[{"command":"openDialog","selector":"#drupal-modal","settings":null,"data":"\u003Cdiv id=\u0022republish_modal_form\u0022\u003E\u003Cform class=\u0022modal-form-example-modal-form ecl-form\u0022 data-drupal-selector=\u0022modal-form-example-modal-form\u0022 action=\u0022\/en\/article\/modal\/5778\u0022 method=\u0022post\u0022 id=\u0022modal-form-example-modal-form\u0022 accept-charset=\u0022UTF-8\u0022\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHorizon articles can be republished for free under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence.\u003C\/p\u003E\n \u003Cp\u003EYou must give appropriate credit. We ask you to do this by:\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n 1) Using the original journalist\u0027s byline\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n 2) Linking back to our original story\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n 3) Using the following text in the footer: This article was originally published in \u003Ca href=\u0027#\u0027\u003EHorizon, the EU Research and Innovation magazine\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\n \u003Cp\u003ESee our full republication guidelines \u003Ca href=\u0027\/horizon-magazine\/republish-our-stories\u0027\u003Ehere\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\n \u003Cp\u003EHTML for this article, including the attribution and page view counter, is below:\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\u0022js-form-item form-item js-form-type-textarea form-item-body-content js-form-item-body-content ecl-form-group ecl-form-group--text-area form-no-label ecl-u-mv-m\u0022\u003E\n \n\u003Cdiv\u003E\n \u003Ctextarea data-drupal-selector=\u0022edit-body-content\u0022 aria-describedby=\u0022edit-body-content--description\u0022 id=\u0022edit-body-content\u0022 name=\u0022body_content\u0022 rows=\u00225\u0022 cols=\u002260\u0022 class=\u0022form-textarea ecl-text-area\u0022\u003E\u003Ch2\u003EIg Nobel prizes make you laugh... then think\u003C\/h2\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u2018Research is by definition improbable.\u2019 Marc Abrahams, who edits the AIR magazine (Annals of Improbable Research) is very clear about this. At the same time, he also believes in the power of making people laugh. And yes, research can also be very funny. \u2018If it makes you laugh at first, it will afterwards make you think,\u2019 he said, talking to Horizon magazine on 3 May in Geneva, where he was one of the speakers invited to the TEDx meeting at CERN. \u2018And at the same time, we also hope to spur people\u0027s curiosity for science,\u2019 he said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u2018You see this bra? It can save two lives: yours and someone next to you! It is the invention of Dr. Elena Bodnar. She invented a brassiere that can quickly convert into a pair of protective face masks. It even was patented and turned out to be a commercial product. For this, we decided to give her the \u201cPublic Health\u201d prize.\u2019 What is useful to know is that Dr Bodnar, who is now working in the US, started her career as a physician in Ukraine\u2026 during the Chernobyl nuclear accident.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EEach year, Ig Nobel prizes are awarded to real scientists who conducted and published real research work, which in the eyes of the Ig Nobel committee \u2018could not or should not be reproduced\u2019. The bra story is just one example. The same year nine other research projects were also crowned with an Ig Nobel award. The ceremony takes place at Harvard, said Marc Abrahams. It is attended by 1\u0026nbsp;200 persons. And by the way, these prizes are handed out by genuine Nobel laureates\u2026\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWhilst the Ig Nobel prizes are awarded in the US, they can go to any scientist in the world. And a lot of Europeans researchers have been honoured by one. \u2018Usually we contact them discreetly to tell them they are laureates. If they refuse the prize, we turn to someone else,\u2019 explained Marc Abrahams. \u2018But that does not happen very frequently.\u2019\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EEuropean laureates\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAmong the European laureates, we can point to Anita Eerland and Rolf Zwaan, from the Netherlands, who received the Psychology prize in 2012 for their study showing that \u2018Leaning to the Left Makes the Eiffel Tower Seem Smaller\u2019. (\u003Cem\u003EPsychological Science\u003C\/em\u003E, vol. 22 no. 12, December 2011, pp. 1511-14.).