Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by cmn32480 on Saturday September 24 2016, @04:22PM   Printer-friendly
from the dy-no-mite! dept.

Rats in tiny trousers, pseudoscientific bullshit, the personalities of rocks, and Volkswagen's, shall we say, "creative" approach to emissions testing were among the research topics honored by the 2016 Ig Nobel Prizes. The winners were announced last night at a live webcast ceremony held at Harvard University.

For those unfamiliar with the Ig Nobel Prizes, it's an annual celebration of silly science. Or a silly celebration of seemingly dubious science, courtesy of the satirical journal Annals of Improbable Research. The main objective is to honor research that first makes you laugh, and then makes you think. It's all in good fun, and the honorees frequently travel to the ceremony on their own dime to accept their awards.

Some of the honorees were:

Literature Prize: Fredrik Sjöberg, for his three-volume autobiographical work about the pleasures of collecting flies that are dead, and flies that are not yet dead.

Perception Prize: Atsuki Higashiyama and Kohei Adachi, for investigating whether things look different when you bend over and view them between your legs.

VW won the Chemistry category for "electromechanically producing fewer emissions whenever the cars are being tested".

Who would you have chosen to win an Ig Nobel Prize this year?


The 2016 Ig Nobel prizes were awarded yesterday, Thursday, September 22. Notable amongst the winners was VolksWagen, who won the Chemistry prize for "solving the problem of excessive automobile pollution emissions by automatically, electromechanically producing fewer emissions whenever the cars are being tested." No one from VW attended the ceremony to collect the prize. Other notable winners included a team who won the Peace Prize for their groundbreaking work analyzing the detection of "Pseudo-Profound Bullshit."


Original Submission 1

Original Submission 2

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 24 2016, @04:49PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 24 2016, @04:49PM (#405973)

    I would have chosen myself because I'm corrupt.

  • (Score: 2) by fishybell on Saturday September 24 2016, @05:14PM

    by fishybell (3156) on Saturday September 24 2016, @05:14PM (#405979)

    That seems amazingly reasonable for the Ig Nobel prizes.