Heute feiern wir den Weltlachtag. Also: Wiehern sie vor Freude, prusten sie los, feuern Sie Lachsalven ab.
Read MoreWarum Nacktbilder zu Gedächtnislücken führen
Die verrücktesten Erkenntnisse vom Spaß-Nobelpreis.
Read MoreKartoffelchips im Windkanal
Wenn es um Konkurrenz geht, verläßt auch wissenschaftliche Spaßvögel der Humor.
Read MoreBierdeckel-Physik
Wie fliegen Bierdeckel und warum? Und wie bzw. warum oft nicht? Und wie weit? Das endcoole Physiker-Dream-Team aus Johann Ostmeyer (Strahlen- und Kernphysik ), Christoph Schürmann (Radioastronomie ) und Carsten Urbach (Theoretische Physik ) von der Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn hat es errechnet und getestet.
Read MoreWarum Tätowierte mehr Sex haben: und andere neue Erkenntnisse vom Spaß-Nobelpreis
Wissen Sie, warum Tätowierte mehr Sex haben als Menschen ohne Tattoos? Wie viele Fotos nötig sind, damit bei einem Gruppenbild keiner blinzelt? Oder ob man in Schleim genauso schnell schwimmen kann wie in Wasser?
Read MoreWarum man Spaghetti nicht durch zwei teilen kann: und andere neue Erkenntnisse vom Spaß-Nobelpreis
Wissen Sie, warum rohe Spaghetti meist in drei, vier oder fünf Teile brechen, aber fast nie in zwei? Oder ob man in Schleim genauso schnell schwimmen kann wie in Wasser?
Read MoreIg Nobel Night in Berlin 2019
Marc Abrahams, mastermind of the Annals of Improbable Research & the IgNobel Prizes and forensic biologist Mark Benecke host an improbable evening at Tempodrom in Berlin
Read MoreMein Preis-Favorit: Der Ig-Nobelpreis
Den Nobelpreis kennt jeder, den Ig-Nobelpreis nicht. Wer mag, kann einmal im Jahr, kurz bevor die echten Nobelpreise vergeben werden,
Read More1998-12 AIR: Solution for the Chicken/Egg Problem by use of Toothpaste Arithmetic
Some science problems are eternal, and others nearly so. Pierre de Fermat's famous mathematical poser, for example, appeared in 1619, and lurked for 374 years before someone found a way to solve it. An even harder question has been wlth us practically forever:
"Which came first - the chicken or the egg?" Now, thanks to a simple discovery, I have cracked this heretofore maddening problem.
2011-07 AIR: Criminal Investigator on Lint
Lint balls from navels (navel fluff, belly button fluff) won an Ig Nobel Prize in 2002 for Karl Kruszelnicki. Dr. Kruszelnicki worked on observations reported in a survey of 4799 lint-collecting people, rather than on tons (I use that word here metaphorically) of individual balls from a single person.
I am a forensic investigator, with a new (to me, I mean) interest in lint. I mentioned this during a radio program. A few weeks later, a young couple (Elisabeth and Jan from Dresden) approached me after a public lecture and handed me a full collection of lint balls collected exclusively from their own navels. This allowed me to examine 167 lint balls from two persons instead of many different lint balls from a large number of people.
Read More2005-10 AIR:Exploading Toads
Earlier this year, news reports described a sudden plague of exploding toads in Hamburg, Germany. The reports carried conflicting descriptions and speculation from scientists, governmental officials, passersby, and other authorities -- some said these were spontaneous explosions, some attributed them to attacks by killer crows, some to bacterial or viral action.
Others advanced still more exotic theories. The public was left with a confused notion as to what exactly had happened, and how and why. To make sense of the reports, we assembled an international "dream team" -- three extraordinarily curious, determined scientists, each of whom has a deep background in one or more elements of the apparent story. Their assignment: to try to discover the truth about the exploding toads of Hamburg.
