On Monday I started my bucket list. Why did I choose Sept. 28? Because that’s the day Editor Mark Rosenzweig sent me a link to a Guardian article highlighting the 2015 Ig Nobel awards -- the 25th first annual. I’ve blogged about these improbable awards before ( I'm In Pain, Therefore I Swear; Scientist Swallows Sword In The Name Of Ig Nobels; All Hail The Inventor Of Tequila Diamonds And Other Ig Nobel Winners; 2013 Ig Nobels: Modified Onions Mean No More Tears; Unpredictable Cows) – but this time I decided I want to see them in-person. I want to go to Harvard University and sit in the audience as Ig Nobel operas are sung, paper airplanes are flown and where several of the world's top thinkers each explains her or his subject twice: First: a complete technical description in 24 seconds and then a clear summary that anyone can understand, in seven words. Among the topics this year were firefly sex and internet cat videos – brilliant!
There were several awards handed out that night. Among them was the Chemistry Prize, which was presented to Callum Ormonde and Colin Raston from Australia; and Tom Yuan, Stephan Kudlacek, Sameeran Kunche, Joshua N. Smith, William A. Brown, Kaitlin Pugliese, Tivoli Olsen, Mariam Iftikhar, Gregory Weiss from the United States. The team won for inventing a chemical recipe to partially un-boil an egg.
You can watch the entire event (one hour, 46 minutes and 7 seconds) here. It took place on Sept. 17, 2015.
Also take a look at the teaser that the Guardian posted. It features researchers who studied the average length of animal urination, the consequences of intense kissing and how badly bee stings hurt on different parts of the body.