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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."
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Justin Case on Saturday September 24 2016, @05:39PM
I think we can all support this year's US Presidential candidates, for making it impossible for the masses to any longer ignore that the system is the corrupt absurd farce it has long been.
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 24 2016, @05:59PM
You can't have it both ways. First, all the whining was about the corrupt establishment keeping outsiders at bay and only letting "the sheeple" choose from the candidates they allow. Now, here comes this outsider Trump who has given a big middle finger to the Republicans, and he won their nomination. Now we're back to the 'fixed' system again?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Justin Case on Saturday September 24 2016, @06:06PM
The corrupt establishment is still keeping outsiders Johnson and Stein at bay, by locking them out of the debates. They've polled at times above 10% even while the system is pretending they don't exist. Imagine how much better they'd be doing if they were getting equal time and attention from the, well, corrupt establishment.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 25 2016, @12:26AM
Why stop at four? There are other so-called third party Presidential candidates out there:
http://2016.presidential-candidates.org/ [presidential-candidates.org]
Of course, four would be plenty enough if you're with the Johnson or Stein campaigns.
(Score: 3, Funny) by rts008 on Saturday September 24 2016, @06:37PM
Your nomination would get my vote.
Twenty years ago, I would have laughed at a "Saturday Night Live" episode that accurately portrayed this election(w/o their usual irony, sarcasm, and satirical comedy ploys) as being over the top ludicrousness.ROFLMAO
Now, there's no laughing, only incredulous WTF?!?!? by most of the people. A crack smoking clown-car demolition derby, run amok, and gone awry.
Kind of like that tractor-trailer wreck I saw back in Breezewood, PA in the 1980's. It was full of live turkeys, and coming up from Baltimore/DC, it came into town too fast(with overheated brakes) to a tee intersection, and overturned while trying to make the turn. Turkeys spilled and ran everywhere...hundreds of them. Brought traffic connecting I-70, I-76, and PA Rte. 30, to a complete standstill for hours. Turkeys running everywhere, locals and other motorists, the state cops, and who knows, chasing and trying to capture the errant fowl. One fellow was carrying three of them to his car, when he opened the trunk and tossed in the captives, four escaped. He never let it slow him down, he repeated this several times, only to end up with two. I reckon he's a successful politician now.
Amazing what can happen when not enough of the voters care enough to pay attention, and settle for crafted sound-bites.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday September 25 2016, @01:37AM