Marc Abrahams's Blog, page 51

Learning to Speak English: “Laugh and Think with the Ig Nobel Prizes”

The Ig Nobel Prizes are put to use teaching non-English speakers how to speak the English language, in this pair of videos produced by ABC Magazine in Taiwan:

Bonus Info

We remind you that, (probably) unrelated to these videos, you can visit a special Ig Nobel Prizes exhibition in Taipei, running from June 25 through September 11, 2022.

Laugh and then think: What it’s like to win the Ig Nobel Prize

The radio program Audacious with Chion Wolf [on Connecticut Public Radio] took a joyous, 50-minute adventure ride into the world of the Ig Nobel Prizes. Listen to it online: “Laugh and then think: What it’s like to win the Ig Nobel Prize”

Here’s the Audacious summary of what you’ll hear:

Almost 1000 people have won Nobel Prizes. But only 300 have won IG Nobel Prizes! That’s the award honoring achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think. In this episode, meet the creator of the prize, and three people who’ve won it!

Marc Abrahams: Founder of the Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony in 1991, celebrating achievements that “make you laugh and then think”. He is also the co-founder and editor of the magazine, Annals of Improbable Research
Kees Moeliker: Dutch biologist, ornithologist, and director of the Natural History Museum Rotterdam. He won an Ig Nobel Prize in Biology for his study of homosexual necrophilia in male mallards in 2003. He is also the founder of Dead Duck Day, which is held annually on June 5th
Pavlo Blavatskyy: Professor of economics at Montpellier Business School. He won an Ig Nobel Prize for Economics in 2021 for his study correlating the perceived corruption of politicians and their body weight
Patricia Yang: A two-time Ig Nobel Prize winner in Physics. The first was in 2015 for testing the biological principle that nearly all mammals empty their bladders in about 21 seconds (plus or minus 13 seconds). She won again in 2019 for studying how wombats make cubed poo

Throw paper airplanes in the Ig Nobel Prize ceremony

Paper-Airplane-Throwing is a hallowed tradition in the Ig Nobel Prize ceremony. You or your institution can submit a video to be included in the 2022 ceremony — The deadline for that is July 31, 2022.

We especially welcome schools and libraries (feel free to display your school or library name blatantly, if you wish!). Have everyone aim their paper airplane at the camera. Keep your video brief — ten seconds max. An iPhone video works fine. Landscape orientation is best, but portrait is okay, too. For examples, watch the paper plane throwing in last year’s ceremony.

Submit your video to

The 32nd First Annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony , replete with paper airplanes, will be webcast on Thursday, September 15, 2022.

“Bra Masks And Top 7 Funniest Ig Nobel Prizes That Will Make You Shut Up!!!”

Vfacts produced this ten-minute video titled “Bra Masks And Top 7 Funniest Ig Nobel Prizes That Will Make You Shut Up!!!”:

Musical Instrument Distinguishes between Diethylene Glycol and Glycerol (and more)

In the hands of a scientist, musical instruments can do many sorts of things. This study tells how some instruments can be used to distinguish between different kinds of physical materials.

“Musical Instruments as Sensors,” Heran C. Bhakta, Vamsi K. Choday, and William H. Grover, ACS Omega, vol. 3, 2018, pp. 11026−11032. The authors, at the University of California, Riverside, report:

The frequencies of notes made by a musical instrument are determined by the physical properties of the instrument. Consequently, by measuring the frequency of a note, one can infer information about the instrument’s physical properties. In this work, we show that by modifying a musical instrument to contain a sample and analyzing the instrument’s pitch, we can make precision measurements of the physical properties of the sample. We used the mbira, a 3000-year-old African musical instrument that consists of metal tines attached to a wooden board; these tines are plucked to play musical notes. By replacing the mbira’s tines with bent steel tubing, filling the tubing with a sample, using a smartphone to record the sound while plucking the tubing, and measuring the frequency of the sound using a free software tool on our website, we can measure the density of the sample with a resolution of about 0.012 g/mL. Unlike existing tools for measuring density, the mbira sensor can be made and used by virtually anyone in the world. To demonstrate the mbira sensor’s capabilities, we used it to successfully distinguish diethylene glycol and glycerol, two similar chemicals that are sometimes mistaken for each other in pharmaceutical manufacturing (leading to hundreds of deaths).

