This year’s Ig Nobel awards
Report in the Guardian about this year’s Ig Nobel awards. A couple are rather good:
Veterinary medicine prize
Catherine Douglas and Peter Rowlinson at Newcastle University’s school of agriculture share the award for the groundbreaking discovery that giving cows names such as Daisy increases their milk yield. “It’s the highlight of my career,” said Douglas. “The work amused the public, but it addressed a serious issue about the welfare of animals and points to an easy way to improve yields by reducing stress in cattle.”Mathematics prize
Awarded to Gideon Gono, governor of Zimbabwe’s Reserve Bank, for giving people a simple way of dealing with a wide range of numbers. Gono ordered his bank to print notes with denominations ranging from one cent to one hundred trillion dollars.
The one about police in Ireland misreading Polish driving licences must be a joke though. Fuller details and references are on the improbable research site.
