IgNobel 2021: sex and nasal congestion, upside down rhinos, beard hair …

Created in 1991, the IgNobel are a good-natured parody of the Nobel Prizes, and honor scientific studies ” that first make people laugh, then make them think “. When presenting their award, winners must explain their work twice: once every 24 seconds and once every second, in just seven words. The ceremony also includes mini-operas, which this year focused on engineering, the theme of the evening. Here are the main winners of the 2021 vintage.

IgNobel of Biology

• Citation: Susanne Schötz (Sweden) for analyzing variations in purr, chirp, chatter, roll, chirp, whisper, meow, moan, squeal, hiss, howl, growl and others communication modes between the cat and the human.

The cat is an inexhaustible source of scientific inspiration. Proof is further with this set of five studies on vocalizations emitted by cats, which seems to be the passion of this Swedish researcher. She, for example, found that a combined whisper and meow is the kitten’s most common utterance, while looking at birds through a window will elicit prolonged chatter or tweets.

IgNobel of medicine

• Citation: Olcay Cem Bulut, Dare Oladokun, Burkard Lippert and Ralph Hohenberger, for demonstrating that orgasms sex can be as effective as decongestant drugs in improving the famous ” nose blocked “.

In 1897, a German otolaryngologist named Wilhelm Fliess, a close friend and confidant of Freud, stated that there was a physiological connection between the nose and the genitals. Based on this premise, which has never been scientifically verified, German, Turkish and British researchers have wondered whether sex could promote nasal decongestion. They easily found 18 voluntary couples and measured their debit respiratory before and after orgasm. The effect is clearly positive, but lasts less than that of the nasal spray, report the authors of the study.

IgNobel Ecology

• Citation: Leila Satari, Alba Guillén, Àngela Vidal-Verdú and Manuel Porcar, for using the analysis genetic in order to identify the different cash from bacteria that reside in leftover chewing gum stuck on the sidewalks of various countries.

Unfortunately, people have a bad habit of throwing used chewing gum all over the place, especially on sidewalks. But, if this practice is a plague for cleaning services, it has enabled a team of Spanish and Iranian scientists to study the bacteria present in chewing gum from five different countries, and to monitor their evolution over time. . The researchers found that the oral bacteria initially present in the gum gradually gave way to bacteria present in the environment, which allow the degradation of the chewing gum.

IgNobel in chemistry

• Citation: Jörg Wicker, Nicolas Krauter, Bettina Derstroff, Christof Stönner, Efstratios Bourtsoukidis, Achim Edtbauer, Jochen Wulf, Thomas Klüpfel, Stefan Kramer and Jonathan Williams, for chemically analyzing the air inside cinemas.

Jörg Wicker and his colleagues published in 2015 an intriguing study on volatile organic compounds (COV) issued by viewers in response to specific scenes in a given film. In particular, the researchers found that when the heart rate of spectators increases, an increase in CO emissions is detected.₂ and other VOCs, some of which correspond to a specific type of scene. This effect is especially true for scenes of suspense and comedy.

IgNobel in economics

• Quote: Pavlo Blavatskyy, for discovering that theobesity politicians in a country can be a good indicator of corruption in that country.

Cock-a-doodle Doo ! The igNobel in economics went this year to a researcher from the Montpellier Business School, for his work on corruption. The latter wondered if thebody mass index (IMC) of a leader could be linked to corruption in a given country. He thus selected 299 faces of political leaders from 15 post-Soviet states, “ where corruption is perceived to be very important “. Result: we indeed observe a strong correlation between the two indices. For example, the Baltic States (Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia) and Georgia are considered the least corrupt, and their political leaders have l’IMC lowest median.

IgNobel transport

• Citation: Robin Radcliffe, Mark Jago, Peter Morkel, Estelle Morkel, Pierre du Preez, Piet Beytell, Birgit Kotting, Bakker Manuel, Jan Hendrik du Preez, Michele Miller, Julia Felippe, Stephen Parry and Robin Gleed, for having determined by experience s ‘it is safer to carry a rhinoceros airborne upside down.

A rhino is it less stressed when transported upside down or horizontally when transported by helicopter. This crucial question was analyzed by Robin Radcliffe and his co-authors in a 2021 study, which notably analyzed the effects of posture and sedatives administered to twelve black rhinos during their transfer. The researchers had speculated that the animals’ upside down posture would cause more harmful effects than the horizontal (side) posture, but their results failed to confirm this.

IgNobel of peace

• Quote: Ethan Beseris, Steven Naleway and David Carrier, for testing the hypothesis that humans developed beards to protect themselves from being punched in the face.

A thick beard has been seen as a sign of manhood throughout the ages. But Ethan Beseris and his colleagues wondered if the beard could perform other functions as well. They decided to test them if the thick beard hairs could offer a good protection against trauma resulting from strikes during a fight. They found that skin samples with hair in fact dampened the blows by 30%. This would explain, according to the researchers, why men ” with high masculinity and aggressiveness Have a thick beard.