Boss revenge, self-colonoscopy studies win 2018 Ig Nobels
BOSTON (AP) — Anyone who’s ever been so furious with their boss that they feel like exacting revenge really needs to listen to Lindie Liang.
Liang and her colleagues found that abusing a virtual voodoo doll instead of your boss will make you feel better without getting you fired or thrown in jail, a study that earned them a 2018 Ig Nobel, the annual prize sponsored by the science humor magazine Annals of Improbable Research for comical but practical scientific discovery.
Winners recognized on Thursday included a Japanese doctor who devised a revolutionary new way to give yourself a colonoscopy; a British archaeology lecturer who figured out that eating human flesh isn’t very nutritious; an Australian team that found that people who buy high tech products really can’t be bothered with the instruction manual; and Spanish university researchers who measured the effects of shouting and cursing while driving.
The prizes at the 28th annual ceremony at Harvard University were being handed out by real Nobel laureates.
The winners, who as usual journeyed to Massachusetts at their own expense, also received a cash prize of $10 trillion virtually worthless Zimbabwean dollars. Each was given 60 seconds to deliver an acceptance speech before an eight-year-old girl complained onstage: “Please stop. I’m bored.”
James Cole, a lecturer in archaeology at Britain’s University of Brighton, earned his Ig Nobel for a study on cannibalism that found that if you want a highcalorie meal, eating human flesh probably isn’t the way to go.
Cole found that the caloric value of humans isn’t that high when compared to other animals we know our ancestors hunted and ate.
Dr. Akira Horiuchi, a pediatrician at Showa Inan General Hospital in Komagane, Japan, won for his self-colonoscopy study in which he used a colonoscope designed for children and sat upright rather than lying in the traditional supine position.