Ig Nobel Prize Winners for 2010

The tongue-in-cheek Ig Nobel awards for "improbable research" have become almost as famous as the real Nobels. The awards are run by the science humour magazine Annals of Improbable Research. They are supposed to "first make people laugh, and then make them think". Here is a picture of the prize, no money is won (unlike the Nobel Prizes).
All the research, bar some special prizes, is real and published in bona fide academic journals. As part of the fun, the prizes are also handed over by genuine Nobel Laureates.
The full list of winners:
Engineering Prize: Karina Acevedo-Whitehouse (UK) and colleagues for perfecting a method to collect whale snot, using a remote-control helicopter.
Medicine Prize: Simon Rietveld (Netherlands) and colleagues for discovering that symptoms of asthma can be treated with a roller-coaster ride.
Transportation Planning Prize: Toshiyuki Nakagaki (Japan) and colleagues for using slime mould to determine the optimal routes for railroad tracks.
Physics Prize: Lianne Parkin (New Zealand) and colleagues for demonstrating that, on icy footpaths in wintertime, people slip and fall less often if they wear socks on the outside of their shoes.
Peace Prize: Richard Stephens (UK) and colleagues for confirming the widely held belief that swearing relieves pain.
Public health Prize: Manuel Barbeito (US) and colleagues for determining by experiment that microbes cling to bearded scientists.
Economics Prize: Awarded to the executives and directors of Goldman Sachs, AIG, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, and Magnetar for creating and promoting new ways to invest money — ways that maximize financial gain and minimize financial risk for the world economy, or for a portion thereof.
Chemistry Prize: Eric Adams (US) and colleagues for disproving the old belief that oil and water don't mix. The research, supported by BP, was published under the title: "Review of Deep Oil Spill Modeling Activity Supported by the Deep Spill JIP and Offshore Operator's Committee".
Management Prize: Alessandro Pluchino (Italy) and colleagues for demonstrating mathematically that organisations would become more efficient if they promoted people at random.
Biology Prize: Libiao Zhang (China) and colleagues for scientifically documenting fellatio in fruit bats.

I thought charity begins at home

I was amazed and astounded to find that, the British people, pay out £9.1 billion in aid to other countries. And we give China (not Taiwan) but THE China that is the one making money hand over fist £50 million a year!

How can that be when our National debt from figures published in May 2010, was £927.4 billion or 63.7% of National GDP (Source: Office National Statistics).

I know where we can get 9 billion a year!

Talk Like a Pirate Day

Today is the International Talk Like a Pirate Day (ITLAPD) a holiday announced in 1995 by Mark Summers and John Baur of Portland, Oregon, who declared 19th September each year seeing that the day when one and all in the globe must converse like a pirate.

For instance, a follower of this holiday would meet friends not with “Hello”, but also with “Ahoy, me hearty!” The vacation, and its celebration, spring from the romanticized sight of Golden Age of Piracy.

My offering: Were are your buccaneers? On me buccan head!

Summer Ski Jumping

I was in the gym the other day and like most gyms it has a TV facing the treadmills. On the TV was ski jumping on grass! Ski jumping is now a summer sport!

Is it me or is this the most insane sport ever? Can you imagine how it started? In a pub one day in the 1980’s in Scandinavia a bloke says to his mates “I know, let’s get some ski’s and ski down the local hilly road and when we get to the bend why dont we go straight over the edge and see who can go the furthest”. “Brilliant” say his mates as they don there skies!

Dumb and Dumber

Roughly one-fourth of people in the USA don’t know that the original settlers declared its independence from Great Britain, according to a new Marist poll, which says 26% of people in that country don’t know that the USA declared its independence from Great Britain. That includes 20% who were unsure and 6% who thought the U.S. separated from another nation.
So what country do people think the U.S. achieved its independence from? Among the countries mentioned were France, China, Japan, Mexico and Spain. The poll surveyed 1,004 Americans in June and had 3% margin of error.
Having lived in America, this comes as no surprise, The hourly news consists of one half hour national news, a half hour local news and before it closes 60 seconds of World News, and that’s on ABC, NBC, CBS etc.
Most Americans never leave the USA, few have passports and really don’t care about the rest of the world, unless it’s fighting (peace-keeping) there.

The unseen howlers in web addresses

I read this in the Sunday Times this weekend. Funny.

When Big Al’s bowling alley and restaurant wanted a jaunty name for its website, I Love Big Al’s seemed the obvious choice.
It was only when the site was up and running that the horrible truth dawned: run the words together and you might also attract visitors looking for women who swing both ways — I Love Bi Gals.
The business, in Vancouver, Washington state, is one of the tamer entries in a new compendium of websites whose names seemed safe enough at the time, but become somewhat unfortunate when strung together as a web address.
With hindsight, the compilers of a list of celebrity agents called Who Represents would probably have thought twice about calling their website whorepresents.com.

Les Bocages, a team of British tree surgeons working in Brittany, might also have chosen something other than the French word for “groves” — especially if they’d seen it written as lesbocages, which conjures up an altogether different image.

