Stressed frogs emit scents reminiscent of curry or cashews, while penguins exert pressure during defecation – these are among the quirky findings that earned this year’s Ig Nobel Prize.
The 2005 Ig Nobel Prize, which celebrates achievements that make people laugh before they think, was announced during a ceremony at Harvard University in the United States on the night of October 6.
A team led by Professor Mike Tyler from the University of Adelaide, Australia, won the Ig Nobel Prize in Biology for their research on the scents of frogs. Tyler noted that each frog has a distinct odor when stressed.
“Most tree frogs emit scents similar to peanuts or cashews, and it’s quite sweet,” Tyler explained. In contrast, another group of frogs has a strong curry scent. “In fact, it’s the sweet smell of Bombay curry or the dry chili curry from Northern India.”
Tyler and his team also discovered 20 frogs that smelled like fresh grass and some that emitted a rotten odor.
The researchers are uncertain about the significance of these smells, but they know that some of the chemicals involved can repel mosquitoes. They also found certain chemicals that prevent pigeons from defecating on fences, and these substances have been used to deter birds in London, Paris, and New York.
Professor John Mainstone and the late Professor Thomas Parnell from the University of Queensland in Brisbane received the Ig Nobel Prize in Physics.
Mainstone revealed that in 1927, Parnell began an experiment that has since become the longest-running experiment in history, observing the ultra-slow movement of droplets of pitch falling from a funnel.
The experiment aims to demonstrate that pitch, a brittle solid that can be shattered with a hammer, can eventually flow like a liquid if left alone long enough.
So far, only eight droplets have fallen since the experiment began, and scientists will have to wait another decade for more droplets to appear.
“To date, no one has actually observed when the pitch droplets separate from the mass in the funnel. In 2000, we thought we had captured that moment on film, but unfortunately, the camera malfunctioned right at the crucial moment,” Mainstone, who continued the experiment after Parnell’s death, stated.
Mainstone acknowledges that some may think their work is worse than watching grass grow or waiting for paint to dry, but he proudly mentions that the experiment has made it into textbooks. He declared he will continue to collect data on the viscosity of pitch, which is 100 billion times that of water.
The camera has resumed working, so you can watch the pitch droplets fall. But don’t hold your breath, as the next droplet won’t fall until 2011.
The Ig Nobel Prize in Medicine was awarded to an American who invented artificial testicles for dogs, available in three sizes and three firmness levels.
The Chemistry Prize went to two American researchers who discovered that swimming in syrup is no slower than swimming in water.
A Japanese researcher received the Nutrition Prize for photographing and analyzing every meal he consumed over 34 years.
Meanwhile, German researchers won the Fluid Dynamics Prize for calculating the pressure produced inside a penguin during defecation.
M.T. (according to ABC Online)
