This week's collection of whimsical and curious stories is inspired by the recent awarding of the 2021 Nobel Prizes. As is traditional during this time of year, scientists around the world wait for that fateful call from Stockholm which marks the zenith of their scientific careers. However, some are not so lucky and instead receive a call from Cambridge (Massachusetts) to let them know they have won the lesser known (but more entertaining) Ig Nobel Prize.
The Ig Nobel Prize - Long-time readers of this newsletter will remember that the Ig Nobel Prizes are annually awarded on the hallowed ground of Harvard University so celebrate scientific work "that first make people laugh, and then make them think".* They are officially given out by the Annals of Improbable Research magazine (Link) where you can read all about the winners and their ground-breaking work. As in 2020, it will again be the honour of this newsletter to highlight the work of the most recent winners:
The 2021 Prize for Physics - The researchers around Alessandro Corbetta from the Department of Applied Physics at Eindhoven University conducted experiments to answer the questions why pedestrians do not constantly collide with each other. Given that we have all spent the last 18 months at home, this will be very instructive to avoid accidents as we venture out again. You can read all about it in a 2018 edition of Physical Review.
The 2021 Prize for Kinetics - If, against all odds, you do end up running into other pedestrians, the team around Hisashi Murakami from the Kyoto Institute of Technology will know why, thanks to a series of experiments described in Science Advances published earlier this year (answer: mobile phones).
The 2021 Prize for Entomology - For those of us who have taken self-isolation somewhat too seriously over the past 1.5 years, John Mulrennan (a retired Commander of the US Navy) might be able to offer good house-keeping advice (A New Method of Cockroach Control on Submarines). For people with little time to read: the answer is a pesticide called Dichlorvos.
The 2021 Prize for Transportation - Air travel can be stressful, especially during a global pandemic. Air travel is even more stressful if you happen to be a rhinoceros. Luckily, a team around Robin Radcliffe (at Cornell University) was able to show that the right way for a rhino to fly is upside down. You can read all about it in a 2021 edition of the Journal of Wildlife Diseases.
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*The Igs are presented to their recipients by actual Nobel Laureates and come with a cash prize of a 10 trillion dollar bill from Zimbabwe.
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