And spare a thought for the Mole Station nursery, a garden products company in New South Wales, Australia, whose web address used to be molestationnursery. It has now been changed to the not-at-all-amusing molerivernursery.
“In a world without spaces we mentally insert our own,” said Andy Geldman, a software designer and author of Slurls: They Called Their Website What? “And you might not stick yours where I stick mine.”
His book lists more than 150 such sites, anything from American Scrap Metal (or americanscrapmetal) to ustinc.com.
Website names have inspired pranksters. At first glance you might think that Powergen, the energy firm, had made a terrible error with the site of its Italian branch: powergenitalia. Actually it has nothing to do with Powergen.
There is also suspicion that Pen Island, a firm that apparently offers a range of bespoke pens, knew exactly what it was doing when it named its website penisland.net.
Most of the ambiguities prompt the response: what were they thinking? Log on to menlove.com and you do not expect to find the site of a Toyota dealer in sleepy Utah. Likewise, would you feel comfortable as a hotel owner renting bedlinen from ladrape.co.uk? Yet this is the site of a Cheshire firm.
Most website owners seem to be philosophical about the ambiguity. A spokesman for therapistfinder, which lists therapists in California, sighed and then admitted: “We have received a few bizarre phone calls.”
Others fail to see the funny side. A spokesman for Choose Spain, a company offering holiday villas on its website, called choosespain.com, said flatly: “It was too late to change it once we realised.”
Sometimes it takes a while for the horrible truth to sink in. When Michelle Aisworth was setting up her mobile dog-grooming service in Warwickshire, she wanted a name that explained what the company was all about. So she chose doggiestyles for her website, completely unaware, she says, of its sexual meaning.
So the moral is this: when choosing a name for your business in this cyber age, always think how it would read on a web address. If all else fails, just look it up on Go Ogle.

Iranian cleric blames quakes on promiscuous women OR Did the earth move for You?

Women who wear revealing clothing and behave promiscuously are to blame for earthquakes, an Iranian cleric says. Hojjat ol-eslam Kazem Sediqi, the acting Friday prayer leader in Tehran, said women should stick to strict codes of modesty to protect themselves.
"Many women who do not dress modestly lead young men astray and spread adultery in society which increases earthquakes," he explained. Mr Sediqi was delivering a televised sermon at the Tehran University campus mosque last Friday.
"What can we do to avoid being buried under the rubble? There is no other solution but to take refuge in religion and to adapt our lives to Islam's moral codes," he said. “Now if a natural earthquake hits Tehran, no one will be able to confront such a calamity but God's power, only God's power. So lets not disappoint God."
You could not make this up! If this was a priest or vicar in England or even Spain you would have him put away!

You Could not make it Up – Playboy on TV

TV bosses in the US have apologised after preview clips of the Playboy channel were accidentally played out on two children's channels.
A Time Warner Cable (TWC) spokesman said a "technical glitch" was to blame for the mistake, which lasted two hours.
The company was made aware of the error after parents called in to report it.
TWC said it had procedures in place to catch errors, but it was not picked up as it affected only a small area.

You could not make it Up - Titanic

A panicking sailor whose ship was sinking in the Caribbean phoned the only number he could remember – his best friend back in Britain.
Thankfully the friend, Alex Evans, is a life boatman. He calmly used his mobile phone to co-ordinate a dramatic rescue operation for Mark Corbett and two other crewmen aboard a motor yacht with the unfortunate name of Titanic near the island of St Kitts.
And he did it all without leaving the DIY store where he was shopping with his mother.

Mark was part of a skeleton crew taking the yacht from Grenada to Puerto Rico for a refit.
He told Alex: ‘I’m on a ship in the Caribbean, we’re taking on water and we’re sinking. ‘We’ve lost all power so we can’t use the long-range radio. We’re too far from shore to use the VHF radio so I’m using the satellite phone – and yours is the only number I could remember off the top of my head. The ship is the Motor Yacht Titanic.’
Mr Evans jotted down the ship’s latitude and longitude on a till receipt then called Milford Haven Coastguard and asked to be passed to the Maritime Rescue Co-ordination Centre in Falmouth, Cornwall, which deals with all international incidents.
He told them the Titanic’s position – and stressed the boat was taking on water.
A major rescue operation was then launched for the 1,700-ton yacht owned by a company called White Star Ltd, the same name as the cruise line which owned the ill-fated original Titanic.
Three hours later spotter planes found it barely above water, and it was towed by U.S. coastguards to safety in St Kitts.

You Could not make it up – Lorry on A1(M)

Dramatic footage has emerged of a lorry apparently pushing a car sideways along  a motorway in Yorkshire. The footage, which was posted on YouTube, shows the truck travelling along the A1(M) near Wetherby with the Clio trapped in front.
The scene was filmed on a mobile phone by another motorist.
It is believed that the female driver of the Clio had not been injured in the incident that happened on 13 January and police had investigated, but to date no action had been taken against the lorry driver.
West Yorkshire Police said officers attended the scene after receiving reports of a collision. A spokesman said: "At the time of our attendance there were no injuries and both vehicles were on the hard shoulder of the motorway.

