The 2016 Ig Nobel awards were announced at a ceremony on Sept 22 at Harvard University, a great day for those of us with a mild taste for the bizarre (yes, I read News of the Weird religiously – and I’m well aware there are far more bizarre things out there – like Steam Powered Giraffe). My attention was diverted first by the Biology Prize, awarded jointly to Charles Foster and Thomas Thwaites. Each spent time living as another species, Mr. Foster as a badger, otter, deer, fox, and a bird, while Mr. Thwaites created prosthetics (including a rumen for digesting grass) allowing him to spend three days living as a goat. In the latter case, this is from the man’s website:
I tried to become a goat to escape the angst inherent in being a human. The project became an exploration of how close modern technology can take us to fulfilling an ancient human dream: to take on characteristics from other animals. But instead of the ferocity of a bear, or the perspective of a bird, the characteristic most useful in modern life is something else; being present in the moment perhaps.
The other intriguing research was for the Medicine Prize:
Christoph Helmchen, Carina Palzer, Thomas Münte, Silke Anders, and Andreas Sprenger, for discovering that if you have an itch on the left side of your body, you can relieve it by looking into a mirror and scratching the right side of your body (and vice versa). REFERENCE: “Itch Relief by Mirror Scratching. A Psychophysical Study,” Christoph Helmchen, Carina Palzer, Thomas F. Münte, Silke Anders, Andreas Sprenger, PLoS ONE, vol. 8, no 12, December 26, 2013, e82756.
This reminds me of other research on bending the mind’s perceptions, and adds to a fascinating research body of how the brain can be fooled by its own machinations.
