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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/ Special iSSue The 2010 IG® Nobel PrIzes Bacteria and slime mold, Whale snot and swearing, 11> Scientist’s Beard Hazard… NOVEMBER|DECEMBER 2010 (volume 16, number 6) $6.50 US|$9.50 CAN 027447088921 Annals of © 2010 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] Research that makes people LAUGH and then THINK Co-founders Contributing Editors Events/Readings Coordinator Marc Abrahams Otto Didact, Stephen Drew, Ernest Ersatz, Katherine Meusey Alexander Kohn Emil Filterbag, Karen Hopkin, Alice Kaswell, [email protected] Nick Kim, Katherine Lee, Bissel Mango, Editor Randall Monroe, Steve Nadis, Nan Swift, WEB TEAM Marc Abrahams Tenzing Terwilliger, Marina Tsipis, Bertha Editor [email protected] Vanatian Marc Abrahams [email protected] Research Researchers Webmaster Bureaus and Desks Kristine Danowski, Tom Gill, Mary Kroner, Julia Lunetta Kees Moeliker, European Bureau Chief Wendy Mattson, Tom Roberts Steve Farrar, Edinburgh Desk Chief Technical Eminence Grise Dariusz Jemielniak, Warsaw Desk Chief Improbable Facilitator Dave Feldman, InterfaceThis Magnus Wahlberg, Scandinavian Desk Chief Circulation Director General Factotum Martin Gardiner, Rio de Janeiro Desk Chief Katherine Meusey Jesse Eppers Erwin J.O. Kompanje Ig Nobel Facilitator Willem O. de Jongste Webmaster emerita Lisa Birk Amy Gorin Commutative Editor Design and Art Stanley Eigen, Northeastern U. Webmaster in absentia Geri Sullivan, PROmote Communications Mira Wilczek Associative Editor Lois Malone, Rich & Famous Graphics Mark Dionne Circulation (Counter-clockwise) “When all other contingencies fail, Dissociative Editor James Mahoney whatever remains, however improbable, Rose Fox Art Director emerita must be the truth.”—Sherlock Holmes VP, Human Resources, and Peaco Todd Psychology Editor “Science is the belief in the ignorance Robin Abrahams of experts.”—Richard Feynman May We Recommend: Moose Suit Items that merit a trip to the library compiled by Stephen Drew, Improbable Research staff Scientists in a Moose Suit “Recolonizing Carnivores and Naïve Prey: Conservation Lessons from Pleistocene Extinctions,” Joel Berger, Jon E. Swenson and Inga-Lill Persson, Science, vol. 291, 2001, pp. 1036–9. (Thanks to Olivia Judson for bringing this to our attention.) The authors, at University of Nevada, Reno, U.S.A.; at the Agricultural University of Norway; and at the University of Oslo, report: The reactions of moose were gauged…. [The] experiments were conducted using sounds of different species (4) and by presentation of canid urine and bear feces obtained from zoological parks…. Delivery of olfactory material to within four moose body lengths was accomplished by launching snowballs either soaked in urine or coated with feces from less than 35 m, and delivery was occasionally facilitated by use of a moose suit. 2 | Annals of Improbable Research | November–December 2010 | vol. 16, 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 2010 Ig® Nobel Prizes 6 The 20th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony* — Stephen Drew 10 The 2010 Ig Nobel Prize Winners* 14 Ig Nobel Winner Wins Nobel* — Alice Shirrell Kaswell 16 Acceptance Speeches* — transcribed by Steven Drew 21 Keynote Address* — Richard Losick 22 The 24/7 Lectures* — Toshiuki Nakagaki, Mary Ellen Davies, Neil Gaiman 23 THE BIG QUESTION: How Many Bacteria Can Dance on the Head of a Pin?* — Frank Wilczek, Sheldon Glashow, Dr. Yoshiro Nakamatsu 24 LIBRETTO: “The Bacterial Opera” — Marc Abrahams Improbable Research Reviews* On the Front Cover IFC May We Recommend: Moose Suit* — Stephen Drew Bacteriologist Richard Losick lets his intestinal bacteria have their say, 4 Improbable Research Review* — Dirk Manley concluding the keynote speech at 5 Improbable Medical Review* — Bertha Vanatian this year’s Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony. Performing chemist Daniel Rosenberg wields the microphone. News & Notes Photo: Kees Moeliker. 2 AIR Vents (letters from our readers) On the Back Cover The thrilling conclusion to The 3 AIR Books Bacterial Opera: mouthwash 9 Editorial Board overwhelms the plucky bacteria on an obvilious woman’s tooth. 