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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to blow your mind from how Stuff

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Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, we're going to stuff about your

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Speaker 1: my My My name is Robert lamp and my name is

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Speaker 1: Julie Douglas. And it's the fall, and a lot of

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Speaker 1: things happen every fall. There Halloween, there's pumpkins. Hey, hey rides,

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Speaker 1: leaves fall from the trees. Nobel Prizes. Yes, that's a

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Speaker 1: big one, especially for anyone who has, uh, who follows science,

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Speaker 1: either as a hobby, as a as a passion, as

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Speaker 1: a as a job, or all three. If you're us, Uh,

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Speaker 1: Ignoble Prize is always a big deal because the Ignoble

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Speaker 1: Prizes highlight the absurd, the comical, the the strange within

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Speaker 1: the world of legitimate scientific research, generally generally pure reviewed

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Speaker 1: scientific research. Sometimes in the world of patents. But it's

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Speaker 1: always about let's look at the the individuals who are

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Speaker 1: just really dedicated to study and one in scientific study

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Speaker 1: in one shaper or another, and some of the strange

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Speaker 1: corners they work themselves into. Yeah, it is a play

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Speaker 1: on the Nobel Prize. And uh, the it's from Improbable Research,

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Speaker 1: which publishes the magazine called the Annals of Improbable Research,

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Speaker 1: and the whole point of that, they say, is it's

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Speaker 1: there to make you laugh and then make you think

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Speaker 1: with as you say, some of these bizarre turns and science. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: Mark Abrams the main dude there. You know, some people

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Speaker 1: don't catch the humor of it. They think that it's

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Speaker 1: making fun of scientists. But I think most people understand

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Speaker 1: that it's it's a celebration of the of the necessary

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Speaker 1: absurdity of science. Because you think of science like a

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Speaker 1: slime mold. We talked about how slime mold solves a maze.

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Speaker 1: It sends out all these tendrils through the maze and

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Speaker 1: then just figures out what is the best route, and

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Speaker 1: then it goes that way. Uh, And in doing so

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Speaker 1: it can you know, decipher the best trade roots across

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Speaker 1: the face of the globe. Science is kind of like that.

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Speaker 1: Science is all about finding out how things work, how

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Speaker 1: things work the best, and and what the world and

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Speaker 1: what the universally consists of. But that also means that

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Speaker 1: the kindrels of science must sometimes creep into strange areas,

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Speaker 1: into sometimes strange dead ends, and sometimes into very important

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Speaker 1: areas of study that we are childish about and still

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Speaker 1: snicker at. It's true, it does appeal to that, and um,

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Speaker 1: I think with the Ignoble, what's interesting about that is

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Speaker 1: you see so much creativity and imagination from the researchers

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Speaker 1: and the scientists who are working in their respective fields,

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Speaker 1: and which you might think is really wrote. They have

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Speaker 1: actually sort of peeled back and found very interesting and

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Speaker 1: contextualizing it in ways that you might not have ever

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Speaker 1: thought of. And what we're talking about here when we

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Speaker 1: talk about these prizes is each year Ignoble will honor

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Speaker 1: the achievements that of course make you laugh and then

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Speaker 1: make you think. In the award tend people these prizes.

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Speaker 1: The winners trouble from all over the world at their

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Speaker 1: own expense to a gallus ceremony at Harvard where actual

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Speaker 1: noble laureates present them with the prize um. This year's

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Speaker 1: opera was The Bolonsky Device, a tribute to George and

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Speaker 1: Charlotte Blonsky, who in the early sixties invented a machine

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Speaker 1: for quote, facilitating the birth of a child by centrifugal force.

