Over the last few weeks we saw a role out of the highest acknowledgment of excellence on the planet in the form of the Nobel Prizes. In six fields the awards recognize giant strides, discoveries that set the table for the next generation of breakthroughs. Much of it is highly specialized, the kind of stuff that is the building blocks of progress rather than the end of result of it. And so the prize in physics did not go to Apple and the iPhone 17, but to John Martinis, France Michel Devoret and John Clarke for the discovery of "macroscopic quantum mechanical tunnelling and energy quantisation in an electric circuit." It's way more complicated than the iPhone's new improved selfie camera, but potentially more groundbreaking.
If there's a problem with the Nobels, that's it in a nutshell. The discoveries may be envelope-breaking, but they have little application to the day-to-day challenges we all face. Not that it's not good to recognize advancements which could be game changing in the long run, but our need for immediate gratification means it would be nice to bestow some recognition on the kinds of things that make a difference today.
Enter the Ig Nobels. While the real ones have their roots in a bequest made by the Swedish chemist, engineer, and inventor Arthur Nobel in 1895, the Igs have a more recent pedigree. Begun in 1991, they are administered by the scientific humor magazine "Annals of Improbable Research," and bestowed in a ceremony at MIT by actual Nobel laureates. While the criteria for the Nobels is for people whose work "confer the greatest benefit on mankind," the Igs aim is to "honor achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think."
This year's crop falls squarely in the sweet spot. Take the award In Biology. It went to 11 Japanese researchers for their experiments to learn whether cows painted with zebra stripes can avoid being bitten by flies. They used water-based lacquers that washed away after a few days, enabling them to rotate their test subjects in three different groups: zebra stripes, just black stripes, or no stripes. The results showed that zebra stripes significantly decreased the number of biting flies. Maybe try that on yourself instead of Off!
In Physics, eight Italian researchers delved into the blending of ingredients in pasta sauce. They came up with a foolproof recipe for the classic "Pasta alla cacio e pepe," or pasta with cheese and pepper. The trick: using corn starch for the cheese and pepper sauce instead of relying on however much starch leaches into the boiling water as the pasta is cooked. Meanwhile, in Engineering Design, two Indian researchers were cited for their work on "how foul-smelling shoes affects the good experience of using a shoe-rack." Their research led them to craft their own odor-eating rack using UV light that killed the odor-causing bacteria. In both cases, it's news you can actually use.
There're more offbeat examinations of everyday issues. In Pediatrics the prize went to a group noting how nursing mothers who ate garlic had babies that breastfed longer. And the Chemistry prize demonstrated that adding some powered Teflon to your dinner increases volume without affecting taste, thereby decreasing calories consumed. They do note that this is strictly experimental, so don't try this at home.
And then there's the big gun, no pun intended. For the Ig Noble Peace Prize, four German researchers showed that the perhaps the way to better communicate across cultures and languages is to drink more. Working with native German speaking undergraduates at Maastricht University in the Netherlands who were also fluent in Dutch, they showed that getting a little drunk makes you more fluent. Scrupulously scientific to the core, they had two groups, one drinking plain water, the other vodka with bitter lemon. Turned out the tipsy group was judged by native Dutch speakers to sound more natural. The researchers postulate that alcohol lowers anxiety, thereby increasing proficiency. So perhaps think about pregaming before heading through airport security in France. Just not too much.
In the spirit of the Ig Nobels, forget Ukraine/Russia, Pakistan/India and Israel/Gaza. You want to solve an intractable conflict? Get Mets fans to like their Yankee counterparts, or Cubs fans to break bread with Sox aficionados. Do that, and you truly deserve an award.
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Marc Wollin of Bedford is unlikely win a prize of any kind in literature. His column appears weekly via email and online on Substack and Blogspot as well as Facebook, LinkedIn and X.
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