http://www.improbable.com/ig/2005/2005-details.html
The 2005 winners:
AGRICULTURAL HISTORY: James Watson of Massey University, New Zealand,
for his scholarly study, "The Significance of Mr. Richard Buckley’s
Exploding Trousers."
PHYSICS: John Mainstone and the late Thomas Parnell of the University of
Queensland, Australia, for patiently conducting an experiment that began
in the year 1927 — in which a glob of congealed black tar has been
slowly, slowly dripping through a funnel, at a rate of approximately one
drop every nine years.
MEDICINE: Gregg A. Miller of Oak Grove, Missouri, for inventing
Neuticles — artificial replacement testicles for dogs, which are
available in three sizes, and three degrees of firmness.
LITERATURE: The Internet entrepreneurs of Nigeria, for creating and then
using e-mail to distribute a bold series of short stories, thus
introducing millions of readers to a cast of rich characters — General
Sani Abacha, Mrs. Mariam Sanni Abacha, Barrister Jon A Mbeki Esq., and
others — each of whom requires just a small amount of expense money so
as to obtain access to the great wealth to which they are entitled and
which they would like to share with the kind person who assists them.
PEACE: Claire Rind and Peter Simmons of Newcastle University, in the
U.K., for electrically monitoring the activity of a brain cell in a
locust while that locust was watching selected highlights from the movie
"Star Wars."
ECONOMICS: Gauri Nanda of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for
inventing an alarm clock that runs away and hides, repeatedly, thus
ensuring that people DO get out of bed, and thus theoretically adding
many productive hours to the workday.
CHEMISTRY: Edward Cussler of the University of Minnesota and Brian
Gettelfinger of the University of Minnesota and the University of
Wisconsin, for conducting a careful experiment to settle the
longstanding scientific question: can people swim faster in syrup or in
water?
BIOLOGY: Benjamin Smith of the University of Adelaide, Australia and the
University of Toronto, Canada and the Firmenich perfume company, Geneva,
Switzerland, and ChemComm Enterprises, Archamps, France; Craig Williams
of James Cook University and the University of South Australia; Michael
Tyler of the University of Adelaide; Brian Williams of the University of
Adelaide; and Yoji Hayasaka of the Australian Wine Research Institute;
for painstakingly smelling and cataloging the peculiar odors produced by
131 different species of frogs when the frogs were feeling stressed.
NUTRITION: Dr. Yoshiro Nakamats of Tokyo, Japan, for photographing and
retrospectively analyzing every meal he has consumed during a period of
34 years (and counting).
FLUID DYNAMICS: Victor Benno Meyer-Rochow of International University
Bremen, Germany and the University of Oulu , Finland; and Jozsef Gal of
Loránd Eötvös University, Hungary, for using basic principles of physics
to calculate the pressure that builds up inside a penguin, as detailed
in their report "Pressures Produced When Penguins Pooh — Calculations
on Avian Defaecation."
Share and enjoy,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://www.xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
http://www.glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
http://www.sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