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Speaker 1: Oh wow, so just sling the kid right out? Is

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Speaker 1: that a great visual of what an Ignoble prize can

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Speaker 1: be because it's a it's a perfectly logical idea perfectly

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Speaker 1: logical theory that doesn't really sit well with people outside

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Speaker 1: of the lab. I think, you know, which, we've discussed

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Speaker 1: that before, Like it's some of the often the amazing

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Speaker 1: thing about scientists is that sometimes the scientific answer just

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Speaker 1: is not going to sit well with anybody outside of

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Speaker 1: the scientific world, such as, say, uh, creating a spaceship

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Speaker 1: that is itself edible, or just figuring out a way

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Speaker 1: that astronauts can eat their own poop on a return

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Speaker 1: trip from Mars on a very you know, economic scientific level, Yes,

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Speaker 1: that makes absolute sense, but then the astro not saying, no,

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Speaker 1: we're not doing that well. And in some ways these

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Speaker 1: are thought experiments, right, especially the childbirth is probably not

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Speaker 1: very pragmatic to be shooting out, you know, a child

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Speaker 1: by a centrifugal force. But what kind of proof do

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Speaker 1: we have? Do we have scientific proof that it's not

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Speaker 1: a good idea? One day that might be the thing, right,

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Speaker 1: you have to build on that research, alright, So let's

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Speaker 1: highlight a couple of the prizes here, alright. First up,

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Speaker 1: the psychology prize. This one went to a team of

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Speaker 1: French researchers including Laurette Bague Alman Zaruni, Baptiste Subra, and

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Speaker 1: Nidhi or Ba as well as Brad Bushman. And that

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Speaker 1: was the I think the USA contingent there. Uh. And

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Speaker 1: that was for confirming that people who think that they

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Speaker 1: are drunk also think that they are more attractive. And

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Speaker 1: of course this is great because if you just ask

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Speaker 1: somebody that, hey, do you think drunk people think they're

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Speaker 1: more attractive? Of course they do. It's it's a no brainer, right,

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Speaker 1: But has it been scientifically proven? Do we know for sure?

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Speaker 1: And there are a lot of more important questions in

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Speaker 1: the history of of the human race that have come

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Speaker 1: up where someone says, of course, this is the way

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Speaker 1: it works. Of course, the Earth is the center of

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Speaker 1: the universe. Of course the Sun is the center of

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Speaker 1: the universe. But when you apply the light of science

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Speaker 1: to it, then you get the real answer, um or

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Speaker 1: you get the evolution of a real answer. So in

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Speaker 1: the first study carried out in the bar, they found

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Speaker 1: that the more alcoholic drinks customers consumed, the more attractive

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Speaker 1: they thought they were. Okay, that's but in Steady too,

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Speaker 1: they took ninety four non student participants and they put

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Speaker 1: them in a bogus taste test study they were given

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Speaker 1: either an alcoholic beverage or a nonalcoholic beverage, with half

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Speaker 1: of each group believing they had consumed alcohol alcohol and

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Speaker 1: half believing that they had not, so they had a

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Speaker 1: balanced pacebo effect. So, after consuming the beverages, they delivered

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Speaker 1: a speech and rated how attractive, bright, original, and funny

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Speaker 1: they thought they were. And they videotape these speeches and

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Speaker 1: they were rated by a team of twenty two independent judges.

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Speaker 1: Would they find those people thought they were brilliant and

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Speaker 1: even if they weren't drunk, is all they had to

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Speaker 1: do was think that they were drunk, and they instantly

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Speaker 1: thought that they were, uh like greater than they actually are.

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Speaker 1: I think this is important information, right for everybody who

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Speaker 1: is going out there and going to have a couple

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Speaker 1: of drinks and then perhaps do something that is important

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Speaker 1: to their livelihood. Perhaps maybe you should reconsider the drinks.

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Speaker 1: Maybe what you're about to do isn't quite as great

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Speaker 1: as you think. It's also interesting, um, you know, bringing

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Speaker 1: up the idea that even a non alcoholic beverage one

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Speaker 1: have the same effect. Um, And perhaps you can shed

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Speaker 1: some light in this from your own experience, since you

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Speaker 1: you gave up drinking. Uh, but I assume you still

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Speaker 1: find yourselves having a drink, a non alcoholic drink, maybe

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Speaker 1: in the in the the company of individuals who are drinking,

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Speaker 1: or or sort of fill that space in the in

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Speaker 1: the ritual. Because I can think of a time or

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Speaker 1: two where I've had something non alcoholic and that either

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Speaker 1: the setting was right or or the company was right,

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Speaker 1: that I really kind of felt as if I had

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Speaker 1: been drinking alcohol. Well, I think it boils down to