Here is unrelated video of a more traditional, musical performance on a mbira:

Reading on a Smartphone, and Sighing

If you are reading this on a smartphone, please monitor your sighing activity. As you read, and as you sigh, consider the details presented in the following study:

“Reading on a Smartphone Affects Sigh Generation, Brain Activity, and Comprehension,” Motoyasu Honma, Yuri Masaoka, Natsuko Iizuka, Sayaka Wada, Sawa Kamimura, Akira Yoshikawa, Rika Moriya, Shotaro Kamijo, and Masahiko Izumizaki, Scientific Reports, vol. 12, no. 1589, 2022. (Thanks to Tony Tweedale for bringing this to our attention.) The authors, at Showa University School of Medicine, Japan, explain:

We found that, compared to reading on a paper medium, reading on a smartphone elicits fewer sighs, promotes brain overactivity in the prefrontal cortex, and results in reduced comprehension. Furthermore, reading on a smartphone affected sigh frequency but not normal breathing.

Reading on a Smartphone and Sighing

If you are reading this on a smartphone, please monitor your sighing activity. As you read, and as you sigh, consider the details presented in the following study:

“Reading on a Smartphone Affects Sigh Generation, Brain Activity, and Comprehension,” Motoyasu Honma, Yuri Masaoka, Natsuko Iizuka, Sayaka Wada, Sawa Kamimura, Akira Yoshikawa, Rika Moriya, Shotaro Kamijo, and Masahiko Izumizaki, Scientific Reports, vol. 12, no. 1589, 2022. (Thanks to Tony Tweedale for bringing this to our attention.) The authors, at Showa University School of Medicine, Japan, explain:

We found that, compared to reading on a paper medium, reading on a smartphone elicits fewer sighs, promotes brain overactivity in the prefrontal cortex, and results in reduced comprehension. Furthermore, reading on a smartphone affected sigh frequency but not normal breathing.

Lip Vibration Assessment of Hot Pepper Sensation [research study]

The mystery of spice-induced lip tingling succumbed, partially, to investigation in the year 2013. Details are in this study:

“Food Vibrations: Asian Spice Sets Lips Trembling,” Nobuhiro Hagura, Harry Barber, and Patrick Haggard, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, vol. 280, no. 1770, 2013: 20131680. The authors, at University College London, report:

Szechuan pepper, a widely used ingredient in the cuisine of many Asian countries, is known for the tingling sensation it induces on the tongue and lips. While the molecular mechanism by which Szechuan pepper activates tactile afferent fibres has been clarified, the tingling sensation itself has been less studied, and it remains unclear which fibres are responsible. We investigated the somatosensory perception of tingling in humans to identify the characteristic temporal frequency and compare this to the established selectivity of tactile afferents. Szechuan pepper was applied to the lower lip of participants. Participants judged the frequency of the tingling sensation on the lips by comparing this with the frequencies of mechanical vibrations applied to their right index finger. The perceived frequency of the tingling was consistently at around 50 Hz, corresponding to the range of tactile RA1 afferent fibres.

Struth on Proofs of Mathematical Truths

‘Struth, it is, that Struth is a co-author of this essay that deals with strategies for proving truths:

“Proof Strategies,” Moller and Georg Struth [pictured here], in the book Modelling Computing Systems, pp. 131-154. Springer, London, 2013.

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-84800-322-4_6

Visit the Ig Nobel Prizes Exhibition in Taiwan

The Ig Nobel Prizes exhibition in Taiwan has begun! The exhibition opened on June 25, and  runs through September 11, 2022. It’s at the National Taiwan Science Education Center, in Taipei.