My 2 Cents: The Ig Nobel Awards At Harvard

Scientific research is unquestionably a worthy endeavor, isn't it? I ask, because Thursday night they gave out the Ig Nobels at Harvard, awards which recognize weird and humorous scientific discoveries and I might add the word ridiculous to that description.

And to add to the irony, some real Nobel prize winners were there to present the awards.

The big winner was a device called the SpeechJammer that creates a distracting echo effect when someone is speaking and ultimately gets them to shut up. And NO, I don't want to get 10 of them in the mail next week, ok.

A California professor AND grad assistant won an Ig Nobel after teaming up to study how coffee sloshes in a cup when it's carried. They won the fluid dynamics prize.

How about this, an international team of Brits and Americans won the physics prize for explaining how and why ponytails bounce. Does it? Or does it just APPEAR to?

And some Dutch researchers won the psychology Ig Nobel for studying why leaning to the left makes the Eiffel Tower look smaller. 

I'm sure there are some practical applications to all this research. I'm just sure of it. Besides, I have to give credit to scientists who are willing to poke a little fun at themselves, as long of course, as they didn't use the taxpayers' credit card.

I'm Kelly Ogle and that's My 2 Cents.