The laureates of the 2015 Shnobel Prize were announced on September 16
The prize was established by the humor magazine Annals of Improbable Research, published in Cambridge (USA), headed by its permanent editor-in-chief Marc Abrahams. Initially, the Shnobel Prize was awarded 'For achievements that cannot be reproduced, or there is no point in doing so.' But later the wording was changed, and now it is awarded 'For achievements that first make you laugh, and then make you think.' With the exception of three prizes awarded in the first year, the Shnobel Prize is awarded for real work. Every year, 10 people become its laureates. As 'Russkaya Germaniya' notes, anyone has the right to nominate candidates, and self-nomination is allowed.
This year, the anniversary 25th Shnobel Prize ceremony took place at the Sanders Theatre at Harvard University in the presence of 1,000 spectators and 300 representatives of the world's media. Each laureate received a decent cash prize – a check for 10 trillion Zimbabwean dollars (exchange rate on the day of the ceremony: 361.9 thousand ZWD per 1 USD).
In exchange for receiving the check, laureates had to briefly explain to the esteemed audience, which included real Nobel laureates, the essence of their discovery, for which 24 seconds were allotted. As soon as the time was up, an 8-year-old girl sitting on stage next to the microphone would 'silence' the speaker with a phrase amplified many times by the equipment: 'Please stop, I'm bored.'
In the 'Chemistry' category, the prize was awarded to a group of scientists from the USA and Australia who discovered a way to turn boiled chicken eggs into raw ones (I think, a not entirely useless discovery – restoring denatured protein).
The Physics award was given to American scientists who discovered the Universal Law of Urination. They proved that the duration of urination in mammals is not related to size and is 21 seconds.
The Literature Prize was awarded to a group of psycholinguistics specialists from the Max Planck Institute in Nijmegen (Netherlands), who established that an analog of the English particle 'huh?' (Russian 'a?' or 'che?'), used to ask a speaker to repeat, exists in every language in the world. The scientists formulated the significance of the discovery as follows: 'This tiny word is an indispensable tool of human communication, because without it we could not make it understood that we have hearing problems or that the content of the spoken thought is not clear' – rattled off group leader Mark Dingemanse.
The Economics award was given to the head of the Bangkok police, who proposed paying police officers a bonus for refusing bribes.
The Medicine Prize was shared between two groups of scientists who studied the effects of intense (roughly speaking, French) kisses. The Japanese were awarded for discovering the effect of reducing the risk of allergic skin rashes. The Slovaks – for establishing the fact of long-term (up to an hour after a kiss) retention of a partner's DNA in the oral cavity.
The laureates in mathematics were Austrian researchers Elisabeth Oberzaucher and Karl Grammer, who mathematically verified the authenticity of the legend that the Moroccan Sultan Ismael Ibn Sharif (1672−1727), who had a harem of 500 concubines, was the father of 888 children, including 600 sons. Having calculated an algorithm, the authors of the study concluded that this is possible if one has sex once every day and a half for 32 years.
The Biology award went to scientists from the USA and Chile, who proved that if a chicken is fitted with a tail prosthesis, it will walk like a dinosaur.
The prize in the 'Medical Diagnosis' category was awarded to British researcher Dr. Diallah Karim, who irrefutably established that increased abdominal pain when driving over a 'speed bump' indicates the presence of acute appendicitis.
Two prizes at once – in the 'Psychology' and 'Entomology' categories – went to American Justin Shmidt for his 'Insect Sting Pain Index.' Having selected 21 species of six-legged creatures and offering them 25 areas of his own body, the brave researcher confirmed that honey bees sting the most painfully, and the most sensitive areas of the body are the upper lip, nostrils, and penis.
The award ceremony ended with the traditional parting words of the editor-in-chief of the Annals of Improbable Research, Marc Abrahams: 'If you did not win the Ig Nobel Prize this year, and especially if you did, then more luck to you next year!'.