2010 Ig Nobel Tour of the U.K.
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Sponsored by the British Science Association, Improbable Research, and the individual host institutions.
Host an event: Download this brochure, and email <lisa.birk AT improbable.com>Previous tours: 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003
For most shows, blocks of tickets are available for schools.
| March 10, 2010, Wednesday, 7:30 pm. | London. Pre-tour tweetup at the Royal Festival Hall bar at Southbank Centre. Join us for an informal tweetup in London the night before the tour starts. #IGUKTOUR | |
| March 11, 2010, Thursday, 7:00 pm. | Oxford. University of Oxford. Martin Wood Lecture Theatre, on Parks Road at the corner with Keble Road. (Click here for map.). Booking: https://www.ox.compsoc.net/ignobel/ Contact: ignobel@oxlug.org Time: 7pm - 8.45pm (doors open 6.30pm) | Elena Bodnar, David Sims, Chris McManus, Dan Meyer. Facebook page for this event. |
| March 13, 2010, Saturday, 6:00 pm. | Dundee. University of Dundee, Dalhousie Building lecture theatres. (Click here for a map.) Tickets: Tickets are free, available from the University's Online Store. Aberdeen and Thurso. There will also be live screenings in Aberdeen and Glasgow | Elena Bodnar, Dan Meyer, Maureen MacGlashan, Charles Paxton, Steve Farrar. A preview, and another preview, and a sort of commemorative poem. |
| March 15, 2010, Monday. 6:00 pm. | Portsmouth. University of Portsmouth. Portsmouth Business School. Portsmouth Business School, Richmond Building, Portsmouth PO1 3DE. (Click here for a map and directions.) Tickets: To reserve tickets (free, but seating is limited), contact Maricar Jagger, events AT port.ac.uk, 023 9284 3757. | Elena Bodnar, Matija Strlic, Fiona Barclay, Alan Collins, Dan Meyer. (Bonus: Tim Collinson's research limerick.) A preview. A spectator's report by Angelina Souren. |
| March 17, 2010, Wednesday, 2:30 pm. | Unilever R&D Port Sunlight, Bebington. (Special performance - invitation by invitation only.) | Elena Bodnar, Dan Meyer, John Hoyland. |
| March 18, 2010, Thursday, 6:00 pm | London. Imperial College. Great Hall, Level 2, Sherfield Building, South Kensington campus. (Click here for a map.) Tickets: This event is now fully booked. (But... It's possible that there will be a few no-shows, in which case a very few tickets will become available at the last minute - if you want to take your chances on that, come to the venue 15 minutes before show time.) | Elena Bodnar. Catherine Douglas, Erwin Kompanje, John Hoyland, Sarah Redmond & Dan Gillingwater, Maria Ferrante, Dan Meyer. Info: George Yeoghaki, g.yeorghaki@imperial.ac.uk A spectator's report by Ian Visits. |
| March 19, Friday, 5:00 pm. | Hewlett Packard, Bristol. Long Down Avenue, Stoke Gifford, Bristol. Tickets: Please contact Lucy Feilan (lucy.feilen@hp.com). They are free. (Click here for directions.) | Elena Bodnar. Gareth Jones, Erwin Kompanje, Dan Meyer. |
- Elena Bodnar, a physician, is a 2009 Ig Nobel Prize winner in public health, 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. [BONUS: Preview in The Guardian]
- Catherine Douglas and Peter Rowlinson of Newcastle University shared the 2009 Ig Nobel Prize in veterinary medicine for showing that cows who have names give more milk than cows that are nameless.
- Fiona Barclay, a biochemist, collaborated with Theo Gray to assemble the world's first periodic table table - a large, lovely, four-legged piece of furniture that contains (nearly) all the elements of the periodic table. The result: the 2002 Ig Nobel Chemistry Prize. She will discuss her adventure of purchasing plutonium in London.
- Alan Collins is head of the economics department at the University of Portsmouth. He will discuss his study "An Exploratory Economic Analysis of Personal Advertisements"
- Steve Farrar will discuss the peculiar history of astronomer Tycho Brahe's nose. He is a historian and a former editor of the Times Higher Education Supplement. He is also the Annals of Improbable Research Edinburgh Desk Chief.
- Maria Ferrante is a soprano based in Massachusetts. She sang the lead in the world premiere of two Ig Nobel mini-operas. On the tour she will sing arias from these and/or other mini-operas.
- John Hoyland created and edits the "Feedback" column in New Scientist Magazine. He will present a fresh batch of oddities.
- Erwin Kompanje studies overlooked spectacular medical history. He is a clinical ethicist at Erasmus University Rotterdam. On this year's tour her will show scientific investigations of Rudolph's red nose.
- Gareth Jones is a professor of biological sciences at the University of Bristol. He will elucidate his recent study "Fellatio by Fruit Bats Prolongs Copulation Time".
- Maureen MacGlashan is the editor of The Indexer, the journal that published Glenda Browne's 2007 Ig Nobel Literature Prize-winning study of the word "the" - and of the many ways "the" causes problems for anyone who tries to put things into alphabetical order.
- Chris McManus wrote the study "Scrotal Asymmetry in Man and in Ancient Sculpture," for which he later received the 2002 Ig Nobel Medicine Prize. He is Professor of Psychology and Medical Education at University College London. On this year's tour he will explain some of the ways left and right get mixed up through honest error, stupid incompetence, and malicious intent to deceive.
- Dan Meyer, a swordswallower, shared the 2007 Ig Nobel Medicine Prize for the penetrating medical report "Sword Swallowing and Its Side Effects." In 2010 he will present evidence of some of the unexpected physical objects people have swallowed.
- Charles Paxton, a research fellow at the University of St. Andrews, shared the 2002 Ig Nobel Prize in Biology for the study "Courtship Behaviour of Ostriches Towards Humans Under Farming Conditions in Britain".
- Sarah Redmond & Dan Gillingwater are singers/musicians/actors based in London. They will perform songs from Ig Nobel mini-operas.
- David Sims, 2008 Ig Nobel Literature Prize winner for his study "You Bastard: A Narrative Exploration of the Experience of Indignation within Organizations".
- Matija Strlic, a senior lecturer at the Centre for Sustainable Heritage, University College London, will discuss his monograph "Material Degradomics: On the Smell of Old Books".