You’ve heard of the Nobel Prizes – but what about the Ig-Nobel Prizes?
It’s not a misspelling: each year, the Ig-Nobel Prizes reward the scientists and academics who undertake the most pointless research of the year.
It’s a celebration of curiosity for curiosity’s sake – and the 2023 iteration of the awards certainly lived up to expectations.
The chemistry and geology prize was awarded to the University of Leicester’s well-regarded geologist Jan Zalasiewicz for his work examining whether scientists have lost the art of telling rocks apart from one another by licking them.
Meanwhile, the communication prize went to a team led by Adolfo M. García of the University of San Andres who examined the mental activities of people who are expert at speaking backwards.
But Kiwi nanotechnologist and science educator Michelle Dickinson told Stuff’s daily podcast Newsable she preferred other award-winners: the first being in the realms of mechanical engineering.
“A scientist at Texas Rice University went into the lab and looked at a dead wolf spider on the floor in their lab and went, oh, isn’t that weird that it’s all curled up? I wonder why that is.
“It’s because spiders’ biomechanics work through hydraulic pressure – they’re always usually under pressure, which is why their legs are out.
“In this case, it was all curled up, because it was dead, and their fluid wasn’t pushing out any more. And they were like, I wonder if we can push that spider open.
“So they did – they pumped some air into the corpse of this spider, and its legs went ‘pew!’ and opened up.
“And (the scientists thought) hmm, I wonder how strong this dead spider is. So they attached it to a probe, put air in it and got the dead spider to pick up objects – just like those games you get where you never win a cuddly toy, and you’re throwing your money in.
“And there is an amazing video that will give you nightmares … (because) the answer is: yes, you can pick up objects, including another dead spider, with a current dead spider.”
Dickinson’s other favourite prize-winning experiment falls into the realm of public health, and focusses on a topic I never thought I’d be committing to print: the scanning of people’s anuses.
“I don’t know how many buttholes you’ve ever looked at, but the creases around your bottom hole are unique to you – meaning, just like your fingerprint identifies you, (if) somebody sticks a camera close to your bottom, they would know if it was you based on how many creases you have.
“Very useful for this next invention … a smart toilet.
“They’ve put cameras in there, and the cameras do one of two things: first of all, if you have a poo, it’ll scan your poo and decide whether your poo is normal or if you should go see your doctor.
“But how, you may ask, will it know if it’s your poo versus somebody else’s poo?
“Well, that’s where your anal print comes in. The camera is loaded with AI so that it can analyse your bottom print with somebody else’s, and correlate your typical poos with somebody else’s to make sure that it’s not going to give you a bad diagnosis because it’s based on somebody else’s toilet habit.”
Ingenious.
While these prizes might sound a bit silly, Dickinson says that’s sort of the point of them: to make you laugh, and then to make you think – but, unfortunately, she wouldn’t reveal if she had any pet projects which might qualify in future years.
Probably quite sensible, all things considered.
Listen to the full interview here.
Newsable is Stuff’s daily news podcast, wrapping up what’s worth talking about in a short package every weekday morning. You can find new episodes and more detail on our stories here or in our newsletter. Make sure to like and follow us wherever you get your podcasts and across Instagram and TikTok.
Discussion about this post