Im back - with AWARDS!

Whale snot, shit/fuck and fruit bats giving blow jobs – it’s all here folks!

The Ig Nobel Awards have recently been announced. Don’t confuse this with the Nobel Prizes. The Ig Nobels are awarded to scientists whose research makes us laugh…and then makes us think.



Photo of Nobel Laureates Roy Glauber, Sheldon Glashow and James Muller at this years awards modelling the Gas Mask Bras that won an Ig Nobel last year..

First up, for Medicine – the Dutch scientists that discovered riding a roller coaster can treat asthma symptoms. Lucky I don’t get asthma because there is no way you are getting my arse onto one of those things.

Engineering Ig was won by a Mexican/British team for using a remote control helicopter to collect whale snot. Laugh! Then think….how else would you go about collecting snot from whales when you need said snot to monitor disease in whales and help their conservation as a species?

Physics Ig goes to the New Zealand researchers that proved wearing socks outside your shoes reduces slipping on icy paths. Thanks for that guys. I don’t like slipping over on the ice, but I would never have thought of putting my socks on OVER my shoes….

Management Ig Nobel goes to the Italians for “demonstrating mathematically that organizations would become more efficient if they promoted people at random”. Claaaaassic, and I believe it too.

Biology – the Chinese/British researchers skipped off with their prize for revealing documented evidence that female fruit bats perform fellatio on their partners. This is big because apparently humans are the only species that do this….and it shows that fruit bat ladies are really hot little shaggers because giving your bat bloke a blow job before you do it, makes the act of bat copulation looonger. Go you dirty fruity things!

BUT the one I love the bestest and which PROVES my point about fuck being one of the most satisfying words is the Ig Nobel for PEACE won by the Brits and Keele University that proves swearing relieves pain.
During their research they found volunteers could tolerate more pain if they spat out swear words rather than something neutral. In the words of Richard Stephens, the new Ig Nobel Laureate “swearing induces a fight or flight response and nullifies the link between fear of pain and pain perception”.


I can also back this theory with some evidence of my own. See many moons ago I woke in a hospital bed to some random dude using his entire body to ram a metal pole (artistic licence much?) into my chest to relieve the pressure of what turned out to be a collapsed lung. Local anesthesia did nothing to relieve the shock and pain, but I was told to swear my little butt off – which I did with relish and oh MY it really worked. Then I got some decent pain killers and had a great hallucinations……but the swearing worked it’s magic. Fuck yeah.