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Purchase a Nicer, Printable PDF of This Issue. Or Nicest of All, Subscribe To Mel says, “This is swell! But it’s not ideal—it’s a free, grainy PDF.” Attain your ideals! Purchase a nicer, printable PDF of this issue. Or nicest of all, subscribe to the paper version of the Annals of Improbable Research (six issues per year, delivered to your doorstep!). To purchase pretty PDFs, or to subscribe to splendid paper, go to http://www.improbable.com/magazine/ ANNALS OF Special Issue THE 2009 IG® NOBEL PRIZES Panda poo spinoff, Tequila-based diamonds, 11> Chernobyl-inspired bra/mask… NOVEMBER|DECEMBER 2009 (volume 15, number 6) $6.50 US|$9.50 CAN 027447088921 The journal of record for inflated research and personalities Annals of © 2009 Annals of Improbable Research Improbable Research ISSN 1079-5146 print / 1935-6862 online AIR, P.O. Box 380853, Cambridge, MA 02238, USA “Improbable Research” and “Ig” and the tumbled thinker logo are all reg. U.S. Pat. & Tm. Off. 617-491-4437 FAX: 617-661-0927 www.improbable.com [email protected] EDITORIAL: [email protected] The journal of record for inflated research and personalities Co-founders Commutative Editor VP, Human Resources Circulation (Counter-clockwise) Marc Abrahams Stanley Eigen Robin Abrahams James Mahoney Alexander Kohn Northeastern U. Research Researchers Webmaster Editor Associative Editor Kristine Danowski, Julia Lunetta Marc Abrahams Mark Dionne Martin Gardiner, Tom Gill, [email protected] Mary Kroner, Wendy Mattson, General Factotum (web) [email protected] Dissociative Editor Katherine Meusey, Srinivasan Jesse Eppers Rose Fox Rajagopalan, Tom Roberts, Admin Tom Ulrich Technical Eminence Grise Lisa Birk Psychology Editor Dave Feldman Robin Abrahams Design and Art European Bureau Geri Sullivan Art Director emerita Kees Moeliker, Bureau Chief Contributing Editors PROmote Communications Peaco Todd Rotterdam Otto Didact, Stephen Drew, Ernest Lois Malone Webmaster emerita [email protected] Ersatz, Emil Filterbag, Karen Rich & Famous Graphics Steve Farrar, Edinburgh Desk Chief Hopkin, Alice Kaswell, Nick Kim, Amy Gorin Erwin J.O. Kompanje Katherine Lee, Bissel Mango, Circulation Director Willem O. de Jongste Randall Monroe, Steve Nadis, Katherine Meusey Dariusz Jemielniak, Warsaw Nan Swift, Tenzing Terwilliger, Desk Chief Marina Tsipis, Bertha Vanatian “When all other contingencies fail, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”—Sherlock Holmes “Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.”—Richard Feynman Introducing Improbable TV We are pleased to introduce the Improbable Research TV series. WHat: Three-minute videos about research that makes people laugh, then think. WHERE: On the web, at www.improbable.com and elsewhere. 2 | Annals of Improbable Research | November–December 2009 | vol. 15, no. 6 www.improbable.com Contents The features marked with a star (*) are based entirely on material taken straight from standard research (and other Official and Therefore Always Correct) literature. Many of the other articles are genuine, too, but we don’t know which ones. Special Section: The 2009 Ig Nobel Prizes 6 The 2009 Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony*—Stephen Drew 10 The 2009 Ig Nobel Prize Winners* 13 The Acceptance Speeches* 17 The Keynote Address* ® 18 The 24/7 Lectures* 20 The Hundred Trillion Dollar Book*—Alice Shirrell Kaswell 21 LIBRETTO: The Big Bank Opera—L. van. Beethoven, G. Rossini, M. Abrahams Improbable Research On the Front Cover 25 Hand Sanitizing: An Informal Look* Javier Morales (standing) and —John Trinkaus Miquel Apátiga (kneeling), co-discoverers of a way to convert tequila into diamonds, Improbable Research Reviews* finish up their acceptance speech, 4 Improbable Research Review*—Dirk Manley with encouragement of a sort for eight-year-old Miss Sweetie Poo. 5 Improbable Medical Review*—Bertha Vanatian Photo: Eric Workman. 26 May We Recommend*—Stephen Drew On the Back Cover News & Notes Maria Ferrante and Ben Sears play their roles as hyper-ambitious 2 AIR Vents (letters from our readers) young bankers in the premier of 16 CARTOON: “Antibiotic Resistance”—Nick Kim “The Big Bank Opera,” a part of the 2009 Ig Nobel Prize ceremony. 20 AIR Books Photo: Alexey Eliseev. 