Thursday, January 28, 2010

Bottom of the News… Friday, January 29, 2010

Good morning my fellow Rotarians. Today I am reporting on the annual Ig Nobel Prize Winners… The 19th 1st annual event recognized achievements that first make people LAUGH, then make them THINK!

PEACE PRIZE: Five professors from the forensic department at the University of Bern in Switzerland determined that it is more damaging to the skull to be smashed over the head with a full bottle of beer when compared to an empty bottle.

HEALTH CARE PRIZE. Four doctors from Duke University, MIT, Stanford University and INSEAD University in Singapore demonstrated that high-priced fake medicine is more effective than low-priced fake medicine.

LINGUISTICS PRIZE: Three linguists from the University of Barcelona showed that rats sometimes cannot tell the difference between a person speaking Japanese backwards and a person speaking Dutch backwards.

CHEMISTRY PRIZE: Three researchers from the University of Mexico were able to create diamonds from liquid — specifically from tequila.

MEDICINE PRIZE: Donald Unger, private investigator from Thousand Oaks, CA, determined that a possible cause of arthritis in the fingers can be caused by cracking your knuckles. Unger’s research included diligently cracking the knuckles of his left hand — but never cracking the knuckles of his right hand — every day for more than sixty (60) years.

PHYSICS PRIZE: Physics researchers from the University of Cincinnati, Harvard and the University of Texas, collaborated their research for four years and were able to determine analytically why pregnant women don't tip over.

VETERINARY MEDICINE PRIZE: Researchers from Newcastle University in the UK proved that cows who have names give more milk than cows that are nameless.

BIOLOGY PRIZE. Three researchers from the National Veterinarian Institute discovered that fleas that live on dogs can jump higher than the fleas that live on cats.

PUBLIC HEALTH PRIZE: Three women from Chicago won this award for inventing and getting a patent on a bra that, in an emergency, can be quickly converted into a pair of protective face masks, one for the bra wearer and one to be given to some needy bystander.

LITERATURE PRIZE: Ireland's police service won this award for writing and presenting more than 50 traffic tickets to the most frequent driving offender in the country — Prawo Jazdy — whose name in Polish means "Driving License".

There you have ‘em, the 2009 Ig Nobel Prize Winners. Our Bottom of the News on this Friday, January 29, 2010. ###

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