Ig Nobel: Strange Science Part 2

what was the other one? Neuroscience? Neuroscience, Yes, there was a dead salmon and and there's also some spilt coffee in the other experiment. Just to rehatch really quickly, ignobed Bele Prizes. He's happened every year, put on by the Annals of Improbable Research. It is a celebration of the weird, sometimes mundane, often hilarious, but ultimately useful scientific studies, real scientific studies that happened every year. Uh and uh and and why we should care about The aim is to

make you laugh and to make you think. And I think they do both of these really well. Yes, So this is the part B of the episode where and this one we're just going to run through some of the really cool winners from this year. And uh so, if you haven't listened to the previous episode, it's not required for this one. Um so you can. You can listen to this one first and listen to the other one, or take them in the order that God intended them.

But let's let's go ahead and launch into it. The first of the prizes that were going to discuss today, uh relates to monkeys behind. This is the twelve Anatomy Prize. Yep. Franz Dawal, a biologist at Emory University, and Jennifer Pocarni, a researcher at Emery, won this prize because, uh, they showed that chimps can match the behind of other familiar chimps to their faces. Um so, face to butt, right, and the two were trying to determine whether chimpanzees can

interpret gender from appearance. So, first of all, why is this study funny? I don't even think we really have to say it. First of all, it involves monkeys. Anything involving monkeys that doesn't also involving a vicious mauling attack or or or a tragic death of some kind is going to be hilarious just because monkeys are. You know, we can't help it see ourselves in the ways monkeys behave and monkeys do ridiculous and grotesque things. Uh. So there's that level of it. And then it involves it

involves butts. Anytime a butt is involved in a scientific study, we're all over. It's hilarious, The butt is funny. The things that come out of butts are the are the stuff, the the the ground floor of of comedy. And in this study we have monkey butts, the double good scatology humor in this let's get into the specifics. What they did is they looked at six adult chimpanzees trained on

computerized matching to sample. Um, we're shown a sample behind when and if you want to get some scientific about it, you could say the ano genital region of a chimpanzee. And then they were rewarded for selecting a corresponding facial image. So it's like three thumbnails, one thumbnail of a monkey's button, and then two thumbnails, each with a different monkey's face. So I think, I mean, I think the actual paper I was reading there's actually a comparison made to like Facebook.

So you had like monkey Facebook and then monkey butt book, and then you have to to to piece the two together. So we're studying they're studying this because obviously the way that animals identify each other is of endless interest. We're very interested in how we identify faces as humans, where how other animals identify each other. Like in our previous bat episode, we talked about how bats were able to perceive other members of their species or peer group via

the sounds that they make. I mean, it's a vital part of how we interact socially with the world around us, So we're always interested in that. Monkeys, obviously there's a lot of butt going on in any kind of monkey environment. There's especially if you've ever been to the zoo, you know baboon butts everywhere monkeys are are are naked creatures, they're not wearing clothes. The butt is very much a part of their social interaction, much in the same way of the butt of the dog. It's a part of

this well like baboon's. I'm thinking too about um. Like the estraus, for a baboon, you would be able to tell whether or not a female was um was ready for mating by looking at her butt. Um so of course there's a culture. Yeah, yeah, um, of course. I can't help but think of humans and think, you know, if if another life form we're testing our recognition capabilities, what would they test us on? You know, would they say, no, we could pick one another out by hair? Well there,

I saw a study recently about that about hair. How easily we recognize hair, particular hairstyles with an individual. And in the study, they would take a celebrity with a particular hairstyle like say, I don't know, like a uh, just pick anyone like a John Ham. You know, it's like like John Ham and his hair, and then another celebrity with their sort of signature hair. And if they put one celebrity's hair on the on the other head, you know, digitally, not with a with a blade or anything.

No scalping involved. That for at least for a second, you identify the person based purely on their hair. So take John Ham's hair off, put it on I don't know, Ron Howard, and at a first glance you'll be like, oh, there's John hamm and they're like, oh no, it's it's

actually Ron Howard wearing John Ham's scalp A scene. It always boils down to those most simple things, right, like how our brain is just trained to go into pattern recognition mode and create this fact simile of what we look like or we think we look like to one another. So with humans, we see, we see hair, we see face, and we see things like glasses. We all have that situation where someone who wears glasses suddenly isn't and we

don't recognize them, you know, the whole Superman Clark kn't think. Yeah, it's true. You know, actually when I was little, I remember when my dad would take off his glasses, I would always be a little bit decentered because it wasn't like, hey, you're not Dad anymore, you know, when you're very young like that, it sort of occurs to you in that way. But I do think that this is an interesting study,

and I do think it's uh. I mean, it is about monkey butts, there's no getting around it, um and the recognition, but it also says something about being with people who are familiar to you in the ability to pick out these different things about them and community to write because they were talking about familiar faces to them

and familiar butts. Yeah, and they ultimately found that that that they could they could they could pare a butt with a face that they knew, but not a not a face that they didn't know, you know, I mean, it's not like it's not that interlinated with them. It's not like some sort of magical butt sense that they have. Wow, So a Facebook of butts really for the monkeys, So it's like butt book, and then we could have hairbook as well. I mean these are possibilities. Yeah. I mean.

