1 post tagged “ceremony”

The Seventeenth 1st Annual Ig Nobel were held last night.  In attendance were several Nobel Laureates, past winners, and various other Ignitaries (including the Swedish Meatball Royalty).  The pre-ceremony included a special on-stage experiment based on one of this year's prize winners (Brian Wansink of Cornell University for investigating the limits of human appetite by feeding volunteers a self-refilling, "bottomless" bowl of soup).

Don Featherstone, inventor of the pink flamingo lawn ornament, was among the past winners who got up to make a speech.

This year's theme was "Chicken", and before new winners were announced Doug Zonker delivered the Keynote Address (you'll notice a couple paper airplanes captured in the pictures from the keynote address).  Other ceremony events include a couple "Moments of Science," a mini-opera in three acts titled "Chicken versus Egg," 24/7 Lectures (deliver detailed technical information about a subject in 24 seconds, followed by a 7 word summary that anyone can understand), and the Win-a-Date-with-a-Nobel-Laureate contest.

If one of the prize recipients made a speech that seemed to go on too long, eight year old "Miss Sweety Poo" would walk over to the lectern and repeat the phrase "Please stop, I'm bored" until the recipient stopped talking.

Other moments of note were the Nobel Laureates being given samples of ice cream from Gus Rancatore (owner of Toscanini's Ice Cream) inspired by prize winner Mayu Yamamoto, from Japan, who developed a method to extract vanilla fragrance and flavoring from cow dung.  Toscanini's in Central Square is giving more samples away at 11am this morning.  The Laureates were once again subject to embarrassment when they were dressed up as eggs for the final act of the opera.  Laureates in attendance were Jerome Friedman (Physics 1990), Roy Glauber (Physics 2005), Dudley Herschbach (Chemistry 1986), William Lipscomb (Chemisty 1976), Craig Mello (Physiology or Medicine 2006), and Rich Roberts (Physiology or Medicine 1993).