of Intractable Hiccups with Digital Rectal Massage."
REFERENCE: "Termination of Intractable Hiccups with Digital Rectal Massage," Francis M. Fesmire, Annals of Emergency Medicine, vol. 17, no. 8, August 1988 p. 872.
REFERENCE: "Termination of Intractable Hiccups with Digital Rectal Massage,"
Majed Odeh, Harry Bassan, and Arie Oliven, Journal of Internal Medicine, vol. 227, no. 2, February 1990, pp. 145-6. They are at the Department of Internal Medicine, Bnai Zion Medical Center, Haifa, Israel.
REFERENCE: "Hiccups and Digital Rectal Massage," M. Odeh and A. Oliven, Archives of Otolaryngology -- Head and Neck Surgery, vol. 119, 1993, p. 1383.
WHO ATTENDED THE IG NOBEL PRIZE CEREMONY: Francis Fesmire
PHYSICS: Basile Audoly and Sebastien Neukirch of the Universit? Pierre et Marie Curie, in Paris, for their insights into why, when you bend dry spaghetti, it often breaks into more than two pieces.
REFERENCE: "Fragmentation of Rods by Cascading Cracks: Why Spaghetti Does Not Break in Half," Basile Audoly and Sebastien Neukirch, Physical Review Letters, vol. 95, no. 9, August 26, 2005, pp. 95505-1 to 95505-1.
REFERENCE: video and other details at <http://www.lmm.jussieu.fr/spaghetti/index.html>
WHO ATTENDED THE IG NOBEL PRIZE CEREMONY: Basile Audoly and Sebastien Neukirch
CHEMISTRY: Antonio Mulet, Jos? Javier Benedito and Jos? Bon of the University of Valencia, Spain, and Carmen Rossell? of the University of Illes Balears, in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, for their study "Ultrasonic Velocity in Cheddar Cheese as Affected by Temperature."
REFERENCE: "Ultrasonic Velocity in Cheddar Cheese as Affected by Temperature," Antonio Mulet, Jos? Javier Benedito, Jos? Bon, and Carmen Rossell?, Journal of Food Science, vol. 64, no. 6, 1999, pp. 1038-41.
WHO ATTENDED THE IG NOBEL PRIZE CEREMONY: The winners delivered their acceptance speech via video recording.
BIOLOGY: Bart Knols (of Wageningen Agricultural University, in Wageningen, the Netherlands; and of the National Institute for Medical Research, in Ifakara Centre, Tanzania, and of the International Atomic Energy Agency, in Vienna Austria) and Ruurd de Jong (of Wageningen Agricultural University and of Santa Maria degli Angeli, Italy) for showing that the female malaria mosquito Anopheles gambiae is attracted equally to the smell of limburger cheese and to the smell of human feet.
REFERENCE: "On Human Odour, Malaria Mosquitoes, and Limburger Cheese," Bart. G.J. Knols, The Lancet, vol. 348 , November 9, 1996, p. 1322.
REFERENCE: “Behavioural and electrophysiological responses of the female malaria mosquito Anopheles gambiae (Diptera: Culicidae) to Limburger cheese volatiles,” Bulletin of Entomological Research, B.G.J. Knols, J.J.A. van Loon, A. Cork, R.D. Robinson, et al., vol. 87, 1997, pp. 151-159.
REFERENCE: "Limburger Cheese as an Attractant for the Malaria Mosquito Anopheles gambiae s.s.," B.G,J. Knols and R. De Jong, Parasitology Today, yd. 12, no. 4, 1996, pp. 159-61.
REFERENCE: "Selection of Biting Sites on Man by Two Malaria Mosquito Species," R. De Jong and B.G.J. Knols, Experientia, vol. 51, 1995, pp. 80?84.
WHO ATTENDED THE IG NOBEL PRIZE CEREMONY: Bart Knols
2006年度ノーベル賞授賞式、ストックホルムで開催 - スウェーデン
http://www.afpbb.com/article/1155006
【ストックホルム/スウェーデン 7日 AFP】ストックホルム(Stockholm)で7日、2006年度ノーベル賞授賞式が開催された。写真は同日、王立科学アカデミー(Royal Academy of Science)で記者会見するノーベル賞受賞者たち。(左から)物理学賞のジョン・マザー(John C. Mather)、ジョージ・スムート(George F. Smoot)両氏、化学賞のロジャー・コーンバーグ(Roger Kornberg)氏および経済学賞のエドモンド・フェルプス(Edmund Phelps)氏。
2006年ノーベル賞の授賞式開催 - スウェーデン
http://www.afpbb.com/article/1163461
【ストックホルム/スウェーデン 10日 AFP】ストックホルム(Stockholm)で10日、ノーベル賞の授与式が行われた。文学、生理学・医学、物理学、化学、経済学の受賞者が、それぞれ賞を授与された。受賞式の終了後には、祝宴晩さん会が開催された。写真は同日、授与式でカール16世グスタフ(King Carl XVI Gustaf)国王からノーベル生理学・医学賞を授与される、米国のマサチューセッツ州、ウースター(Worcester)にあるマサチューセッツ大学のクレイグ・C・メロー(Craig C. Mello)医学教授。