Read More2005-09-25 Mark Benecke: Nematoden und Hieroglyphen
Source: Annals of Improbable Research 1(2): 17-18, click for the article
Nematoden und Hieroglyphen
Mikroskopisch kleine Fadenwürmer kommunizieren mit Menschen, indem sie sich zu Hieroglyphen zusammenlagern. Beweise dafür liefere ich im Buch Der Einfluß von Erdnußbutter auf die Erdrotation (Birkhäuser, Basel, Herausgeber: Marc Abrahams (Cambridge, USA), 1999, ISBN 3-7643-5941-2), das auch noch eine Reihe weiterer knorker Wissenschaftshumorabhandlungen beinhaltet, etwa:
Mikroskopie mittels eines gewöhnlichen Fotokopierapparates
Der Surferin-Pilz und die internetfähige Barbie
Aerodynamik von Kartoffelchips (mit echten Versuchen im Windkanal)
Ein Mann, eine Frau, eine Hefe
Elektroschockbehandlung bei Klapperschlangenbiß (Arzt und Patient haben einen Medizin-IgNobelpreis erhalten)
Das Micky-Maus-Gen - und so weiter und so fort...
Das dufte Buch oben ist zwar leider ausverkauft, allerdings gibts zum Glück und stark erweitert die folgenden Titel:
2004-08-AIR: The Search for Tycho Brahe's Nose
In 1572, as a Student at the University of Copenhagen, Brahe observed a very bright star. He proved that it was a Supernova located outside our solar system. Brahe's later observations of the orbits of Cassiopeia and of a comet made clear that those objects, too, were located more distantly than our moon. All this meant that - contrary to what many people believed - the heavens were changeable, not immutable Šs Aristotle had long ago postulated. Still, Brahe avoided painting a heliocentric view of the universe; he described the earth, rather than the sun, as being at the center of all things heavenly.
Read More2001-09/10 AIR: Happyface Spiders
I am a forensic entomologist. Every forensic scientist's basic mantra is: Everything is possible. My professional experience leads me to believe that there is one place on earth where more than just everything is possible -- that place is Hawai'i. On this remote part of the U.S. lives a bug that directly contradicts all assumptions modern people might hold concerning eight-legged critters: that spiders are hairy, ugly and frightening. This kind of spider is anything but.
Read More2001-07/08 AIR: Scientific Dining
Mostly Special Agents, and Special Agents-To-Be are served a choice of meals that some good restaurants would dream of. However, the basic impression of all people that were approached by the author, was that "the food here was better in earlier times", that the meals were "well, so-and-so", or that the food was "jeeeez, yucky". Being asked what had been better at earlier times, the Famous Steak And Wine Evening was mentioned by older agents. Noone could recall, however, in which year exactly those evenings stopped, or on which day of the week the event had taken place. (Further investigation with veteran eaters narrowed it down to Wednesday or Thursday). Another disturbing comment of an eating agent was: "It's good that I was single when I first came to the Academy. If not, I would have driven home every night just for dinner."
Read MoreFingerprints of fingerless organisms
Quelle: Annals of Improbable Research 1(5): 26-27 (1995)
by Mark Benecke
Zoologisches Institut der Universitaet, Koeln, Germany
We developed a method to obtain fingerprint patterns of microscopic animals which have neither arms nor fingers. Two species are discussed here.
The Usefulness of Fingerprinting
Fingerless organisms can be as deadly as any human criminal. When loosed upona law-abiding public, they have been known to cause malaria and other tropical diseases. Criminologists have good reason to identify and catch the individual organisms responsible for such crimes. We often hear and read about criminal cases being solved by fingerprints. Nowadays, so-called "genetic fingerprints" are also used, especially in forensic medicine. The classical and the genetic fingerprinting methods are both powerful but limited. !t is hard to carry out the classical fingerprint technique in organisms without fingers, and the genetic method is quite expensive. Our method is cheap and simple.
How we do it
We apply a short treatment of silver nitrate and other standard photographic chemicals. This causes the fingerprint to appear.
Examples
Figures la and 2a show the "slipper animaI" (Paramecium caudatum), which is very common in fresh water. Elevations and grooves are clearly visible (Figure 2a) and allow us to make individual identifications. Other organisms, e.g. the "trumpet animaI" (Stentor polymorphus) (Figure Ib), show fundamentally different fingerprint patterns which often are much more beautiful and at the same time highly informative. Note that in Stentor, not only grooves are visible, but also winding lines and nice-looking dots (Figure 2b).
Future Hopes for Criminologists
In the future, using improved techniques, we should be able to ob ta in fingerprints not only of fingerless organisms but also of bodiless, supernatural beings such as zombies, ghouls and speeters which, in many countries, are of great interest to criminal investigators.