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Speaker 1: mirror neurons, because if someone is sitting across from you

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Speaker 1: and and they're feeling a little bit loosened up, they've

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Speaker 1: had a drink or two and they began to laugh

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Speaker 1: a lot, then of course you're going to engage in

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Speaker 1: the same activity. So it's very easy, I think, to

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Speaker 1: take on those sort of physical things for yourself. You

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Speaker 1: begin to fall into the cultural script that has been

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Speaker 1: provided to you. Yea. What I love about this study

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Speaker 1: is the title, which is called Beauty is in the

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Speaker 1: Eye of the Beer Holder. Oh that's great. Yeah, It's

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Speaker 1: almost like they knew they were going to get ignoble. Yeah. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Some I I tend to prefer the ones that are

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Speaker 1: just really like rigidly scientific and you get the idea

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Speaker 1: that they're completely oblivious to how ridiculous it might sound

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Speaker 1: to an outsider. It's got like five prepositions and words long.

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Speaker 1: All right, let's talk about the Joint Prize in Biology

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Speaker 1: and Astronomy now. Marie Dack, Emily Baird, Eric Warrant, Marcus Byrne,

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Speaker 1: and Clark Schultz received this prize for discovering that when

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Speaker 1: dung beaetles get lost, that they can navigate their way

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Speaker 1: home by looking at the milky Way. This at first glance,

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Speaker 1: doesn't seem like I mean, it seems like a sort

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Speaker 1: of amazing boy. Yeah, okay, what are you talking about here?

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Speaker 1: It is very cool. Yeah, I mean, obviously the moon

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Speaker 1: is big money when it comes to night time navigation

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Speaker 1: out there in the animal world. It's just that everything,

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Speaker 1: it seems can can use the moon for some form

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Speaker 1: of navigation. But previously only birds, seals, and humans were

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Speaker 1: known to use the stars to navigate, I mean that

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Speaker 1: were to orient themselves. So that's privileged territory. So the

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Speaker 1: idea that hey, the lowly dung beetle is using this

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Speaker 1: technique as well, it's amazing. What I like to imagine

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Speaker 1: is that you know, these dung beetles, they actually like

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Speaker 1: to run straight lines, by the way, And what I

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Speaker 1: like to imagine is that when they find a pile

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Speaker 1: of droppings, which they then roll into a small ball,

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Speaker 1: and they start pushing it away from the other dung

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Speaker 1: beetles that might try to eat it, I like to

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Speaker 1: measure them just getting on top of that ball and

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Speaker 1: staring up at the milky Way. I'll dowy eyed, and

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Speaker 1: I want that to be a Pixar movie and it

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Speaker 1: should be right um. But I think it's very cool

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Speaker 1: because it was thought that they were taking cues from

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Speaker 1: from the sun and the moon um. But it was

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Speaker 1: their capacity to maintain course even on clear moonless nights

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Speaker 1: that got researchers thinking that it perhaps was something else

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Speaker 1: that could have been the stars. So lead researcher Marie

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Speaker 1: doc She took the insects into the Johannesburg Planetarium, where

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Speaker 1: she could control the type of star fields beetle might

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Speaker 1: see overhead so they get their own little planetarium show.

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Speaker 1: She put them in a container with blackened walls to

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Speaker 1: make sure the animals were not using other information from

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Speaker 1: and marks on the horizon, which in the wild might

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Speaker 1: be trees, for example, and she found that the Beatles

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Speaker 1: performed best when confronted with a perfect starry sky projected

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Speaker 1: onto the planetarium dome, although even in other conditions they

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Speaker 1: could still find their way. Pretty cool, Yeah, yeah, and

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Speaker 1: it's the finding represents the first convincing demonstration for the

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Speaker 1: use of starry sky orientation in insects um and and

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Speaker 1: provides the first documented use of the Milky Way for

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Speaker 1: orientation in the animal kingdom. So that's pretty amazing. I

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Speaker 1: actually was pretty I thought it was amazing because we've

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Speaker 1: talked about navigation so much in how mysterious it is,

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Speaker 1: particularly when we talk about birds or butterflies, and now

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Speaker 1: you've got dune deals and on the game give a

