Winners of the Nobel Prize 2008
Harvard held the ceremony of awarding Snobel Prizes , which are awarded annually for the most absurd and fun discoveries made by professional scientists and published in the scientific press. The event traditionally takes place a week before the Nobel Prize.
An award for PHYSICS received specialists from the University of San Diego. They mathematically proved that tufts of hair on the head would inevitably be tangled with each other (“Spontaneous Knotting of an Agitated String”, Dorian M. Raymer and Douglas E. Smith, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 104, no. 42 October 16, 2007, pp. 16432-7).
A prize for cognitive science was awarded to a group of Japanese researchers who discovered that slimy amoebas were capable of solving intellectual puzzles. Maybe they are right? ("Intelligence: Maze-Solving by an Amoeboid Organism", Toshiyuki Nakagaki, Hiroyasu Yamada, and Ágota Tóth, Nature, vol. 407, September 2000, p. 470).
The prize for Chemistry was given to scientists from the Medical Center at Boston University, who investigated the theory that Coca-Cola souls can be used as a contraceptive. They found that the sugar in the drink successfully kills not only sperm, but even AIDS viruses. The discovery was made twenty years ago, but the reward found its heroes just now ("Effect of Coke 'on Sperm Motility", Sharee A. Umpierre, Joseph A. Hill, and Deborah J. Anderson, New England Journal of Medicine, 1985, vol. 313, no. 21, p. 1351). American scientists, however, had to share the prize with their Taiwanese colleagues, who studied the same problem, but came to exactly the opposite conclusions ("The Spermicidal Potency of Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola", CY Hong, CC Shieh, P. Wu, and BN Chiang, Human Toxicology, vol. 6, no. 5, September 1987, pp. 395-6).
')
Two British professors of psychology who received a study and found out that food seems tastier if it chews more pleasant sounds (“The Role of Auditory Cues in Modulating the Perceived Crispness and Staleness of Potato Chips”, Massimiliano Zampini and Charles Spence, Journal of Sensory Studies, vol. 19, October 2004, pp. 347-63).
The award to BIOLOGY was given to a French scientist who, after careful measurements, reliably determined that fleas from dogs jump farther than fleas from cats ("A C", Ctenocephalides canis (Curtis, 1826) and the Cat Flea, Ctenocephalides canis felis felis (Bouche, 1835), MC Cadiergues, C. Joubert, and M. Franc, Veterinary Parasitology, vol. 92, no. 3, October 1, 2000, pp. 239-41).
Award for Medicine went to Dan Ariely from Duke University for proof that expensive fake drugs are more effective than cheap ones. Placebo and Self-Suggestion (“Commercial Features of Placebo and Therapeutic Efficacy”, Rebecca L. Waber; Baba Shiv; Ziv Carmon; Dan Ariely, Journal of the American Medical Association, March 5, 2008; 299: 1016-1017).
THE ECONOMY AWARD was deservedly won by American economists, who found out that exotic dancers earn the most money when they are in the most suitable period of the monthly cycle for ovulation ("Ovulatory Cycle Effects on the Earnings for Human Estrus?" Geoffrey Miller, Joshua M. Tybur, Brent D. Jordan, Evolution and Human Behavior, vol. 28, 2007, pp. 375-81).
LITERARY PRIZE went to Briton David Sims, who wrote a psychological handbook for managers “You are a scum: a description of the experience of intraorganizational indignation” (You bastard: A narrative exploration of the experience of indignation within organizations). The author cites evidence that for many office workers it is easier to regard his colleague as a “scum” than to try to understand his views.
The WORLD AWARD went to the Swiss Ethics and Biotechnology Committee for acknowledging the fact that plants also have moral principles and self-esteem (see the film "The Phenomenon").
Here is a complete list of winners with links to their academic papers.
An award for PHYSICS received specialists from the University of San Diego. They mathematically proved that tufts of hair on the head would inevitably be tangled with each other (“Spontaneous Knotting of an Agitated String”, Dorian M. Raymer and Douglas E. Smith, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 104, no. 42 October 16, 2007, pp. 16432-7).
A prize for cognitive science was awarded to a group of Japanese researchers who discovered that slimy amoebas were capable of solving intellectual puzzles. Maybe they are right? ("Intelligence: Maze-Solving by an Amoeboid Organism", Toshiyuki Nakagaki, Hiroyasu Yamada, and Ágota Tóth, Nature, vol. 407, September 2000, p. 470).
The prize for Chemistry was given to scientists from the Medical Center at Boston University, who investigated the theory that Coca-Cola souls can be used as a contraceptive. They found that the sugar in the drink successfully kills not only sperm, but even AIDS viruses. The discovery was made twenty years ago, but the reward found its heroes just now ("Effect of Coke 'on Sperm Motility", Sharee A. Umpierre, Joseph A. Hill, and Deborah J. Anderson, New England Journal of Medicine, 1985, vol. 313, no. 21, p. 1351). American scientists, however, had to share the prize with their Taiwanese colleagues, who studied the same problem, but came to exactly the opposite conclusions ("The Spermicidal Potency of Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola", CY Hong, CC Shieh, P. Wu, and BN Chiang, Human Toxicology, vol. 6, no. 5, September 1987, pp. 395-6).
')
Two British professors of psychology who received a study and found out that food seems tastier if it chews more pleasant sounds (“The Role of Auditory Cues in Modulating the Perceived Crispness and Staleness of Potato Chips”, Massimiliano Zampini and Charles Spence, Journal of Sensory Studies, vol. 19, October 2004, pp. 347-63).
The award to BIOLOGY was given to a French scientist who, after careful measurements, reliably determined that fleas from dogs jump farther than fleas from cats ("A C", Ctenocephalides canis (Curtis, 1826) and the Cat Flea, Ctenocephalides canis felis felis (Bouche, 1835), MC Cadiergues, C. Joubert, and M. Franc, Veterinary Parasitology, vol. 92, no. 3, October 1, 2000, pp. 239-41).
Award for Medicine went to Dan Ariely from Duke University for proof that expensive fake drugs are more effective than cheap ones. Placebo and Self-Suggestion (“Commercial Features of Placebo and Therapeutic Efficacy”, Rebecca L. Waber; Baba Shiv; Ziv Carmon; Dan Ariely, Journal of the American Medical Association, March 5, 2008; 299: 1016-1017).
THE ECONOMY AWARD was deservedly won by American economists, who found out that exotic dancers earn the most money when they are in the most suitable period of the monthly cycle for ovulation ("Ovulatory Cycle Effects on the Earnings for Human Estrus?" Geoffrey Miller, Joshua M. Tybur, Brent D. Jordan, Evolution and Human Behavior, vol. 28, 2007, pp. 375-81).
LITERARY PRIZE went to Briton David Sims, who wrote a psychological handbook for managers “You are a scum: a description of the experience of intraorganizational indignation” (You bastard: A narrative exploration of the experience of indignation within organizations). The author cites evidence that for many office workers it is easier to regard his colleague as a “scum” than to try to understand his views.
The WORLD AWARD went to the Swiss Ethics and Biotechnology Committee for acknowledging the fact that plants also have moral principles and self-esteem (see the film "The Phenomenon").
Here is a complete list of winners with links to their academic papers.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/41565/
All Articles