Harvard recently hosted the ceremony of the Ig Nobel Awards, given out to dubious achievements in research, celebrating "the unusual, honour the imaginative - and spur people's interest in science, medicine and technology."
The top winner in the "Peace" category was the U.S. Air Force Wright Laboratory, which spent precious tax dollars on ridiculous research on the effectiveness of creating a non-lethal weapon that would make enemy combatants amorous toward their same-sex colleagues — allegedly distracting and upsetting unit cohesion.
From my earlier post on the "research": In the report ("Harassing, Annoying, and "Bad Guy" Identifying Chemicals"), some of the outlandish proposals for non-lethal weapons to use against enemy forces included :
* a spray to inflict "severe and lasting halitosis";
* a chemical that would cause bees to behave more aggressively and sting them;
* a weapon that would make the enemy very sensitive to sunlight;
* and the aphrodisiac chemical designed to make enemy soldiers sexually irresistible to each other and cause widespread homosexual behavior (a "distasteful but completely non-lethal blow" to affect troop "discipline and morale"). These plans were part of a six-year project that would have cost $7.5 million of your tax dollars.
Other winners of the Ig Nobel awards are below the fold.
(BBC):
Genuine Nobel Laureates handed out the much-coveted awards to the winners, who took away no cash, but instead received a hand-made prize, a certificate, and, of course, the glory of such an illustrious win.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.
24 Responses to “‘Homo bomb’ research tops Ig Nobel awards”
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I thought the original awards were handed out for “research that should not be repeated.”
They used to hand out the awards at MIT, if I remember correctly. Who switched the field to Hahvahd? Grrr….
I love the IgNobels. Broadcast the Friday after Thanksgiving on “Science Friday” as I recall.
Last year they had a couple of papers dealing with massaging the male prostate to get rid of hiccups win in the medical field.
Also love the “re-title your paper in seven words” part: “Parrots use English to demonstrate exceptional intelligence.”
[b]Chemistry - Mayu Yamamoto, from Japan, for developing a method to extract vanilla fragrance and flavouring from cow dung.[/b]
Wait what?
The research grant for this built on groundbreaking applications for Shit from Shinola funding and Chicken Salad from Chickenshit R&D.
Core selling point: if we succeed, holy MF’ing shit no one would be more surprised than the applicants.
Am I the only one who is disappointed that the Homo Bomb doesn’t work?
Hamsters get jet lag?!?
Yeah, I blogged that one Pam, but there was an even loonier project won an award. Follow my link to read it.
BTW are we right in thinking the Homobomb was the brainchild of the same US military department as spent a few million on training men to kill enemy soldiers by staring at them and to walk through walls.
The stare to kill soldiers were ordered to practice on goats. They stared as hard as they could for a long time. Then the goats got bored and walked away.
The walk through walls platoon just ended up with bloody noses.
chemical designed to make enemy soldiers sexually irresistible to each other and cause widespread homosexual behavior
In my day we used cheap beer.
Would you rather spend millions teaching soldiers to stare or actually killing people (remember that spending millions to feed the hungry, heal the sick or house the homeless would be unamerican)?
tzs, the Igs are organised by the magazine “The Annals of Improbable Research”. As far as I’m aware, they’re based in the science faculty of Harvard, specifically (I think) the chemistry department.
You can find out more at their website.
Gay attraction was considered a plus in ancient Greek armies, if I recall correctly. Wouldn’t it have been an irony if they had developed that “homo bomb,” and it had turned rabbles of losers into modern-day Spartans?
Eh, if there were ever a friendly-fire incident with the homogas I don’t think the media would cover it up like they do Gulf War Syndrome.
Was money actually spent on the gay bomb? My understanding was that that was a list of chemical weapons projects that were proposed but rejected.
I always thought the “gay bomb” was yet another of those stories the late-lamented Weekly World News had made up out of whole cloth. Sadly, no.
I do love the igNobels, though. Especially since the scientists almost always show up to poke fun at their own research.
Wow. This stuff reads like The Uncanny X-Men or something.
I did not, however, know that the IgNobels were associated with any real-world research institute, as I encountered them on the Internet a few years back and then forgot about them. I do remember fondly the team who modelled the distribution of water droplets and air currents in a shower, in order to explain why shower curtains always cling to the human body when one is showering.
I’ve saved the homobomb pdf, though at the moment it appears to merely be a boring few pages about chemicals hazardous to vehicle tires.
mcc, I believe that’s exactly what it was - proposed and rejected, no funding. Still it’s disconcerting that the U.S. military employs people who would even suggest such a ridiculous invention.
I’ve actually expanded on Wansink’s research myself, in the related field of pasta. You may laugh, but only I dared to dream that Olive Garden special could be put to scientific use.
The Ig Nobel Committee is not formally affiliated with any academic institution. The awards used to be presented at MIT, but the ceremony now takes place at a Cambridge theater which belongs to Harvard. (I went to the “Ig Informal Lectures” on Saturday, at MIT.)
The publishers of the old _Journal of Irreproducible Results_ stopped publishing the journal in 1994. The entire staff began publishing a new journal, independently, as soon as they could. They called the new journal the _Annals of Improbable Research_. JIR had the slogan about research that cannot (or should not) be reproduced. AIR claims to show science “that makes people laugh, then makes them think.” It’s a somewhat broader mandate, that lets them include things like the study of viagra, hamsters, and jetlag.
It’s an Sanders Theater at Harvard now, I think because it is so pretty.
If you are in Boston in early October some year, try to go. The ceremony is hilarious. Don’t know if they still do it every year but there used to be a “Win a Date With a Nobel Prize Winner” door prize for the ladies. Where else are you going to find that? Along with silly songs, etc. They had an actual wedding onstage during the ceremony one year.
Hamsters get jet lag?!?
Sure they do - check it out here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzSc43LaqnI
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.
Sounds like a perfectly reasonable piece of research to me, (he says wearing a cataloguer’s hat).
I’m so glad “The The” are no longer recording, the bastards.
Eh, if there were ever a friendly-fire incident with the homogas
Which will have to be referred to as a “special friendly-fire” incident…
whether it works or not, i’m a bit surprised the homo bomb isn’t currently being fielded. knowing some of the other junk the pentagon’s actually bought…
Tee Hee, I looked up the original article for the Jet Lag research and saw where it was published! Snort!
Where? The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences! Typically referred to as PNAS for short.
snicker
You know, I knew that seeing rape as merely “distasteful” rather than criminal was the unofficial policy, and that pretty much anything goes against enemy soldier nowadays anyway, but it still floors me when powerful people open their mouths and admit their cruelty and stupidity.