The Hindu : Front Page : Ig Nobel award for work on potato crisps…

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Ig Nobel award for work on potato crisps…

Ian Sample

Many win plaudits at irreverent highlight of the academic calendar

Ten individuals and two groups found a place on Thursday night in the list of this year’s Ig Nobel prize winners at the annual awards ceremony at Harvard University.

The Ig Nobel for Literature was awarded for research into the different breeds of unpleasant character one might encounter in the workplace. The award for Nutrition went to scientists at Oxford University who proved stale crisps taste better when eaten to an accompaniment of crunchy sounds.

The Igs have become an irreverent highlight of the academic calendar, an annual exercise to celebrate research that makes people laugh first and think later. They are timed to coincide with the rather more lucrative and legitimate Nobel prizes, which will be awarded in Stockholm next week.

The ceremony is hosted by the tongue-in-cheek journal, Annals of Improbable Research, and is attended by real Nobel prize winners and a 1,000-strong audience.

This year’s recipients were given 60 seconds to deliver their acceptance speech, a time limit set by an eight-year-old girl.

David Sims of the Cass Business School in London won the literature prize.

Charles Spence, Professor of experimental psychology at Oxford University, was awarded the Ig for nutrition for his investigation into the gastronomical role of sound. In the study, volunteers ate crisps of varying freshness while wearing headphones.

As they ate, the sound of the crisp breaking was modified by a computer and played back to see if it changed their perception of the crisp’s freshness. By making the crunch sounds louder, or by boosting the high frequencies, he made people rate the crisps to be 15 per cent fresher.

Collaboration

The work led to a collaboration with Heston Blumenthal at the Fat Duck restaurant in Bray, England, who played diners the sound of crashing waves to improve the flavour of oysters, and sizzling bacon to enhance his egg and bacon ice cream. “I’m very happy to be receiving the award,” said Professor Spence. He is now testing why crisps come in noisy packets.

The Ig Nobel prize for medicine was awarded to Dan Ariely at Duke University in North Carolina for a landmark study proving that costly placebos are more effective than cheap ones.

His team told volunteers they were being given a new kind of painkiller, with some receiving an expensive one and others a cheaper version. All of them received the same sugar pills, but those who thought their pills were more expensive reported less pain when given small electric shocks.

“This is the proudest day of my life,” said Dr. Arierly. “The Ig Nobels are humorous, but the work often examines things in real life, like why buttered toast is more likely to land face down.”

Dr. Arierly said his work has serious implications for the medical industry. Many patients are told they can only have cheaper drugs, or have inexpensive-looking medication, which could undermine how effective the drugs are. While the active ingredients of the drug will help treat symptoms, often they work in tandem with the placebo effect, which triggers the body’s own healing mechanisms. — © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2008

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