'Gay bomb' scoops Ig Nobel award

[eppur_se_muova]

Source: BBC

Pioneering research into a "gay bomb" that makes enemy troops "sexually irresistible" to each other has scooped one of this year's Ig Nobel Prizes.

Other winners included work on treating hamster jetlag with impotency drugs, extracting vanilla from cow dung, and the side-effects of sword swallowing.

The awards, founded in 1991, mark achievements that "first make people laugh, and then make them think".

The prize ceremony took place at Harvard University, US.

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7026150.stm

[rurallib]

1. Gotta agree. Truly a great use for scientific endeavor

[Spinzonner]

2. Is that the Queen of All Bombs ?

[SKKY]

9. ROFLMAO!!!

:spray: :rofl:

[Demeter]

3. A Couple of Other Winners

Physics - A US-Chile team who ironed out the problem of how sheets become wrinkled.



Linguistics - A University of Barcelona team for showing that rats are unable to tell the difference between a person speaking Japanese backwards and somebody speaking Dutch backwards.

[wtmusic]

5. Hard to find a fresh thesis topic these days. nt

[TroubleMan]

15. My favorite is the 2003 Biology winner, who documented homosexual duck necrophilia.

http://www.improbable.com/ig/ig-pastwinners.html#ig2003
(scroll down to biology)

http://www.nmr.nl/nmr/pages/showPage.do?itemid=1930&instanceid=16

"On 5 June 1995 an adult male mallard (Anas platyrhynchos) collided with the glass façade of the Natuurhistorisch Museum Rotterdam and died. An other drake mallard raped the corpse almost continuously for 75 minutes. Then the author disturbed the scene and secured the dead duck. Dissection showed that the rape-victim indeed was of the male sex. It is concluded that the mallards were engaged in an ‘Attempted Rape Flight’ that resulted in the first described case of homosexual necrophilia in the mallard."

[kineneb]

4. gotta' love the Ig Nobel Awards

especially when the winners blather on about their subject and the little girl says "I'm bored."

I liked this one:

Biology - Dr Johanna van Bronswijk of the Netherlands for carrying out a creepy crawly census of all of the mites, insects, spiders, ferns and fungi that share our beds.

[ooglymoogly]

6. Finally a bomb in drag.

[Bicoastal]

7. I always thought that was a weird concept.

Our "enemy troops" are often suicide bombers. Do you think its going to matter to them if the 99 virgins waiting for them in heaven are all named Bruce?

(Note: I apologize to anyone named Bruce who might have been offended)

[ProudDad]

8. I Love the Ignobles!!!

You can listen to them here:

http://www.sciencefriday.com/pages/1999/Nov/hour1_112699.html



I think the 7 word description of Computer Science one year was the best description of "computer science" EVER:

"Computer Software. Fast, Good, Cheap. Pick Two."




Of course, with windows, they picked "none of the above"!


------------------

Damn, just checked and I posted a link to the 1999 version. The 2007 Ig Nobel is TONIGHT...

Maybe Science Friday will have them on in the near future...

Here are last year's:

http://www.sciencefriday.com/pages/2006/Oct/hour1_100606.html
http://www.sciencefriday.com/pages/2006/Nov/hour2_112406.html

[kickysnana]

10. NEJM is using this stuff..

Yale did a 30 day study. No followup. They gave people who had a Lyme rash either 2 doxycyclene pills or two weeks of antibiotics and then tested them afterwords to see if they tested positive for Lyme.

Lyme is a deep tissue disease and can pass the blood/brain barrier in 48 hours. The barrier heals the organism is no longer in the blood. CDC 2006 shows intracellular infection of brain matter after treatment past the blood/brain barrier. It is a tough, wiley adversary. Any residual organisms in the blood are killed. It takes up to 30 days of antibiotics to reach the acne on the outer skin, standard knowledge. Lyme rash anybody?

At the end of thirty days both groups were doing fine. Secondary Lyme symptoms hit at about 3-6 months. You run fevers, sleep 22 hours a day, fall on your face, run into doors, forget how to drive home. Late Lyme is as debilitating as chronic heart failure. Misdiagnosis most often include MS, ALS, Alzheimer's, CFS and fibormyalgia. But hey, it came from Yale was peer reviewed and published.

Add to that the fact that the 99% of the current Lyme blood test on the market can pick up Lyme in CDC infected blood 39% of the time, Mayos test is 75% less accurate and your CDC approved these tests and insurance companies use them to deny treatment. You know someone with late Lyme and they are not going to get better without treatment and the only treatment is antibiotics, with supportive medicines, and nutritional support. For those who cannot take antibiotics increased salt levels and hyperbaric oxygen are the only treatments. Neither researched or approved because they are paying for crap research like the 30 day study above.

Try not to get sick we are in deep, deep trouble in our health prevention, treatment and care.

[SoxFan]

11. Reality or a Don Adams movie?

We report...you decide.

[KamaAina]

12. How would you deliver that bomb? Drop it from the Enola Gay?

:P

[MilesColtrane]

13. We mustn't let the Russians outpace us in the race for Weapons of Mass Fabulousness. n/t

[TroubleMan]

14. The same group that worked on the "gay bomb" also tried to make a halitosis weapon.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg18524823.800.html

They should hit them with the halitosis chemical and the gay bomb at the same time. That way they'll all want to love each other, but will be unable because of the "severe and lasting halitosis." There's no greater demoralizer than unrequited love.