The other hilarious thing about this is you can't help but anthromomorphize the situation and you start thinking, well, what if they did this with humans? And you're like, you ask yourself, how many butts in the world could I pair with with faces? And uh, you know I I have a hard time answering that one. Well, I don't think most people wouldn't be able to. Yeah, I think maybe maybe one, but but it was you're in a

newdest colony. Well even then, you know, I mean, I just don't think we have the butt sense unless there's something particular about the butt, Like I could probably pick uh, my friend oz Is butt out because I know that he was. This is a great story of his that I'm stealing here. He was shot with a flaming arrow in the arm when he was a kid, because he was apparently one of those kids the kind of good shot in the arm of the flaming era. So they had to take um some butt tissue off to patch

up his arm. So he has like some sort of like he has a big notch out of butt from that. Did he grow up in a big carning community? Um? I think he was just kind of like a Tom Sawyer upbringing. I guess, you know, Um, I thought perhaps his parents were in the gym rost circus. I didn't know. I just I think it was just kids running while with flaming eras like they did back in the day, oh, back in the day before helicopter parents. All right, so let's move on to the next prize that we wanted

to discuss, the acoustics prize. Yes, this one is pretty great. This one, Uh, it comes to us from a pair of researchers in Japan, and they invented this device called the speech camera, which the idea here is, and we've all been in a situation somebody's talking and you really don't want them to talk anymore, You would rather they stopped talking, And this could be Yeah, the oscars, it's like or you know they're up there. They just keep going.

When are they going to stop? Yeah? Yeah, what if I could put a book push your button and make them shut up? And that is what we have here and it but but it's the way they went about it is they they looked at how we speak, all right, when when we're speaking, we're also listening. Words are coming out of our mouth, and even though it's not really happening on a conscious level, we're checking everything that's coming out.

We we have a q A department in our mind that's making sure that the words coming out of our mouth are saying what they need to say and sounding the way they need to sound. And if that doesn't happen, then it's I mean imagine it's it's like a conveyor about at a at a factory. You're building something. You're building your words and if they and if things start coming out at the other end of that assembly line wrong and incorrect, you're gonna shut down the whole line

and figure out what's wrong. And that's what happens when when your speech, if some only things don't seem to be coming out right, it shuts it down. Yeah, And the speech jamra actually creates this shutting down process by playing back the voice of the person who is speaking at a really slight delay, and that does cause confusion in the parts of the brain that are responsible for hearing and processing, and then it causes the person to

either start stuttering or just stop talking altogether. And I do think, as you were saying, it's it's uh, it's incredibly Uh. It's just incredible how sensitive um our speech and hearing abilities are. That just that's slight which just shut everything. So it's not even like a full on echo kind of a thing going on here. It's just a slight tweak, just enough to make your q A

department in your brain shut down the line. Uh. Katsuit Takakurajara and Colgi Toothka excuse me Soukata are the inventors of this, and they said that this technology could also be useful to ensure speakers in a meeting take turns appropriately uh, and that when the person begins speak, you just put this up. I'm just trying to imagine it in corporate culture. Yeah, And I think that's one of

the great things too about it being uh. Some research that came out of Japan, because uh, Japan has a tendency you think of of the of Japanese culture is very very polite and very esteemed and in in the ritual of politeness, and out of that you can you can sort of imagine a certain amount of passive aggressiveness that that that aims at avoiding unpleasantly unpleasantries an awkwardness in a social environment. So instead of having to actually say, look,

you need to be quiet. Now, you're talking too much and you shouldn't be talking. Instead you can just push a button and shut that down. Right, There's something wonderfully passive aggressive about that and and perhaps to an extent in a very broad sweeping way, distinctly Japanese. Yes it is.

This is a polite way of saying please stop. Um. All right, So let's go on to the last prize that we are going to talk about, the Medicine Prize, and once again, but yes, the paper that was honored here was titled Colonic gas explosion during therapeutic colonoscopy will Electrocotti, which is exactly what it sounds like. It basically has to deal with the fact that when you're performing colonoscopies.

