And The Winner Is…(2009)

People were very offended when President Obama received the Nobel Prize for peace this year and rightly so.  After all, we are currently involved in two, count them, two wars.  And seldom have I ever seen a person deliver an acceptance speech that defends warfare while receiving a peace prize.  You have to admit that takes balls.  Even GW never would have done that, I’m sure.  But then GW probably would have figured that only a pussy would accept a peace prize.

Anyway, with all the attention on the Nobel Prizes this year, it is not surprising that, yet again, the media failed to properly recognize the Ignobel Prizes.  So one again, I will endeavor to give proper credit to this brilliant group of scientists.

The VETERINARY MEDICINE PRIZE went to Catherine Douglas and Peter Rowlinson of Newcastle University, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, UK, for showing that cows who have names give more milk than cows that are nameless.   Now since the average dairy farm has 135 cows (never mind how I know that, I just do), that’s a lot of names for your average dairy farmer to remember.  Moreover, since many cows look remarkably similar, would it not be difficult to keep everybody’s names straight?  And will the cows be offended if you call them by another’s name?  “No, you jerk.  That’s Maribel over there, next to Clara.”  Does calling a cow by the incorrect name affect the milk produced?  The possibilities for research here are endless.

The PEACE PRIZE went to Stephen Bolliger, Steffan Ross, Lars Oesterhelweg,  Michael Thali and Beat Kneubuehl of the University of Bern, Switzerland, for determining — by experiment — whether it is better to be smashed over the head with a full bottle of beer or with an empty bottle.  I understand the experiments were conducted accidentally when the participants walked into a bar in Boston wearing Yankees baseball caps.

The ECONOMICS PRIZE went to the directors, executives, and auditors of four Icelandic banks: Kaupthing Bank, Landsbanki, Glitnir Bank, and Central Bank of Iceland — for demonstrating that tiny banks can be rapidly transformed into huge banks, and vice versa — and for demonstrating that similar things can be done to an entire national economy.  Of course, as we all know, Iceland has a lot of experience with little banks becoming big banks and then becoming little banks again rather quickly.  I believe our own economy might well show that middle class people can be converted into impoverished homeless people rather quickly also.

The prize for CHEMISTRY went to Javier Morales of Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, for creating diamonds from liquid — specifically from tequila.  I am confused, however.  If you have tequila, why would you want diamonds?  Diamonds?  Diamonds?  We don’t need no stinkin’ diamonds!  We do NOT need a reason to raise the price of tequila.

You have probably all heard about the prize for medicine.  That went to Donald L. Unger, of Thousand Oaks, California, USA, for investigating a possible cause of arthritis of the fingers, by diligently cracking the knuckles of his left hand — but never cracking the knuckles of his right hand — every day for more than sixty (60) years.   Of course, we all know the value of an anecdotal experiment with a control group of one.

The Physics Prize went to Katherine K. Whitcome, Liza J. Shapiro & Daniel E. Lieberman for analytically determining why pregnant women don’t tip over.  They were not able to figure out why pregnant women don’t turn everybody else over.  Nor were they able to determine why some people leave such crappy tips at restaurants.

The LITERATURE PRIZE went to Ireland’s police service for writing and presenting more than fifty traffic tickets to the most frequent driving offender in the country —Prawo Jazdy — whose name in Polish means “Driving License”.  I should think the prize ought to go to Jazdy’s parents for naming her with such an ironic name.

The PUBLIC HEALTH PRIZE goes to Elena N. Bodnar, Raphael C. Lee, and Sandra Marijan of Chicago, Illinois, USA, for inventing a brassiere that, in an emergency, can be quickly converted into a pair of protective face masks, one for the brassiere wearer and one to be given to some needy bystander.  Of course, the brassiere comes equipped with smelling salts in order to revive any males who happen to pass out when the woman next to them suddenly rips off her bra in the event of a disaster.

The prize for mathematics goes to Gideon Gono, governor of Zimbabwe’s Bank, for giving people a simple, everyday way to cope with a wide range of numbers — from very small to very big — by having his bank print money with denominations ranging from one cent ($.01) to one hundred trillion dollars ($100,000,000,000,000).  Now it would be good for someone to invent a calculator that can add that high without giving an error message.  Engineers better start work on a cart for carrying around Zimbabwe’s wallets.

The BIOLOGY PRIZE went to Fumiaki Taguchi, Song Guofu, and Zhang Guanglei of Kitasato University Graduate School of Medical Sciences in Sagamihara, Japan, for demonstrating that kitchen refuse can be reduced more than 90% in mass by using bacteria extracted from the feces of giant pandas.  So the problem of the world being buried in garbage has been solved—just as soon as we figure out a way to make more pandas.

Just remember, everybody, that all of this science came with a hefty price tag, I’m sure.  It’s good to know that, with the world in such terrible condition, with all the challenges we, as a species, are facing, the finest minds in the world are working on such important matters.  A cure for the common cold should be just around the corner.  Oh wait, that’s right.  The psychics said we did that LAST year!