ZDNET

October 1999


Tea swept the board at this year's Ig Nobel prizes, and Britain was at the
forefront. The Ig Nobels are awarded each year by the Annals of Improbable
Research, for scientific achievements that could not or should not be
repeated.

The physics prize was shared by  Dr. Len Fisher of the University of Bath,
ralia for calculating the optimal way to dunk a biscuit, and Professor
Jean-Marc Vanden-Broeck of the University of East Anglia, for calculating
how to make a teapot spout that does not drip.  Meanwhile, the British
Standards Institution walked off with the Ig Nobel prize for literature,
awarded for its six-page specification (BS-6008)  of the proper way to make
a cup of tea.

North America's snack-time response was the Sociology Prize winning idea
from Steve Penfold of Toronto, who studied the sociology of Canadian donut
shops.

From the Far East came two prizes which constitute good news and bad news
for that region's hard living businessmen.  The Enveironment Protection
award went to Hyuk-ho Kwon of the Kolon International company of Seoul
Korea for the self-perfuming suit. "When a man returns home after staying
out drinking and smoking all night, all he has to do is rub off his suit at
the front door," Kwon told a reporter from HMS Beagle magazine.  However,
the chemistry prize was won by Takeshi Makino, president of The Safety
Detective Agency in Osaka, Japan, for his involvement with S-Check, an
infidelity detection spray that wives can apply to their husbands'
underwear. It reacts with semen traces to create a bright-coloured dye.

Equally useful in confirming national stereotypes, the Ig Nobel Peace Prize
 went to two South Africans, Charl Fourie and
Michelle Wong of Johannesburg, for inventing an automobile defence system
designed to repel car-jackers. It consists of
a foot pedal and a flamethrower. "I don't know why you find this humorous,"
 Wong told HMS Beagle magazine.

Most stupid idea has to be the one from the late George and Charlotte
Blonsky of New York City and San Jose, California,
for inventing a device (US Patent #3,216,423) to aid women in giving birth
- - the woman is strapped onto a circular table, and
the table is then rotated at high speed.

But the medicine prize went to Norwegian Dr. Arvid Vatle for carefully
collecting, classifying, and contemplating which kinds
of containers his patients chose when submitting urine samples.

And the most pointless idea has to be the biology prize-winning spiceless
jalapeno chile pepper bred by Dr. Paul
Bosland of The Chile Pepper Institute, New Mexico State University.

Sneak is reassured by the continued absence of IT from the awards
categories. This industry is far too useful and serious to ever
need this  kind of recognition.

The results are at www.improbable.com/ig/ig-top.html#the 1999 winners
HMS Beagle is at www.biomednet.com/hmsbeagle/64/xcursion/humor