Ig Nobel Prize Winners 2014

[Chuckanut]

The following are the winners of the Ig Nobel prizes for 2014.

Improbable Research

You can listen to the awards show on this Science Friday podcast: Science Friday Audio Podcast

I highly recommend the speechs given by the guys who studied people who like cats.

One example:

PSYCHOLOGY PRIZE [AUSTRALIA, UK, USA]: Peter K. Jonason, Amy Jones, and Minna Lyons, for amassing evidence that people who habitually stay up late are, on average, more self-admiring, more manipulative, and more psychopathic than people who habitually arise early in the morning.
REFERENCE: "Creatures of the Night: Chronotypes and the Dark Triad Traits," Peter K. Jonason, Amy Jones, and Minna Lyons, Personality and Individual Differences, vol. 55, no. 5, 2013, pp. 538-541.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Peter Jonason

Please stop. I'm bored.

 

[MichaelB]

These are fantastic!

 

[Alan]

The following has been in the main news recently because it has lead to the UK GDP to be much higher and increase their annual contributions to the EU once the black economy is estimated. Italy also had an extra bill to pay.

ECONOMICS PRIZE [ITALY]: ISTAT — the Italian government's National Institute of Statistics, for proudly taking the lead in fulfilling the European Union mandate for each country to increase the official size of its national economy by including revenues from prostitution, illegal drug sales, smuggling, and all other unlawful financial transactions between willing participants.
REFERENCE: "Cambia il Sistema europeo dei conti nazionali e regionali - Sec2010", ISTAT, 2014.
REFERENCE: "European System of National and Regional Accounts (ESA 2010)," Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union, 2013.

BBC News - UK told to pay £1.7bn extra to European Union budget

The European Commission has reviewed the economic performance of all member states since 1995, and revised its economic statistics to take greater account of things like income from the black economy.

The result is that the UK faces by far the largest extra payment. The Netherlands and Italy also have big bills to pay, and even a struggling country like Greece will see its contribution go up.

In contrast, both Germany and France will get rebates - €1bn for the French.

EU officials say it is a technical not a political decision, and it has been worked out under rules agreed by all member states.

 

[Bestwifeever]

They had me at Improbable Research, the institute's Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists.