2001 Ig Nobel Results:

October 7, 2001 9:09 PM

2001 Ig Nobel Results: What is most suprising about this is that 9 out of the 10 winners actually wrote acceptance speeches. Awards went to the creator of "Stalin World," a study of teens who pick their noses, a study of injuries due to falling coconuts, and the invention of fart-proof underwear.
posted by KirkJobSluder (8 comments total)

In case you didn't know what the Ig Nobel awards are, here's the description from their about page:

The Ig Nobel Prizes honor people whose achievements "cannot or should not be reproduced." Ten prizes are given to people who have done remarkably goofy things -- some of them admirable, some perhaps otherwise.

posted by mathowie at 9:18 PM on October 7, 2001

They seem to miss Louis Pearlman every year.
posted by dong_resin at 9:31 PM on October 7, 2001

I don't know about all of these. The underwear would have helped this guy.
posted by boaz at 9:33 PM on October 7, 2001

While these may seem like a joke, I suggest checking out some of these papers (whenever they get put online, this year's don't seem to be up).

I read a summary of the falling coconuts report a while back. The report describes how in a New Guinea hospital 2.5% of cases were from coconuts and the force of the impact can exceed 1 metric ton. I had no idea that it was seriously such a problem. (Sorry no link)

Last year had some of my favorites:
"Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments."
and
"Magnetic Resonance Imaging of Male and Female Genitals During Coitus and Female Sexual Arousal."

a list of the previous winners can be found at improbable.com
posted by betaray at 10:33 PM on October 7, 2001

"Stalin World" seems ripped off from that Billy Crystal HBO special in the late 1980s where he did a live performance in Moscow. Part of the special was a videotaped skit where he played a Hollywood producer pitching the idea of "Lenin Land" to Gorbachev & co. as a potential money maker for the ailing Soviet economy.
posted by Potsy at 11:04 PM on October 7, 2001

YES! Patenting the wheel! MY GUY GOT IT!
(Hey, wait, what happened to the guys who patented all the tunes that can be played on a touch-tone dial? Oh, right, they're not eligible till next year.)
Yay, Keogh---way ta go!
[ducks head] sorry. I'm so partisan when it comes to awards....
posted by realjanetkagan at 11:08 PM on October 7, 2001

What I don't understand is why some of the work is so old. There was one winner who was published in 1975 for instance. Couldn't they find something a bit more up to date?
posted by salmacis at 2:28 AM on October 8, 2001

I'm glad that Jack and Rexella VanImpe have finally been recognized for their outstanding contribution to astrophysics.
posted by ph00dz at 5:04 AM on October 8, 2001