 Good evening. I am your airplane announcer, Nicole Sharp, creator of the world's most popular fluid dynamics site, FYFD. And I am your other airplane announcer, Melissa Franklin, a professor of something at Harvard. Physics. I think physics, yes. We are almost ready to begin. Are your paper airplanes ready? Don't throw them yet. People and others around the world are watching this ceremony live on the internet, but the ceremony has not officially started yet. It starts when we say, and we're not saying it yet. Even though you may be hearing it, it starts when we say five, four, three, two. There will be two paper airplane throws during tonight's ceremony. Will the minor domos, dominoes, the minor domos, please unveil the human aerodrome for safety first and put your heart into it. We remind you, safety first, throw at the target only, please. Safety first. Please prepare your airplanes for launch. We will count down from five to zero, get set. T minus five, four, three, two. Oh, wait, wait, wait. We almost forgot. Welcome to the 29th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony. One, go. Welcome to the 29th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony. And now, Professor Jean Perko Gleason will deliver the traditional and habitual Ig Nobel Welcome, Welcome speech. We're at Sanders Theater at Harvard University. I am Karen Hopkins, creator of the Studmuffins of Science calendar. Exactly. And now, please welcome our most special guests, the new Ig Nobel Prize winners. This year's winners represent four continents. And here they come. They are looking mighty fly. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, literati, glitterati, pseudo-intellectuals, quasi-seudo-intellectuals, very stable geniuses, and the rest of you. May I introduce our master of ceremonies, the editor of the Annals of Improbable Research, Chief Airhead Mark Abrams. We're gathered here tonight to honor some remarkable individuals and groups. Every winner has done something that first makes people laugh, then think. The Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony is produced by the Science Humor Magazine, the Annals of Improbable Research, and proudly cosponsored by the Harvard Radcliffe Society of Physics students and the Harvard Radcliffe Science Fiction Association. The editors of the Annals of Improbable Research have chosen a theme for this year's ceremony. That theme is habits. Tonight, ten prizes will be given. The achievements speak for themselves, all too eloquently. The prizes will be physically presented to the winners by Nobel Laureates. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the Nobel Laureates. A 1993 Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine, Rich Roberts. A 2007 Nobel Laureate in Economics, Eric Maskin. A 1990 Nobel Laureate in Physics, Jerome Friedman. As usual for the 29th straight year was prevented from joining us. He appears now via the magic of video. Thank you, Professor Friedman. You can't keep me away any longer. It's Jerome Friedman. But I'm sorry to tell you, in the video there, it's an imposter. Does he really look like me? Okay, if you want to pull that game, I'd like to see some identification, please, sir. It serves the purpose. Okay. He may be the only human being you will ever see who spent 29 years setting up a joke. Now, let's meet some of the hundreds of authority figures who are here on the stage. The human spotlights, Jim Brett and Katrina Rosenberg. The human curtain rods, Anne Madden and Maria Elisiva. The onstage tweeters, Richard Bagguley and John Overholt. The referee who will enforce certain time limits, Mr. John Barrett. Is he here? We're not sure if he's here. We're not. For anyone habitually worried about sex and violence, the not-safe-for-work indicator will attempt to block anything offensive from reaching your eyes, ears, or imagination. Here's our NSF indicator. Scottish bagpiper Jeremy Bell. Mr. Bell, would you please indicate your displeasure? You may know we used to have a problem here at this ceremony. Many of the speakers would exceed their allotted time. Here's how we now solve that problem. Please welcome the charming, delightful, ever-so-cute Miss Sweetie Poo. Miss Sweetie Poo is eight years old. Miss Sweetie Poo, would you please demonstrate what you'll do when a speaker exceeds his or her allotted time? Thank you, Miss Sweetie Poo. Now, Miss Sweetie Poo. Thank you, Miss Sweetie Poo. Miss Sweetie Poo. Thank you, Miss Sweetie Poo. Thank you, Miss Sweetie Poo. Thank you, Miss Sweetie Poo. Thank you. There are other important people up here. You'll meet them later. We want to give our special thanks to the Harvard Extension School and to Harvard Course CS50 and Professor Henry Leitner. A big thanks to our iglorious ticket holders. All of you, would you please sit and take a bow? A big hello to the Harvard Clubs who are watching on the Internet and on chairs, some of them, and to everyone else watching the ceremony online around the world and elsewhere. Especially edited audio recording of the ceremony be broadcast on Public Radio's Science Friday with Ira Flado Program on the day after Thanksgiving. Now, let's get it over with, ladies and gentlemen, the