from my heart and from my hand why don't people understand my intentions

[tactisle]

And now it's October, which means (among other things) that the Ig Nobel prizes have been announced.

In an event that the journal Nature has described as "arguably the highlight of the scientific calendar," each year the editors of the Annals of Improbable Research select and honor a group of research achievements that "first make people laugh, then make them think." My favorites from this year's winners:

• LITERATURE PRIZE: Ireland's police service (An Garda Siochana), for writing and presenting more than fifty traffic tickets to the most frequent driving offender in the country - Prawo Jazdy - whose name in Polish means "Driving License".
• MEDICINE PRIZE: Donald L. Unger, of Thousand Oaks, California, USA, for investigating a possible cause of arthritis of the fingers, by diligently cracking the knuckles of his left hand - but never cracking the knuckles of his right hand - every day for more than sixty (60) years.
• PHYSICS PRIZE: Katherine K. Whitcome of the University of Cincinnati, USA, Daniel E. Lieberman of Harvard University, USA, and Liza J. Shapiro of the University of Texas, USA, for analytically determining why pregnant women don't tip over.

The purpose of these awards seems to be twofold: not just to lampoon the misuses of "scientific legitimacy" by cranks and villains, but to honor the streak of ridiculosity that seems to lie at the heart of the best scientific minds too. Some of this is stuff that has actual worth in the scientific community and could lead to important discoveries. For example, I was directed to the winners today by an article in Pink Tentacle, my favorite Japanese-art-and-tech blog, citing the BIOLOGY PRIZE winners. They're from Japan, and have discovered a strain of garbage-eating bacteria that reduces organic waste by like 95% in mass, which is over 15% more efficient than the best one formerly known, and holds great promise not only for waste treatment but also bio-based hydrogen production! The crucial insight that led to this breakthrough was that the giant panda's diet is roughly (!!) 30 lbs. of bamboo per day, and yet they don't explode.

The awards are given each year at Harvard's Sanders Theatre, and tomorrow the winners will get a chance to explain their work on an international stage in the Ig Nobel Informal Lectures at MIT.

The past winners are worth looking at too, both because they're funny and to look at how these awards have evolved from a simple joke to the present-day "achievements that first make people laugh
then make them think".

http://improbable.com/ig/winners/