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Speaker 1: Give a dune beetle is due. Indeed, all right, we're

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Speaker 1: gonna take a quick break, and when we come back,

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Speaker 1: we're gonna roll through three more of our favorites from

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Speaker 1: the two thousand thirteen Ignoble Prizes, all sorts of Google

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Speaker 1: and amazing things are gonna happen in those studies. All right,

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Speaker 1: we're back by the way micro cosmas Um. When that

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Speaker 1: film first came out, all the DVD or VHS covers

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Speaker 1: for it had this praying man it's wearing sunglasses on it,

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Speaker 1: which totally misrepresented the entire picture. Like they were trying

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Speaker 1: to play up the like like it was a bug's

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Speaker 1: life or something like it's some sort of cute insects story,

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Speaker 1: and it's not. It's a It's just a beautifully shot

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Speaker 1: insight into the world, the violent, the weird, and beautiful

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Speaker 1: world of insects. Praying man says, do wear right? Not

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Speaker 1: at all? Oh I don't. You should probably check into that, Okay,

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Speaker 1: I'll fact check this, all right, all right, now we're back.

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Speaker 1: We're talking about the two thousand thirteen Ignoble Prize winners,

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Speaker 1: and we're we're not going through all of them. We're

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Speaker 1: just covering some of our favorites. You can check out

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Speaker 1: the rest at the Improbable Research website and we highly

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Speaker 1: suggest to do that. The next prize, we're going to

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Speaker 1: discuss Safety Engineering Prize, and this one went to the

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Speaker 1: late Gustano Pizzo Um from the US for a nineteen

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Speaker 1: seventy two patent for an amazing invention that I'm just

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Speaker 1: floored that we haven't used that we have that we

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Speaker 1: don't see in every airplane. I love this invention because

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Speaker 1: on some level I think it appeals to the eight

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Speaker 1: year olds and all of us as well as the

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Speaker 1: Bond fans. Yes, there's a little James Bond at this

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Speaker 1: and a little like it's like an ACME invention from

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Speaker 1: the road Runner car. Yes. Yes, um. It is actually

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Speaker 1: an electro mechanical system to trap airplane hijackers. The system

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Speaker 1: drops a hijacker through trap doors, seals him into a package,

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Speaker 1: then drops the hijacker through the airplane specially installed bomb

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Speaker 1: bay doors, through which he is parachuted to the ground, where,

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Speaker 1: of course police, having been alerted by radio, await his arrival. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: on ski jets, I think yeah. And there was an

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Speaker 1: illustration with the patent. I mean the patents you know,

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Speaker 1: public the public domain, you can you can find it online. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And and the the illustrations are wonderful because you see

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Speaker 1: the individual, you see him jettison, you see him in

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Speaker 1: the little package with the with the parachute, and and

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Speaker 1: you're totally right. On one hand, it's it's very James Bond.

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Speaker 1: And I think it reminds me of of you to

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Speaker 1: a kill where Christopher Walkin was the was the villain

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Speaker 1: and he was in a blimp and I'm pretty sure

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Speaker 1: there's a trap door in that blimp for jettison um

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Speaker 1: members of his team that we're falling out of line.

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Speaker 1: But you know, this is we're talking about a commercial

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Speaker 1: flight here. We don't want people to just fall to

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Speaker 1: their death and want them to fall safely on a

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Speaker 1: parachute so that the police can apprehend them. Well, and

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Speaker 1: you know, in theory, it is a great idea, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and it makes a kind of like simple sense. You know,

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Speaker 1: that's just in the execution, right, because you have to

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Speaker 1: make sure that the person is standing in the right

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Speaker 1: area and that you know, he doesn't inadvertently or she

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Speaker 1: you never know, uh tossed you down and you who

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Speaker 1: are not the person who's trying the hijack the plane

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Speaker 1: or in you know, jettison down to the police. So

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Speaker 1: again it's just a matter of logistics here. But I

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Speaker 1: do really like this, Yeah, I wish on some level

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Speaker 1: that it would be pragmatic enough that you can actually

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Speaker 1: use all Right. Up next the Archaeology Prize, and this

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Speaker 1: one went to Brian Crandall and Peter Stall the Forum

