Alongside the novels, Ig Nobel 2008

2008/11/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Sariak

As every year, the Ig Nobel Prize was awarded a few days before the Nobel Prize was announced. The Nobel Laureates focus on research that cannot be repeated or that should not be repeated, and distributes scientific and humorous journals Annals of Improbable Research since 1991. These are the winners of this year.

The Peace Prize has been the one that has won the most prizes this year. In fact, a Swiss ethics committee dedicated to the defense of living beings and all Swiss citizens have received the imposition of the law that defends that "the unjust damage to plants is not morally acceptable and that no one has property of plants".

A very special work with one of these plants has received the Nutrition Prize. The winners have analyzed the influence of the ear on the perception of food. Specifically, it has been concluded that if we electronically change the sound signals we receive when eating fries, we consider that the same potato is more crispy and, therefore, more fresh, or older. Apparently, the brain perceives differently according to sound. What we hear when we eat chips can't be a cry of pain!

And from plants to animals. Did you know that armadillos can hinder the work of archaeologists? For these animals move the earth and mix layers of different epochs. For studying the influence of armadillos, a group of Brazilian researchers has been awarded the Prize of Archaeology; and another with the Prize of Cognitive Sciences for the ability of a sister to choose the shortest path in a maze.

To end the animals, a study on fleas has received the Biology award. In fact, a group has compared jumps of flea species of dogs and cats. The dogs have been the winners, with a jump of 25 centimeters, 8 centimeters more than the cats. You know, therefore, if you do not want to catch fleas, hold the dogs farther than the cats!

Placebos, nodes and spermicides

As for the Nobel Prize winners, the three of this year are also more surprising. The medical award, for example, has shown that the placebo effect is also a money account. In fact, the researchers gave the same placebo to several people with the excuse of undergoing testing a new drug. In half they were told it was a cheap drug and in the other half it was expensive. Have you successful the result? Those who received an expensive placebo obtained a better response. The brain does not deceive us only with chips.

The starting point of the research awarded in the section Physics you can see it yourself. Put in a box some strings or pieces of hair, move a little the box, open it and observe it. The sections will necessarily be complicated. The Physics prize has been for those who have given a mathematical explanation to this process.

However, this year's most extraordinary prize is probably that of Chemistry. And they have rewarded two teams for demonstrating just the opposite: one has shown that cola soft drinks have a spermicide effect, and the other, quite the opposite, they have no spermicide effect!