MAGPIE:IT'S NOBEL Prize week, in case you are looking for a little light relief. However, it may have escaped your attention (and it certainly escaped Magpie's otherwise eagle eye) that the Nobel fest comes hot on the heels of the Ig Nobel Prize fest.
The Ig Nobels were announced yesterday week at the Sanders Theatre in Harvard University, Massachusetts, and doled out last Saturday.
According to Improbable Research (www.improbable.com/ig), the Ig Nobel prizes began 18 years ago and aim to honour "achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think".
And so, as a much-needed service to Magpie readers, here are this year's winners:
The Nutrition Prize:Massimiliano Zampini of the University of Trento, Italy and Charles Spence of Oxford University, UK, for electronically modifying the sound of a potato chip to make the person chewing the chip believe it to be crisper and fresher than it really is.
The Peace Prize:The Swiss Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology and the citizens of Switzerland for adopting the legal principle that plants have dignity.
The Archaeology Prize:Astolfo G Mello Araujo and José Carlos Marcelino of Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil, for measuring how the contents of an archaeological dig site can be scrambled by the actions of a live armadillo.
The Biology Prize:Marie-Christine Cadiergues, Christel Joubert, and Michel Franc of École Nationale Veterinaire de Toulouse, France for discovering that the fleas on a dog can jump higher than fleas that live on a cat.
The Medicine Prize:Dan Ariely of Duke University (USA), Rebecca L Waber of MIT (USA), Baba Shiv of Stanford University (USA), and Ziv Carmon of INSEAD (Singapore) for demonstrating that high-priced fake medicine is more effective than low-priced fake medicine.
The Cognitive Science Prize:Toshiyuki Nakagaki of Hokkaido University, Japan, Hiroyasu Yamada of Nagoya, Japan, Ryo Kobayashi of Hiroshima University, Atsushi Tero of Presto JST, Akio Ishiguro of Tohoku University, and Ágotá Tóth of the University of Szeged, Hungary, for discovering that slime moulds can solve puzzles.
The Economics Prize:Geoffrey Miller, Joshua Tybur and Brent Jordan of the University of New Mexico, USA, for discovering that a lap dancer's ovulatory cycle affects her tip earnings.
The Physics Prize:Dorian Raymer of the Ocean Observatories Initiative at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, USA, and Douglas Smith of the University of California, San Diego, USA, for proving mathematically that heaps of string or hair, or almost anything else, will inevitably tangle themselves up in knots.
The Chemistry Prize.Sharee A Umpierre of the University of Puerto Rico, Joseph A Hill of The Fertility Centers of New England (USA), Deborah J Anderson of Boston University School of Medicine and Harvard Medical School (USA), for discovering that Coca-Cola is an effective spermicide, and to Chuang-Ye Hong of Taipei Medical University (Taiwan), CC Shieh, P Wu, and BN Chiang (all of Taiwan) for discovering it is not.
The Literature Prize:David Sims of Cass Business School, London, UK, for his lovingly written study You Bastard: A Narrative Exploration of the Experience of Indignation within Organisations.
And finally, there's a timely link on improbable.com to details of a book about one who will shortly slither into oblivion.
The book is The Leadership Genius of George W Bush: 10 Commonsense Lessons from the Commander in Chief.It was written in 2003 by Carolyn B Thompson and Jim Ware.
Acording to reviews, the president has "CEO intelligence, the ability to ask tough questions, garner essential information, and make discerning decisions", says Dr Marvin Olasky, professor of journalism at the University of Texas. Hmmmmmm.
President Bush, says David Abshire, "has a highly effective approach to leadership that is humane, direct, and at times, truly transformational. Many in business today could benefit from reading this book."
But not in banking, David, not in banking . . .
Footnote:if you want the full list of the Wall St lobbyists involved in the Republican Senator John McCain's campaign, and mentioned all week in Doonsbury, here's a link -
http://www.motherjones.com/mojoblog/archives/2008/09/9753_mccain_campaign_lobbyists_wall_street aig.html
