OUR ENJOYMENT of our favourite science awards ceremony—the
Ig Nobels—is enhanced this year by a modest glow of pride, since we spotted
two of the winners well before the crowning event held on 4 October at Harvard
University.
It was obvious that John Keogh, a lawyer in Hawthorn, Victoria, was headed
for great things when he convinced the Australian Patent Office to issue him a
patent on the wheel
(Feedback, 14 July).
Likewise David Schmidt, an of Massachusetts in Amherst, who worked out
why shower curtains billow up and stick to people taking a shower
(28 July).
Keogh has duly been awarded this year’s Ig Nobel in technology, while Schmidt
scoops the physics prize.
On the other hand, the danger posed by falling coconuts is one that had made
no impact on Feedback’s thick skull, despite all those cartoons where they land
square on top of people’s heads. Fortunately, the size of the risk has been
assessed by Peter Barss, now an epidemiologist at the government department
91ɫƬ Canada, earning him the 2001 Ig Nobel prize in medicine. His 1984 paper
in The Journal of Trauma, “Injuries due to falling coconuts” reported
that 2.5 per cent of trauma patients admitted to a hospital in Papua New Guinea
had been clobbered by coconuts. Barss warned that a 4-kilogram coconut falling
from a palm tree 35 metres high could land with a tonne of force, which may
persuade many to reconsider their holiday plans.
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Avoiding coconuts is far easier than avoiding death or taxes, but two
economists earned their Ig Nobel prize in economics for showing that people who
fear death duties keep the grim reaper at bay a bit longer. Combing through data
from the US Internal Revenue Service, Joel Slemrod and Wojciech Kopczuk of the
University of Michigan Business School found that some people were able to delay
their last gasp to save on death duties. “We cannot rule out that what we have
uncovered is ex post doctoring of the reported date of death,” they wrote in a
working paper for the US National Bureau of Economic Research. “However, the
fact that we find that postponement, rather than acceleration, of death is more
likely to occur suggests that this phenomenon is at least partly a real (albeit
timing) response to taxation.”
Meanwhile, Buck Weimer of Pueblo, Colorado, won the Ig Nobel prize in biology
for coming up with a way to avoid dying of embarrassment. He invented
“under-ease”, airtight underwear that forces foul-smelling flatulence through a
replaceable, odour-killing charcoal filter. Apparently the filters last several
weeks before requiring replacement. You can read remarkable
testimonials—and perhaps add your own—at www.under-tec.com.
The Ig Nobel with the most cosmic impact was in astrophysics. It was awarded
to Michigan televangelist Jack Van Impe for discovering that black holes meet
all the technical requirements for being the location of hell. Feedback hopes to
avoid exploring the inner reaches of either.
AWAY FROM the Ig Nobel shenanigans, the most tasteless press release of the
week comes from those fervent advocates of human cloning at the Raelian
movement. Cloning “will make terrorist attacks inefficient in the future”, the
statement says, because cloning techniques will make it possible to recreate
instant adult copies of anyone who is killed. What’s more, that person’s
personality and memory will be downloaded into their clone’s brain from a PC
where they have been stored. “Therefore, when a tragedy occurs. . . cloning will
bring back to life all of the victims.” It goes on to add: “This technology
would also allow the cloning of terrorists, thus allowing us to try them for
their crimes.”
Sad to say, the “Raelian religion” has followers who believe this sort of
stuff and look forward to it happening.
MEANWHILE, in another response to the world crisis, the Ananova news service
tells us that Pakistan’s military establishment has renamed a larval pest that
attacks cotton crops because Americans might take offence at its old
name—American sundi. The pest gained its name because it was introduced
along with an American seed variety in the 1960s.
Henceforth its Latin name Heliothis armigera will be used, and a
Pakistan Department of Agriculture advertising campaign warning farmers about
the pest has been suspended because it used the old name.
IF THIS is all just too gloomy, take comfort from thinkers from the Himalayan
kingdom of Bhutan. Earlier this year, a group of them met under the auspices a
of think tank called the New Economics Foundation to discuss the concept of
Gross National Happiness, which they propose as an alternative to the more
limiting Gross National Product.
Former international banker Sander Tideman, who wrote the keynote paper
“Gross national happiness: towards a Buddhist economics”, acknowledges that the
new approach might take a while to get established. He says it is “an ideal, a
target, which will require extensive research and practice before it can be a
guiding force for day-to-day economic and political decision-making”.
Tideman’s paper is available on the NEF website at
www.neweconomics.org/Default.asp?strRequest=pubs if you’d like to know
more.
JO GEESIN recently acquired some American made drumsticks from a drummer
friend. They came with these useful warnings: “Keep away from eyes” and “For use
only as intended”.
Geesin wonders if this isn’t taking the jokes about drummers and their
intelligence too far.
THE LABEL on a bottle of Fentiman’s Ginger Beer advises drinkers: “Upend
before drinking”.
FINALLY, our story about warning signs in security-conscious buildings (22
September) reminded reader Graham Buxton-Smith of a sign he saw on an
electricity substation near London’s Gatwick Airport. It said “Any contact with
these wires will result in instant death”. Underneath, in a smaller script, were
the words: “Anyone found doing so will be prosecuted.”