You Could not Make it Up - Russian Ship

This Russian registered cargo vessel has been issued with a Detention Notice due to failure to comply with merchant legislation in Fowey, Cornwall. A Port State Control Inspector visited the vessel and after a preliminary inspection detained the vessel due to the ship having a hole in the port side hull plating into the number 2 water ballast tank. The vessel also has 2 major conformities recorded against the International Safety Management Code. The vessel had sailed from two previous ports with this hull damage with the company instructing the master to continue its voyages.

Petrol filler Cap

When driving a borrowed or rented car, you may not always be aware of which side the petrol filler cap is on. This means either a quick stop before you pull up in front of the relevant pump, a cross-your-fingers and hope you choose the right pump option or that the pump's pipe is long enough to reach, or a quick crane out of the window to see whereabouts the cap is.

But, apparently, the information is right in front of your nose - staring at you from the dashboard! Looking at the petrol gauge, you will see a small icon of a petrol pump. The handle of the petrol pump will be either on the left or right side - and this depicts on which side of the vehicle the filler cap is! Simple!

Password

During a recent password audit at the Bank of Ireland it was found that one person was using the following password: 

MickeyMinniePlutoHueyLouieDeweyDonaldGoofyDublin 

When was asked why he had such a long password: he replied ''Bejazus! are yez feckin' stupid? Shore Oi was told me password had to be at least 8 characters long and include one capital.

You Could not make it Up (5) Pair refuse River Tees rescue

Two people cut off by the tide at the mouth of the River Tees refused to be rescued, unless the lifeboat also took their collection of driftwood.

After being alerted to the stranded pair, a RNLI crew found that a woman was suffering from mild hypothermia. The pair refused to be taken ashore without the shopping trolley of wood.

As the woman needed medical attention, the crew had to concede, despite the transportation difficulty. The man and woman refused medical assistance, and left the scene in their own vehicle. Police later disposed of the wood in the river.

You Could not Make it up! (4)

Floor collapses at Weight Watchers meeting

A floor collapsed beneath a group of about 20 members of Weight Watchers as they gathered to compare how many pounds they had shed over Christmas. Members of the weight-loss club were lining up to compare readings on the scales when they heard a bang as the floor came away from the walls of their meeting room in Växjö in southern Sweden.They abandoned the room as the floor started to give way in other areas. No one was injured in the incident, the cause of which is being investigated. The scales were not damaged and the weigh-in continued in a nearby corridor.

You could Not make it Up (3)

Two Liverpool fans were taken to court after police allegedly deemed their chants of “Yanks Out” against the club’s controversial owners as “racist.” The fans were hauled off the streets by officers during a peaceful protest against the American multi-millionaires Tom Hicks and George Gillett before the Liverpool game against Arsenal at Anfield in mid-December.

They were taken to a police station, kept for six hours, before being charged with “an offence of public order.” A month later, at court the Crown Prosecution Service immediately withdrew their case due to a perceived lack of evidence.

Fat Cat MP charged (You could not make it Up)

David Chaytor MP is to have criminal charges brought against him for false expenses claims. The Bury MP, claimed a total of £12,925 for his rent payments (on a flat he owned) between September 2005 and August 2006.He stopped the claims for rent when he bought another flat in the same block using a mortgage. While keeping the original flat, he told the Commons his new property was his second home. This flipping of homes meant he could claim more than £11,000 in stamp duty and legal fees on his new purchase.

In August 2007 he began claiming rent for another property he had designated as his second home. This cottage belonged to his mother Olive, who had moved into a care home because she had Alzheimer’s disease. The Commons had introduced new rules in July 2006 preventing MPs from claiming expenses on properties rented from relatives. Nonetheless, Chaytor claimed a total of £5,400 over the six months that he rented the flat from his mother. The relationship would not have been obvious to the Commons authorities as his mother, who died last year, had remarried and used the surname Trickett.

HOW CHAYTOR FLIPPED

January 2004 Chaytor pays off mortgage on Westminster flat

September 2005 Flips second home to the flat and claims £12,925 in “rent”

September 2006 Buys another flat in same block and flips second home. Claims £11,500 in stamp duty and legal fees

August 2007 Flips second home to mother’s Bury cottage and claims £5,400 in “rent”

February 2008 Flips second home to Todmorden and claims £1,500 for furnishings

You Could not Make it up! (2)

Too much snow closes Scottish ski centre

The CairnGorm Mountain ski centre in the Highlands will be closed for the day - because of too much snow. After a two-day blizzard, the operators have had to bring in huge caterpillar vehicles and snow blowers to try to clear the approach road and the slopes.

The approach are blocked by 15ft snow drifts and parts of the funicular railway track up the mountain and the ski-tows had been covered by snow. and some of our ski-tow towers are just sticking out of the snow."