Not-So-Noble Nobels
Wish we’d been able to take in the Ninth First Annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony Sept. 30. No, not that Stockholm shindig: The Ig Nobels, awarded in Cambridge, Mass., honor work of a wackier nature. Here are some highlights from this year:
* Medicine: Dr. Arvid Vatle of Norway, who made a detailed survey of the kinds of containers that his patients use when they’re asked to submit urine samples, then published it in a scholarly journal.
* Chemistry: Takeshi Makino of the Safety Detective Agency in Japan, for an “infidelity detection spray” that wives can put on their husbands’ underwear.
* Managed Health Care: George and Charlotte Blonsky, now deceased, for a device designed to aid a woman during childbirth--a large circular table to which the mom-to-be is strapped. The table is then rotated at high speed.
The last item particularly intrigued us. We learned more from Marc Abrahams, who organizes the Ig Nobels. Apparently, the apparatus was inspired by the Blonskys’ visits to the Bronx Zoo, where they saw elephants spinning around and around as they gave birth. Lifelong inventors, the couple decided to design something that would let women in labor also harness the power of centrifugal force.
The Ig Nobels aren’t supposed to be mean-spirited, Abrahams says. Prizewinners are usually good sports about getting them and often attend the ceremony (the Blonskys’ niece and her husband--who were delighted--traveled to Boston to accept the award). If you want to learn more, go to https://www.improbable.com/ig/ig-top.html. Starting there, you can read about this and previous years’ awards, watch a video of the ceremony--even take a look at the Blonskys’ design plans. It’s not to be missed.
Divorce Predictor?
Here are more tidbits from the medical and research world.
So there you are, just married. Want to know how likely it is you’ll divorce? Psychologists at the University of Washington, Seattle, claim that they can predict which couples are likely to split simply by watching them discuss--for three minutes--an area of continuing disagreement.
The scientists concluded this after videotaping discussions of 124 recently married couples, analyzing the way the pair behaved toward each other, and tracking their progress for six years. Seventeen couples had divorced by the end of the study--and they had let fly the most negative words, expressions and gestures at each other. That’s not very surprising. That the prediction can be made after only three minutes is more of a mind-blower--though we probably all know a couple for which this would be ample time to draw conclusions.
Finally, researchers at New Jersey Medical School in Newark have coined a new medical condition, reports the Associated Press. The name: “Salon Sink Radiculopathy”--that third, ungainly word meaning a pain-causing injury to nerves from the spinal cord to extremities. People can get SSR (we have no idea if it’s really thus abbreviated, but it sounds good) from leaning their heads backward at sinks when they get their hair washed at salons. Those with arthritis or neck injuries from accidents are at greatest risk. Is nowhere safe anymore?
