Counting nose hairs and licking stones: the 10 craziest research projects of the year

Scientists who lick stones, count nose hairs and methodically investigate boredom: scientific studies designed to ‘first make you laugh and then make you think’ have been awarded ‘Ig Nobel Prizes’ (pronounced ‘unworthy’) in the US ‘, which translates as dishonorable ).) The traditionally bizarre gala was held for the fourth time in a row on Friday evening as part of an online event. Organizers say the unnamed fun prizes, which are being awarded for the 33rd time, are intended to “celebrate the unusual and honor the imaginative.”

For example, researchers from Poland and the US received the prize in the ‘Chemistry and Geology’ category for their research into why many scientists like to lick stones. Researcher Jan Zalasiewicz said he was delighted to receive the prize for something so “fundamental”. “Geologists do this all the time because something that isn’t completely clear becomes much clearer when the surface is wet.”

Scientists from the US, Canada, Iran and Vietnam received one of ten awards for using cadavers to investigate whether someone has the same number of hairs in both nostrils. The researchers said in their acceptance speech that they examined about twenty corpses and found about 110 to 120 hairs per nostril.

Researchers from China, Canada, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Ireland, the US and Japan received a prize in the ‘Education’ category for their methodical research into boredom among teachers and students. Among other things, there is a greater chance that students will be bored in class if they expect this in advance, the research team said in their speech of thanks. In addition, students are more likely to be bored in class if they have the impression that the teacher is bored.

Colleagues from France, Great Britain, Malaysia and Finland received a prize for their research into how people feel when they repeat a word many times.

Researchers from the US received a prize for experiments on the streets of a city in which they wanted to know how many pedestrians stop and look up when they see strangers looking up.

A South Korean-American researcher has invented the so-called Stanford toilet: a toilet that uses various tools to analyze the substances excreted by humans. “Don’t waste your feces,” said researcher Seung Min Park during his brief acceptance speech for the award.

Scientists from India, China, Malaysia and the US brought dead spiders back to life to use as mechanical grasping tools – and received awards for this too.

A team of researchers from Argentina, Spain, Colombia, Chile, China and the US were honored for their research into the brain activity of people who are experts at speaking backwards. “Thank you for this nice prize, we are happy to accept it,” said scientist María José Torres-Prioris and her colleague Adolfo García – forward and backward.

A male and female researcher from Japan were also honored for their experiments into whether electric chopsticks and straws can change the taste of food.

A prize also went to scientists from Spain, Switzerland, France and Great Britain for research into the extent to which the sexual activity of anchovies is reflected in seawater.

The gala – which was also attended by real Nobel Prize winners, including this year the German physicist Wolfgang Ketterle – was watched by more than a thousand spectators every year before the corona pandemic in a theater at the elite Harvard University. But the online awards ceremony, which lasted about an hour and a half and this time had the general theme of ‘Water’, also featured flying paper planes, sketches, bizarre short pieces of music and much more bizarre nonsense – ending with the traditional closing words of moderator Marc Abrahams, editor from a scientific magazine about remarkable research: “If you didn’t win an Ig Nobel Prize this year, and especially if you did win one: better luck next year!” (sda/dpa)