When you're sending in the troops through the back door to see what's going on in the rectal region, you're basically I mean enough people out there. No, no, exactly what I'm talking about here, you're you're We've done podcast about some of the technology involved here. We're using cameras, we're using devices to see what's going on in the rectal area. We're sticking things up there, electric things, and

we're seeing what's going on. So there are some complications that can occur, right, Like we're talking about, like what happens if there's some residue in the colin right, there's some some fecal residue and you have a laser that you're using. Yes, you can cregular the explosion of colonic gases. It's rare. It's admittedly it's rare, but when it happens, it can understandably be u um uh rather shocking event and and and harmful event. Um. You have to have

just the right amount of gases. They have to you have to have the combustible gases hydrogen methane, which is produced by the fermentation of non absorbable carbohydrates in the colon by calonic bacteria. Uh, you have to have the presence of combustive gas, oxygen and the application of a heat source. So uh, this and this occurs due to the machinery, if you will, that is being introduced to the area, right, because think of it in this context.

You many times they're using lasers to cauterize polyps, right, So if they go in there and they find polyps and they're going to go ahead and take care of those with a laser. So then, as you say, you're introducing this element that could be combustible if you have let's say, you know, a little release of methane and hydrogen gases, electrocottery, You're cauterizing the wound in a colon

environment where there may be butt gas. And this I hate to use the word perfect storm, but this could be a perfect storm of of of conditions that could lead to a colonic explosion. Now this you know these as you say, this is rare, and these explosions have happened in the patients have recovered. But if you are undergoing this procedure, wouldn't you just feel so much better to know that this person, this this Ben Emmanuel events hasan worked on this and brought this problem to light

and said that we need proper surgery preparation. Yeah, so they're talking about performing enemas, making sure that the working environment is clear before you send in the troops to to deal with the problem. So again, it's funny because a it involves butts, It involves butt gas, it involves foreign objects going into the butt. All three of these things are again bedrock comedy. Uh. You know, you go back to Canterbury Tales and you have tales of foreign

objects entering the rectum um. Well, but I'm also thinking about that then diagram that we talked about in terms of like what makes something funny because it has to be in that zone where there's actually uh, there's no harm that's going to be done, right, because we're preventing harm here. Uh, And yet there's an implied threat of

a gastro intestinal explosion. Yes, so the gastro intestical explosion, colonic explosion, but explosion, whatever you want to call it, in and of itself funny plus very very important because we're talking about preventing harm to patients who are undergoing important procedures, and that's very serious. And and and key too.

I mean, this whole thing is key to what ignobles are all about, finding studies that that are important but also hilarious, but and also people who are toiling away for hours and hours and no necessarily getting the recognition that they need or deserve. So it is a nice way to bring light to the subject. Like I have a print out of the article here, and I don't think like a like not worrying about like the medical

terminology in it. Like there's no way an eight year old could get through this without dying of laughter, just because there's you know, it's the whole thing is it's about what it's about. It's about colon's and and and gas building up there and things going into the rectum. It's it's a minefield. Yeah. And I mean, you know, this is a great wait to engage kids too, write. I mean we always try to say, how can we make science interesting to kids? Well, you know, for the

grotesque aspects here. So there's just so there's an extended taste of what the two thousand and twelve ig Nobel Prizes were all about. There were some other cool studies they were not going to go into here. You should definitely look up online people's hair changing colors because of the water. Uh. Why a ponytail goes back and forth and up and down when a person jogs. Yeah, there was one related to Uh uh, it's like boring science

writing like wi is it like? It's very meta sounding. Oh, it was a report on reports and the cost of reports and assessing whether or not report another report should be done. I believe that was the literature price for the Probable. Yeah, so check those out if you were at all into science or you're at all into into humor, and definitely of those two interest crossover, and I feel they do for most of the people listening to this podcast.

Go check out the Ignabole Prize winners for two thousand twelve. You'll find those on the Improbable Research website. Just to a search for that. I will also link to all of this stuff in the blog post that accompanies these episodes. In the meantime, if you would like to get in touch with us, maybe share your thoughts on some of these particular studies, some of the studies we didn't mention or past winners. You can find us on Facebook and you can find us on Tumbler. We are called Stuff

to blow your mind on both of those. Oh Twitter, However, we go by the handle blow the Mind, and you can always share your favorite ignoble awards with us by emailing us up blow the Mind at discovery dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics. Is It How Stuff Works dot com