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Speaker 1: from us the Ladder from Kennedy, us UH for observing

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Speaker 1: how the bones of swallowed dead shrews dissolved inside the

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Speaker 1: human digestive system. Now, the the the answer is in

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Speaker 1: the in the study there because obviously this is a

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Speaker 1: study about um humans swallowing the bones of a dead

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Speaker 1: shrew and then later fishing through the fecal matter to

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Speaker 1: see how it turned out. Yeah, the shrew was parboiled

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Speaker 1: and then of course swallowed whole without any sort of chewing,

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Speaker 1: and then carefully examined during the ex script ory period

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Speaker 1: in which would have correlated from when it would arrive

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Speaker 1: in that excretion. Uh so, Yeah, they wanted to see

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Speaker 1: how the bones would dissolve inside the human digesticism. But

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Speaker 1: why you ask why, because they wanted to see how,

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Speaker 1: or rather help archaeologist to turn whether small animal bones

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Speaker 1: found a historic sites signified that the animals have been

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Speaker 1: eaten or died naturally, So that the question is important,

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Speaker 1: like having the answer to this helps us make sense

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Speaker 1: of so many archaeological sites and finds around the world.

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Speaker 1: But the in order to answer it, they took a

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Speaker 1: very straightforward approach and to the outside viewer perhaps an

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Speaker 1: undignified um investigation. But that's just the way it is.

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Speaker 1: Sometimes you want to you want an answer to a

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Speaker 1: question that sometimes there was a very simple, straightforward way

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Speaker 1: to do it. Yeah, you could go through some sort

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Speaker 1: of complex chemical process that mimic the digestion of the

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Speaker 1: human body. You could essentially build a cloaca bot to

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Speaker 1: digest this, uh, this tiny rodent for you, or you

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Speaker 1: could just do what makes sense. You could just you

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Speaker 1: could just say, screw it, I'm going to swallow this

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Speaker 1: creature and then I'm going to poop it out, and

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Speaker 1: then I'm gonna see and I'm gonna have my answer,

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Speaker 1: and and I'm not gonna need all this ridiculous funding

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Speaker 1: to do it. Now, if I remember correctly, this was

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Speaker 1: featured in Mary Richard's Gulp and Um. At the time

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Speaker 1: of her writing that, I believed that it wasn't revealed

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Speaker 1: whether it was Crandell or Stall who actually swallowed the

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Speaker 1: shrew because they didn't want people to focus on who

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Speaker 1: was combing through their poo to try to find the bones.

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Speaker 1: They wanted people to focus on how it was actually digested.

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Speaker 1: And in case you're wondering, uh, the digestive action of

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Speaker 1: either Crandell or Stall obliterated everything but twenty eight bones

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Speaker 1: out of one d and thirty one, Way to go,

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Speaker 1: Way to Go digestive stem. All right, and we're gonna

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Speaker 1: look at one last study here, and this one is

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Speaker 1: the Public Health Prize, and this one comes to us

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Speaker 1: from high Land. And I have said we we left

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Speaker 1: this one because you have to leave the penis for last. Really, yes,

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Speaker 1: because this study had to do with medical techniques for

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Speaker 1: penile reattachment after amputations, often by jealous lives um techniques

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Speaker 1: which they recommended except in cases where the amputated penis

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Speaker 1: had been partially eaten by a duck. Now, yeah, I

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Speaker 1: need to explain this, and I'm I'm just gonna pull

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Speaker 1: directly from Mark Abrams article that came out in The

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Speaker 1: Guardian last year titled why Thai women cut off their

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Speaker 1: husband's penises. He points out that quote it became fashionable

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Speaker 1: in the decade after nineteen seventy for the humiliated Thai

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Speaker 1: wife to wait until her philandering husband fell asleep so

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Speaker 1: that she could quickly sever his penis with a kitchen knife.

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Speaker 1: A traditional tie home is elevated on pilings and the

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Speaker 1: windows are open to allow for ventilation. The area under

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Speaker 1: the houses home is the home of the family, pigs, chickens,

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Speaker 1: and ducks. Thus it is quite usual that an amputated

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Speaker 1: penis is tossed out of an open window where it

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Speaker 1: may be captured by a duck. Then Abrams goes on

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Speaker 1: to say, the report explains for readers in other countries.

