Notícias antigas

Via Jornal Público online, BBC e pelos Annals of Improbable Research sabemos que, entre o dia 4 de Outubro (Sanders Theatre, Harvard University) e o dia 7 de Outubro ( MIT Building 10, Room 250) ocorreram dois dos diversos eventos relacionados com o prémio Ig Nobel de 2007 que, este ano, prestigiou os seguintes temas-laureados:

"Medicine - Brian Witcombe, of Gloucestershire Royal NHS Foundation Trust, UK, and Dan Meyer for their probing work on the health consequences of swallowing a sword.

Physics - A US-Chile team who ironed out the problem of how sheets become wrinkled.

Biology - Dr Johanna van Bronswijk of the Netherlands for carrying out a creepy crawly census of all of the mites, insects, spiders, ferns and fungi that share our beds.

Chemistry - Mayu Yamamoto, from Japan, for developing a method to extract vanilla fragrance and flavouring from cow dung.

Linguistics - A University of Barcelona team for showing that rats are unable to tell the difference between a person speaking Japanese backwards and somebody speaking Dutch backwards.

Literature - Glenda Browne of Blue Mountains, Australia, for her study of the word "the", and how it can flummox those trying to put things into alphabetical order.

Peace - The US Air Force Wright Laboratory for instigating research and development on a chemical weapon that would provoke widespread homosexual behaviour among enemy troops.

Nutrition - Brian Wansink of Cornell University for investigating the limits of human appetite by feeding volunteers a self-refilling, "bottomless" bowl of soup.

Economics - Kuo Cheng Hsieh of Taiwan for patenting a device that can catch bank robbers by dropping a net over them.

Aviation - A National University of Quilmes, Argentina, team for discovering that impotency drugs can help hamsters to recover from jet lag."

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O Ig Nobel é organizado, desde 1991, pelo Annals of Improbable Research (AIR). A cerimónia é patrocinada por um consórcio entre Harvard-Radcliffe Science Fiction Association (HRSFA), Harvard-Radcliffe Society of Physics Students (SPS) e a Harvard Computer Society, e conta sempre com a participação de ganhadores de Prémios Nobel.
Como a própria organização o Ig Nobel declara, a iniciativa primeiro promove o riso, mas depois obriga a pensar...
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Se tiverem paciência, não deixem de passar os olhos pelos trabalhos originais, dos premiados, ex: “Crocheting the Hyperbolic Plane", versão revista de um original de 2001.