The 2018 Ig Nobel prizes are out

[MillCreek]

https://www.improbable.com/ig/winners/#ig2018

My favorite this year is the Nutrition Prize, which has cautionary advice for all of us after TEOTWAWKI:

NUTRITION PRIZE [ZIMBABWE, TANZANIA, UK] — James Cole, for calculating that the caloric intake from a human-cannibalism diet is significantly lower than the caloric intake from most other traditional meat diets.

REFERENCE: "Assessing the Calorific Significance of Episodes of Human Cannibalism in the Paleolithic," James Cole, Scientific Reports, vol. 7, no. 44707, April 7, 2017.

WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: James Cole

[makattak]

https://www.improbable.com/ig/winners/#ig2018

My favorite this year is the Nutrition Prize, which has cautionary advice for all of us after TEOTWAWKI:

NUTRITION PRIZE [ZIMBABWE, TANZANIA, UK] — James Cole, for calculating that the caloric intake from a human-cannibalism diet is significantly lower than the caloric intake from most other traditional meat diets.

REFERENCE: "Assessing the Calorific Significance of Episodes of Human Cannibalism in the Paleolithic," James Cole, Scientific Reports, vol. 7, no. 44707, April 7, 2017.

WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: James Cole

I REALLY would rather not attend that awards dinner.

[makattak]

I'm not sure how this made the IGNobels:

CHEMISTRY PRIZE [PORTUGAL] — Paula Romão, Adília Alarcão and the late César Viana, for measuring the degree to which human saliva is a good cleaning agent for dirty surfaces.

REFERENCE: "Human Saliva as a Cleaning Agent for Dirty Surfaces," by Paula M. S. Romão, Adília M. Alarcão and César A.N. Viana, Studies in Conservation, vol. 35, 1990, pp. 153-155.

WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: The winners delivered their acceptance speech via recorded video.

That seems useful information to know.

[MillCreek]

^^^I would have gotten more from the study if it was on dog saliva.  The dog thinks a big part of his job is to pre-treat the dishes before they go into the dishwasher.

[230RN]

LITERATURE PRIZE [AUSTRALIA, EL SALVADOR, UK] — Thea Blackler, Rafael Gomez, Vesna Popovic and M. Helen Thompson, for documenting that most people who use complicated products do not read the instruction manual.

REFERENCE: "Life Is Too Short to RTFM: How Users Relate to Documentation and Excess Features in Consumer Products," Alethea L. Blackler, Rafael Gomez, Vesna Popovic and M. Helen Thompson, Interacting With Computers, vol. 28, no. 1, 2014, pp. 27-46.

WHO PLANS TO ATTEND THE CEREMONY: Thea Blackler

[Firethorn]

^^^I would have gotten more from the study if it was on dog saliva.  The dog thinks a big part of his job is to pre-treat the dishes before they go into the dishwasher.

I know that dishes generally come out very clean, never a problem with remaining stuck food after the dog's been at it.