JOHN O'GROAT JOURNAL
http://www.johnogroat-
journal.co.uk

APRIL 2004


The IgNobel Prizes

The Nobel prize has been awarded regularly 
since 1901. People are recognised for their 
achievements in the fields of Chemistry, 
Economics, Literature, Medicine, Peace and 
Physics.

Included in their ranks are such illustrious 
figures as the Pierre and Marie Curie for 
their "researches in the radiation 
phenomena", Sir Alexander Fleming for his 
discovery of penicillin and the 14th Dalai 
Lama, for his advocacy of peaceful solutions 
to the liberation of Tibet.

The IgNobel Prizes, or the Igs, on the other 
hand, are also an annual event but are 
awarded in respect of a larger variety of 
endeavours and are intended to "make you 
laugh, then make you think" and "spur 
people's interest in science, medicine, and 
technology".

This yearÕs Prize for Medicine, for instance 
is for a study into "The Effect of Country 
Music on Suicide", which shows "that the 
greater the airtime devoted to country music, 
the greater the white suicide rate".

The Prizes were instituted in 1991 and are 
co-sponsored by a number of Harvard 
Science organisations. They are a tongue-in-
cheek recognition of the efforts made by 
certain individuals to advance, or retard, the 
progress of certain fields of activity.
Here are some examples of the categories 
and past winners:

Peace, 1991: To Edward Teller, the father of 
the Hydrogen Bomb, "for his lifelong efforts 
to change the meaning of peace as we know 
it".

Economics, 1994: To Jan Pablo Davila, for 
single-handedly losing 0.5% of ChileÕs 
Gross National Product, starting with the 
word "buy" instead of the word "sell".

Mathematics, 1993: To Robert Faid, of 
South Carolina for calculating the odds that 
Mikhail Gorbachev is the AntiChrist 
(710,609,175,188,282,000 to 1) 

And more recently, Peace, 2004: To Daisuke 
Inoue of Japan, for the invention of 
Karaoke, "providing an entirely new way for 
people to learn to tolerate each other"

The main award ceremony is held in 
Harvard. The prizes are handed to the 
winners, or the ones that turn up, by Nobel 
Laureate winners and the society, this year 
sponsored by the Guardian and the British 
Association for the Advancement of 
Science, went on a tour of GB.

While asking Marc Abrahams, the organiser, 
for permission to publish this article, he 
suggested an event in Thurso in coming 
years, so watch this space!

IÕd now like to go into a bit more detail 
about a few projects that attracted the 
judgesÕ attention over the years.


UNNATURAL CHILDBIRTH

George Blonsky, man of the year 1969, was 
inspired by watching an elephant spinning 
round while it gave birth to its latest calf. 

He went home and drew up a device for 
easing the process of human childbirth. The 
expectant mother is to be strapped into a 
chair in the middle of a rotating table and 
the baby is to be delivered by centrifugal 
force. The device was patented, but never 
built, as far as I can find out, maybe due to 
the difficulties of finding Air Force trained 
midwives, with their own catcherÕs mitt.


BUTTER SIDE DOWN

LifeÕs just like that isnÕt it. Well, Murphy 
thought so anyway and in 1996, Robert 
Matthews set out to prove him right.

He looked into the physics behind whether 
toast really does land butter-side down. He 
came to the conclusion that it does tend to, 
but only because we are here, with the laws 
of the universe being what they are. 

Tables tend to be about 1.5 metres high, 
which doesnÕt allow the toast to make one 
complete revolution and land the same way 
as it started, usually butter-side up. The 
tables are this way because humans are the 
height they are because they have evolved to 
exist in the universe we find ourselves.

There are a few ways round this. You could 
eat off 3 metre tables, eat your toast upside-
down, or, my favourite, tie your toast to the 
cat, as everyone knows that the cat will 
always land on its feet. 

Mr Matthews has extended his 
investigations into other crimes of Mr 
Murphy, namely the whereabouts of all the 
missing odd socks.


CHEWING GUM FLAVOUR

In 1957, the scientific community got a 
wake-up call when Lonnie Donegan offered 
a "lot of dough" to anyone who could 
answer the question "Does your chewing 
gum lose its flavour on the bedpost 
overnight".

One drunken night in 1976, a group of 
chemistry students in Harvard made the 
momentous decision to investigate this 
conundrum as a joint PhD project.

They managed to gain sponsorship from 
WrigleyÕs, who had an obvious interest in 
their findings and set off to answer one of 
the burning questions of the age.

First, a bit of background..

Untill WWII, the chewy part was made from 
Chicle, a kind of rubber, which was 
extracted from the sapodilla tree. This was 
latterly replaced by synthetic materials, but 
there is still a proportion of pine-tree resin 
still added, to improve the texture. To this 
gum is added softeners such as glycerine 
and then different sugars and sweeteners 
such as aspartame. 

The traditional flavouring comes from 
garden spearmint, and this was the basis for 
the measurement. 

For statistical integrity, they chose a 
standard stick of spearmint gum, a standard 
bedpost (pine, varnished) a standard 
"overnight" of 8 hours and one student 
agreed to be the chewer.

Two pieces of gum were chewed for 2 
minutes each. One was placed in a sealed 
Perspex container, to act as a "control" and 
the other was placed on the bedpost 
overnight. In the morning, each wad of gum 
was dropped into a suspended solution of 
yeast. Over a period of 48 hours, the carbon 
dioxide produced is related to the proportion 
of sugars left in the gum.

After a sample of 1000 pieces, it was found 
that the CO2 produced from the bedpost 
samples was, on average, 10.9% lower than 
that from the control sample.
So your chewing gum DOES lose its flavour 
on the bedpost overnight!


BELLY-BUTTON FLUFF

I am indebted to a man called Karl 
Kruszelnicki of The University of Sydney
for assuring me IÕm not alone. Of 4799 
people surveyed, 66% had BBF, 73% of 
whom were male. It seems that friction 
between your clothes and the hairs on your 
belly removes material, which finds its way 
to your BB. On the other hand, some non-
hairy people also have the problem. Another 
factor is whether you are an innie or an 
outie, in the orientation of your BB, which 
influences its collection properties.

There is evidence to show that the washing 
machine you use has an influence too. The 
users of front-loaders have a lower BBF 
count than those using top-loaders. 

In November 2000, the Guinness World 
Records officially recognised Graham 
BarkerÕs 15-year old accumulation as the 
largest collection of BBF in the world. His 
BBF does not quite fit the simple theory that 
BBF comes from the broken fibres of 
whatever clothes you happen to wear that 
day. His BBF is always a "particular shade 
of red which alters to a yellow-blue after 
many years of storage". But surprisingly, he 
says, "I almost never wear red clothing, so 
where does the red fluff come from? 
Regardless of what colours I wear, the fluff 
stays red." 

Mr Donegan was not available for comment.

ItÕs hard to believe the selfless efforts some 
people will go to in order to improve the lot 
of mankind.

Well, not all of the prizes IÕve quoted are the 
real thing. If you can spot the spoof, or 
spoofs and email me your answer and 
contact details, there could be a BA Science 
Week T-shirt in it for you.

From the correct answers, IÕll draw a winner 
at 5pm on April 8th and give you a call.

Pat_Kieran@yahoo.com