19 Teachers’ Guide 25 Back Issues 4 Editorial Board 26 HMO-NO News: Tough Love! Coming Events 28 XKCD: “String Theory”—Randall Munroe IBC Unclassified Ads February 19, 2010 AAAS Annual Meeting, San Diego March 2010 Ig Nobel Tour of the UK Every Day April/May 2010 Ig Nobel Europe Tour September 30, 2010 Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony Read something new and improbable October 2, 2010 Ig Informal Lectures every day on the Improbable Research blog, on our web site: See WWW.IMPROBABLE.COM for details of WWW.IMPROBABLE.COM these and other events. www.improbable.com Annals of Improbable Research | November–December 2009 | vol. 15, no. 6 | 1 AIR Vents Exhalations from our readers NOTE: The opinions expressed A Troublesome Incompetent here represent the opinions of the authors and do not Word Breath Test necessarily represent the This has been eating at me for I, too, am a student of opinions of those who hold several years. While I applaud the history of breath other opinions. the groundbreaking research testing equipment. paradigm used by Alice Shirrell Tyrone Amphew’s letter Utility of Ig Nobel Kaswell reported in the July/ (AIR Vents 15:4) about Prizes to Soldiers August 2003 issue of AIR, the famous Montague I suggest that in the future Laboratory experiments Most of the research done by she should watch out for the is very, very misleading, the winners of the Ig Nobel problem of personal bias in her to say the least. I Prizes has little effect on my research work. What she hates have a copy of the daily life. For instance the 2003 is her business, and shouldn’t entire photo, enclosed biology prize for research into enter into her carrying out a here. What Amphew mallard duck necrophilia, or the research protocol or reporting showed was just a 2005 chemistry prize looking on the results and their piece of it. A glance is Detection Laboratories” into why a certain Japanese implications. enough to show any engineer course, which is among the statue does not attract pigeons. most popular courses I teach, Oh… perhaps she meant to at least six reasons why the as any of my former students But a 1994 study chronicles a write that she was *loath* to Montague device would have will be happy to tell you. result I and my fellow soldiers predict that her results would been unreliable. I challenge deployed to Iraq contend with. settle the question. your readers to list all six. It Professor Lee Forrester That year’s biology prize was is a challenge I issue to my Department of Electrical and [This point was brought to presented to W. Brian Sweeney, students every spring in my Gas Engineering my attention by my twin Brian Krafte-Jacobs, Jeffrey “Engineering for Alcohol Planwick University stepbrother Dabney M. W. Britton, and Wayne Hansen, Detection for Forensic Warlington, U.K. Copeland of Parchman College. for their breakthrough study, I pass it along in his behalf “The Constipated Serviceman: because of your picky editorial Prevalence Among Deployed policies about who may U.S. Troops,” and especially submit letters.] for their numerical analysis of bowel movement frequency. Bob Harbort, Ph.D. Prof. of CS and The food in our chow halls is Software Engineering very good, and the field rations Southern Polytechnic State U. are a vast improvement over the Marietta, GA canned ham and eggs or canned spam I was eating in the 1970s. But the total effect of meat and Agrees Object is white flour leaves us spending Not Prussian way too much time in the I disagree with Doris Morra (AIR Vents 130-degree-plus porta-potties 15:4) and Sugreeva Baliga (AIR Vents 15:5) we refer to as shit ovens. I eat that Olivia Rausch is necessarily a moron. high fiber cereal for breakfast I of course agree with them that the photo every day, hoping to avoid in Rausch’s article (“Museum Treasures becoming a Sweeney et al. for Children,” AIR 14:7) does not show a data point. “disused late-nineteenth century Prussian SGT. Neil Gussman, U.S. Army cannon shell” as Rausch claims, and that Tallil Ali Air Base, Iraq it is a piece of whale anatomy. We must, however, allow for the possibility that Rausch is an over-sheltered ignoramus. By the way, I, like Dr. Baliga, have a husband who has one exactly like it. Dr. Minka Cosgrove Mumbai, India 2 | Annals of Improbable Research | November–December 2009 | vol. 15, no. 6 www.improbable.com Mel Re-Located, Again You are going to hate me even more than you already must. I “corrections,” had obliterated much of the photo. When last I wrote I apologize for taking up your time and so very many pages of your thought that Mel is clearly visible at the lower left. I circled his image. letters column. Thank you for publishing my now-sadly-lengthy series I was wrong. I now see where he is. I have obliterated much of the rest of letters (most recently in AIR Vents 15:5) in reproducing increasingly of the image, for the sake of not confusing your readers. Again thank marked-up versions of our photographic treasure. My assistant you for your patience as I have sorted out this unfortunate mix-up. Gruber’s replacement, Steiner, who has a remarkable track record Lheal Chormnast (that’s why I hired him), had demonstrated to my satisfaction that TRPNOF Archives Mel really in this photograph. Of course I, through my heavy-handed Moldavia A Guide to the Stars * Nobel Laureate Annals of ** world’s highest IQ *** convicted felon Improbable Research Editorial Board **** misspelled Anthropology Food Research Molecular Biology Physics ***** sibling rivalry Jonathan Marks, U.
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