October 2, 1999
Cups run over for scientists who take a joke
By Nigel Hawkes, science editor
It was a glittering night for Britain
at the annual Ig Nobel awards, prizes
given for research "which cannot or should not be reproduced".
Three
British-based researchers were honoured for contributions
to a better cuppa.
The British Standards Institution won
the literature award for its six-page
specification on making tea, which includes the advice:
"Weigh, to an accuracy
of plus or minus 2 per cent, a mass of tea corresponding
to two grams of tea per
100ml of liquor and transfer to the pot ..."
The BSI's Washington representative
was symbolically pelted with dry tea
bags at Harvard as he accepted the prize, awarded by
the satirical science
magazine Annals of Improbable Research.
Also garlanded was the physicist Len
Fisher, from Bristol University, for
his study of the science of dunking biscuits. Dr Fisher,
who set out
deliberately to have some fun, said: "I'm honoured. One
way to make science
accessible is to talk about the science of the familiar."
The third UK winner, who did not make
the trip to Boston, was Professor
Jean-Marc Vanden-Broeck, whose study of the fluid motions
in a spout could lead
to the drip-free teapot.
The other winners included Steve Penfold,
a Canadian sociologist, whose PhD
thesis was on the sociology of Canadian doughnut shops;
Arvid Vatle, a Norwegian
doctor who has collected and classified the containers
used by his patients to
submit urine samples; and a Japanese private detective,
Takeshi Makino, who won
the chemistry section for developing an infidelity detection
spray for men's
underpants.
The biology prize went to Paul Bosland
of the Chile Pepper Institute of New
Mexico for inventing a non-spicy jalapeno pepper, and
the peace prize to a
Johannesburg couple, Charl Fourie and Michelle Wong,
for a car burglar alarm
that involves a detection circuit and a flamethrower.