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Speaker 1: Quote the Tai saying I better get home or the

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Speaker 1: ducks will have something to eat is therefore a common

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Speaker 1: joke and immediately understood at all levels of society. So

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Speaker 1: in case anybody is visiting Thailand and you happen to

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Speaker 1: be able to hear this phrase, now you have a

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Speaker 1: context for it. Yes, So, yeah, I guess there was

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Speaker 1: a prominent nineteen seventy three case in which a woman

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Speaker 1: sliced off her husband's penis, and then during the seventies

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Speaker 1: so were like something like a hundred other Yeah. Basically,

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Speaker 1: it sounds like it got a tremendous amount of coverage

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Speaker 1: at the time because it is it's you know, as

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Speaker 1: we know in the West, um, case like this happens,

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Speaker 1: the media is just gonna eat it up. Um, no

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Speaker 1: pun intended, and uh, and so it's it's in the

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Speaker 1: public mindset, and and so you begin to see other

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Speaker 1: cases popping up. That's right. That was the great bob

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Speaker 1: at Escapade in the US. And I believe that penis

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Speaker 1: was flung out a car window, yes, but was apprehended

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Speaker 1: before a duck could inter s and it also was reattached.

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Speaker 1: It was so basically this whole, the whole stuff. I mean,

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Speaker 1: the study makes it in because on one hand, it

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Speaker 1: involves the penis and therefore is inherently funny. Uh. And

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Speaker 1: then it also is weird and uh and and ties

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Speaker 1: in this uh, this epidemic of of of peno amputation,

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Speaker 1: and it involves ducks, and ducks are inherently funny as well.

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Speaker 1: Even though at the bottom line, even bad philandering husbands

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Speaker 1: uh probably don't deserve to have their their penises cut off.

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Speaker 1: I'm not gonna. And I imagine too that um, I

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Speaker 1: don't have obviously the plumbing, but I would want there

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Speaker 1: to be quite a bit of study where a man

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Speaker 1: who's whose penis was cut off and had to be

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Speaker 1: reattached to make sure that it was done properly. Yes,

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's an injury that is going to

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Speaker 1: occur in the course of of human events, and it's

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Speaker 1: better that we do have techniques on hand, that we

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Speaker 1: do know the best means by which to reattach it

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Speaker 1: if possible. So it's it's a study that at once

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Speaker 1: is highly helpful and great and it's wonderful that the

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Speaker 1: research has contributed to our scientific understanding with it. But

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Speaker 1: on the other hand, there are a number of inherently

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Speaker 1: giggle inducing qualities to it. And that's why we love Ignoble, right,

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Speaker 1: because you get pretty much everything, yeah, from dung beetles

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Speaker 1: to penises. Yeah, from studies that are that just seem

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Speaker 1: to sort of fill in one tiny corner of our

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Speaker 1: scientific understanding or things that or studies that are they

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Speaker 1: are actually highly important but still induced snickers. So there

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Speaker 1: you have another Ignable Price ceremony has come and gone.

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Speaker 1: We've highlighted some of the ones we like. You can

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Speaker 1: check out the rest online at the Improbable Research website.

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Speaker 1: And uh yeah, all of those guys that put that

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Speaker 1: the magazine out of the PDF and it's always tremendous

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Speaker 1: fund to leave through it. In the meantime, if you

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Speaker 1: want to chat without about it, if you want to

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Speaker 1: share your favorites from this year's of award winners, or

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Speaker 1: you have some past favorites that you still snicker about,

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Speaker 1: let us know about it. You can find us in

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Speaker 1: all the usual places. Our mothership is stuff to Blow

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Speaker 1: your Mind dot com, where you'll find all our videos,

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Speaker 1: all our blog posts, our podcasts. Yes, even the episodes

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Speaker 1: of the podcast that are not available on iTunes or

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Speaker 1: wherever you like to get your podcast, you will find

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Speaker 1: them on the website, and you can always drop us

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Speaker 1: a line with your thoughts that blow the mind at

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Speaker 1: discovery dot com for more on this and thousands of

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Speaker 1: other topics, does it, How stuff Works dot com