Unlikely search / Youtube
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News from the NOS•today, 04:04
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Three studies in which the Dutch participated were awarded the Ig Nobel Prize, the satirical alternative Nobel Prizes. This year’s awards include research on Mayan ritual enemas, a mathematical analysis of gossip and evidence of heartbeat in blind dates.
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The awards have been awarded for 32 years by the Annals of Unlikely Research (AIR) to surprising and somewhat strange studies published in recognized scientific journals. They are awarded shortly before the announcement of the actual Nobel Prizes and are intended for research that first makes you laugh and then think.
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The award is associated with a cash prize of $ 10 trillion from Zimbabwe, a currency that hasn’t been used since 2015 after hyperinflation. Editor-in-Chief Marc Abrahams of Annals for Unlikely Research gave the winners another compliment at the awards ceremony: “If you haven’t won an Ig Nobel Prize tonight – and especially if you have one – better next time.”
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Synchronized heart rate
Unlike the Nobel laureates, the Ig Nobel laureates have no fixed categories. For example, Dutch Professor of Cognitive Psychology Mariska Kret will receive the award in the Applied Cardiology category this year for her research on the heart rate of people who meet on a blind date.
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Before that, she and her fellow researchers visited music festivals, including Lowlands, to follow the youngsters on a blind date. Meanwhile, they observed the heartbeats of the young people, which showed that their beats synchronized if they found themselves attractive.
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Mayan enemas and gossip algorithms
Another Dutch person who won the award is Emeritus Professor of Pharmaceutical Patient Care Peter de Smet of Radboud University. He received the Art History award for his search for him in 1986, in which he discovered on the basis of ancient Mayan art that the Mayans administered alcohol enemas to intoxicate themselves.
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The Ig Nobel Peace Prize was awarded for gossip research in which professors Bianca Beersma and Paul van Lange and researchers Kim Peters and Annika Nieper of the Free University participated. They have developed an algorithm by which gossip can strategically determine when to tell the truth and when to lie.
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Other award-winning studies have explored why ducks swim in a row, how to use their fingers more efficiently when turning a handle, and why luck often wins talent for success. The question of why legal documents are unnecessarily difficult to read and research into the possibilities of mating scorpions with constipation also received an Ig Nobel Prize.
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