The following is an article from The Annals of Improbable Research, now in all-pdf form. Get a subscription now for only $25 a year!
Ig Nobel Achievements distilled into limerick form
by Martin Eiger, Improbable Research Limerick Laureate
The Ig Nobel Prizes honor achievements that first make people LAUGH, then make them THINK. For details of all the Ig Nobel Prize-winning achievements, see each year’s special Ig Nobel issue of the magazine, and also see the winners page.
2011 Ig Nobel Chemistry Prize
The prize was awarded to Makoto Imai, Naoki Urushihata, Hideki Tanemura, Yukinobu Tajima, Hideaki Goto, Koichiro Mizoguchi, and Junichi Murakami for determining the ideal density of airborne wasabi (pungent horseradish) to awaken sleeping people in case of a fire or other emergency, and for applying this knowledge to invent the wasabi alarm.
It is airborne wasabi’s propensity,
Due to its pungent intensity,
To shield you from harm.
You won’t buy the farm
As long as it has the right density.
1999 Ig Nobel Education Prize
The prize was awarded to the Kansas State Board of Education and the Colorado State Board of Education for mandating that children should not believe in Darwin’s theory of evolution any more than they believe in Newton’s theory of gravitation, Faraday’s and Maxwell’s theory of electromagnetism, or Pasteur’s theory that germs cause disease.
Hey kids, what you think’s up to you.
We won’t mandate what’s false and what’s true —
Evolution, creation,
Germs, gravitation,
And whether or not the sky’s blue.
1996 Ig Nobel Public Health Prize
The prize was awarded to Ellen Kleist of Nuuk, Greenland, and Harald Moi of Oslo, Norway, for their cautionary medical report “Transmission of Gonorrhea Through an Inflatable Doll” (published in Genitourinary Medicine, vol. 69, no. 4, 1993, p. 322).
Inflatable dolls seem to me a
Most practical, useful idea.
But people, beware!
We learn here that there
Are some who transmit gonorrhea.
(Image credit: Dollist)
_____________________
The article above is from the July-August 2015 issue of the Annals of Improbable Research. You can download or purchase back issues of the magazine, or subscribe to receive future issues. Or get a subscription for someone as a gift!
Visit their website for more research that makes people LAUGH and then THINK.