20 Back Issues Photo: Mike Benveniste. IBC Unclassified Ads Coming Events February 19, 2011 AAAS Annual Meeting, April 2011 Cambridge (MA) Science Festival Washington, DC, USA June 2011 Cairo, Egypt March 2011 Ig Nobel Tour of the UK September 2011 Geneva, Switzerland April 2011 Edinburgh Science Festival September 29, 2011 Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony April 2011 Ig Nobel Scandinavia Tour October 1, 2011 Ig Informal Lectures See WWW.IMPROBABLE.COM for details of these and other events. www.improbable.com Annals of Improbable Research | November–December 2010 | vol. 16, no. 6 | 1 AIR Vents Exhalations from our readers NOTE: The opinions expressed Stand-Up Reasoning here represent the opinions of the authors and do not Re Marconi’s Standing necessarily represent the I am incensed that you published opinions of those who hold Rosalyn Briand’s letter (AIR Vents other opinions. 16:5) in which she refers to my article (AIR 15:7) as “that piece of trash called Typos ‘Marconi Has No Standing.’” Briand concedes that anyone would have of the Decade doubts as to whether Marconi should Akira Watanabe is wrong in receive credit as being “the” inventor of saying (AIR 15:3) that “no radio. Whoop de doo. Then, bizarrely, one would collect information she demands proof “one way or another about which books published as to whether he had two legs, or for in South America during the that matter even one leg.” The rest of decade 1890-1900 have more her reasoning is just as loopy as a loop than six but fewer than sixty antenna, but far less perceptive. typographical errors.” I collect Byralla T. Johnas, Ph.D. exactly that information, and Nantes, France am surprised that Professor Watanabe is unaware of my work. I recommend, as Mel on the Street an introduction, my book Please allow me to make a further correction (perhaps inevitable, given the topic and the history Typographical Errors in South thereof) to my recent contribution to your collection of photographs of Mel, the little man who always American Literature, volume 7, appears in your pages, He is clearly visible here standing SEVEN—not four, as I mistakenly indicated available I am sure at any good last time, or three as I suggested the time before that—persons to the left of the pole. academic library. I yet again express my gratitude for the way you addressed my apology for making a mistake in the Woeke Honst specifics of how I identified the probable location of Mel in that earlier photograph which I sent you Curitiba, Brazil and which you published (AIR Vents 16:2) and which my uncle came into possession of shortly after the world war in the 1940s. As with that photograph, I hope that your readers can help me identify the date and location of the scene documented in this one, which I believe to be a street or square in some large city. Dr. Vreeland Heiss Hamburg, Germany 2 | Annals of Improbable Research | November–December 2010 | vol. 16, no. 6 www.improbable.com ® “An old neighbor of mine had a peripheral Ig Nobel relative who studied in Ben Dalziel’s Improbable& classroom and who later received one of Research those strange photographs of lab assistants BOOKS that Dalziel collected.” Lab Assistants Lab Assistants of Scotland (1) of Scotland (3) My grandmother was a student Despite the apparent French in Ben Dalziel’s class while Lab Assistants nature of the photograph here, Dalziel was still promoting of Scotland (2) my source (an antiquities his “my laboratory assistant” dealer from whom I purchase photographic collection project. An old neighbor of mine had a scientific historical items on a Many years later, grandmother peripheral relative who studied regular basis) informs me that was one of the lucky former in Ben Dalziel’s classroom and it is one of the famous Ben students who, under the who later received one of those Dalziel “laboratory assistant” provisions of Dalziel’s strange photographs of lab photos. Like so many others, it will, received one of the assistants that Dalziel collected. has become separated from any photographs. Here is a copy— Dalziel collected photographs, knowledge of the identity or in fact, a copy of a copy—as the let me clarify. No one has circumstances of the subject’s original was “borrowed” long ever alleged that he collected professional life, or for that ago by a relative with whom laboratory assistants. This photo matter of his personal life. I we are no longer speaking. All I received as a gift from the would hazard that it involved documentation about who this neighbor’s child, who hated his hydrodynamics. But that is particular laboratory assistant parents. The gentleman in the just a guess. The back of the was, whom he assisted, where, photo is, for the most part, a photograph is inscribed with and doing what, has been lost. complete mystery to me. I doubt the number 42. Perhaps one of your readers that this was how he dressed Tam Woodhead will know? while at work in a chemistry(?) Plasterfield, Isle of Lewis, Dr.
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