\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn two experiments, they investigated whether body posture influences people\u2019s estimation of quantities. According to the mental-number-line theory, people mentally represent numbers along a line with smaller numbers on the left and larger numbers on the right, wrote the researchers in the scientific journal. \u2018We hypothesised that surreptitiously making people lean to the right or to the left would affect their quantitative estimates\u2019.\u0026nbsp; And they concluded that indeed \u2018they were significantly smaller when participants leaned to the left than when they leaned to the right\u2019.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe previous year, Philippe Perrin, from France, was awarded the Physics prize for determining why \u2018discus throwers become dizzy\u2019. (\u003Cem\u003EActa Oto-laryngologica\u003C\/em\u003E, vol. 120, no. 3, March 2000, pp. 390\u20135.).\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u2018While both discus and hammer throwing involve rotating movements resulting in the throw of an object, discus throwers sometimes report dizziness, a condition never experienced by hammer throwers,\u2019 indicated his team in \u003Cem\u003EActa Oto-laryngological\u003C\/em\u003E. Perrin and his colleagues investigated whether this susceptibility was related to the sensitivity of the thrower or to the type of throwing achieved. They showed that during hammer throwing, visual bearings can be used more easily than during discus throwing: a crucial difference in the specific execution of each sport that is responsible for the dizziness experienced by discus throwers.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETwo British scientists, Claire Rind and Peter Simmons, of Newcastle University, were awarded an Ig Nobel \u2018Peace prize\u2019 in 2005 for their study \u2018electrically monitoring the activity of a brain cell in a locust while\u2026 that locust was watching selected highlights from the movie Star Wars\u2019.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe study described, among other things, how the \u2018descending contralateral movement detector\u2019 (DCMD) neuron in the locust was challenged with a variety of moving stimuli, including scenes from a film (Star Wars), moving disks, and images generated by computer. Apparently, the neuron responds well to any rapid movement.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn Italy, Massimiliano Zampini of the University of Trento, Italy, and Charles Spence, of Oxford University, UK, received the Nutrition prize for electronically modifying the sound of a potato chip to make the person chewing the chip believe it to be crisper and fresher than it really is. (\u003Cem\u003EJournal of Sensory Studies\u003C\/em\u003E, vol. 19, October 2004,\u0026nbsp;pp. 347-63.)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBut in 23 years of Ig Nobel prizes, the one that Marc Abrahams likes the most comes from the Netherlands. \u2018It is the Biology prize from 2003,\u2019 he said. \u2018It was a study from the Natural History Museum of Rotterdam that documented the first scientifically recorded case of homosexual necrophilia in the mallard duck\u2019\u2026. (\u003Cem\u003EDeinsea\u003C\/em\u003E, vol. 8, 2001, pp. 243-7)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EResearch that first makes you laugh but then think, remember?\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/textarea\u003E\n\u003C\/div\u003E\n\n \u003Cdiv id=\u0022edit-body-content--description\u0022 class=\u0022ecl-help-block description\u0022\u003E\n Please copy the above code and embed it onto your website to republish.\n \u003C\/div\u003E\n \u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cinput autocomplete=\u0022off\u0022 data-drupal-selector=\u0022form-47bvccntndy4ao55hep-t2plwi8dglmbptgeqaw3qwc\u0022 type=\u0022hidden\u0022 name=\u0022form_build_id\u0022 value=\u0022form-47BVcCNTnDy4ao55Hep_t2pLwi8DGLMBptGeQAW3qWc\u0022 \/\u003E\n\u003Cinput data-drupal-selector=\u0022edit-modal-form-example-modal-form\u0022 type=\u0022hidden\u0022 name=\u0022form_id\u0022 value=\u0022modal_form_example_modal_form\u0022 \/\u003E\n\u003C\/form\u003E\n\u003C\/div\u003E","dialogOptions":{"width":"800","modal":true,"title":"Republish this content"}}]