awarding of the 2019 Ig Nobel Prizes. We're giving out 10 prizes. The winners come from many nations. They've truly earned their prizes. Karen, tell them what they've won. This year's winners will each receive an Ig Nobel Prize. You don't say. That's not all. Oh, what? They also get a piece of paper. It says they've won an Ig Nobel Prize. This piece of paper, it's signed by several Nobel laureates. Do they get any money? Ten trillion dollars. Ten trillion dollars? Ten trillion dollars! Ten trillion American dollars? Zimbabwean dollars. A Zimbabwean ten trillion dollar bill. What else do they get? They get a handshake from a Nobel laureate. What else? Nothing. How nice. Thank you, Karen. This year's prize is a cup full of habits. It's a coffee cup with a wad of chewed gum, a cigarette butt, a mobile phone, and evidence of several other habits. Ladies and gentlemen, the Ig Nobel Prize. The medicine prize. The winner is from Italy and the Netherlands. The prize goes to Silvano Gallus for collecting evidence that pizza might protect against illness and death if the pizza is made and eaten in Italy. Please welcome Silvano Gallus. Thank you. So what did we find in our research? We found that analyzing data from a combination of large Italian epidemiological studies, we found that people who regularly consumed pizza had decreased the risk of digestive tract cancer and acute myocardial infarction. Our interpretation is that in Italy pizza may represent a general indicator, a marker, of the Italian diet that has other Mediterranean diets has been shown to have major health benefits. In conclusion, we recommend eating Italian pizza, but it should be Italian and therefore, but please, please hold the pepperoni for health reasons and also pineapple as a matter of taste. Collect your $10 trillion bill from the Nobel laureates over there. Medical education prize. The winners are from the USA. The prize goes to Karen Pryor and Teresa McKeon for using a simple animal training technique called clicker training to train surgeons to perform orthopedic surgery. Please welcome Karen Pryor and Teresa McKeon. Karen and I would like to thank everybody at Ig Nobel for this honor, but we'd also like to thank the people who worked on the research and really put to the test a teaching methodology that highlights and builds on success and focuses on positive and timely reinforcement. And with so much of our world focused on that which is not successful, it may be worth having a way to focus on things that are successful. Thank you very much. Now here is a musical treats the world premiere of a new mini opera called Creatures of Habits. There are four acts, one now, two later, and one after that. It stars Maria Ferrante and the behavioral quirk chorus, accompanied by the habitual enthusiasm orchestra. Here's our narrator, Karen Hopkins. Thank you, you manly little Malamar. Tonight's opera brings us to a museum, the Museum of Bad Habits. You will love the Museum of Bad Habits. You know the museum's famous slogan, only other people have bad habits. Here in act one of the opera, the director of the Museum of Bad Habits will welcome us and give us a tour. The director will show us five of the exhibits in the museum, five living exhibits. Each of the exhibits is a person who has a bad habit. There is no way to stop these people, these people with bad habits, from telling us all about themselves. One exhibit talks too much, one fidgets, one's a nose picker, one is a naysayer, and one is an ass scratcher. And a procrastinator. Whoa, those are some bad habits. I should talk. I'd better stop talking. Here's the museum's director. The museum director has many bad habits, including the bad habit of pointing out other people's bad habits. I'm gonna scream, I mean, scram. Never go away. Try some new bad habits. Try some new bad habits. Try some new bad habits you do today. It's wonderful to see you. You're looking mighty slick. But I notice every one of you has got some strange behavior trick that's really lone at it. Come for sure. We will show you. We will show you. I will stop. Five seconds. Is that enough? Each has a nasty ritual that clearly is habitual. Five. He snatched your level. Bad bad bad habits, habits. Eating something to somebody is the most... Snatched your level. Excavator. Slowly slowly so unholy. Tristan Bull and South End zero private fidgets make it quick. The winners are from Singapore, China, Australia, Poland, the USA and Bulgaria. The prize goes to Ling Jun Kong, Herbert Kropaz, Anjeshka Gorekha, Alexandra Urbanek, Rainer Dumke and Thomas Poterek for discovering that dead magnetized cockroaches behave differently than living magnetized cockroaches. Please welcome Thomas Poterek, Herbert Kropaz and Rainer Dumke. Thank you very much. First of all, many thanks to the organizers for this wonderful ceremony and for awarding us. Indeed, one of our findings is that dead magnetized cockroaches... No, that dead cockroaches stay magnetized longer than alive cockroaches. We have a video that over dramatizes this a bit. Dear Bob, please play and to add the drama that I'll be reading. Safety first. Now, this is a fridge. This is a dead cockroach. Click. This is a live cockroach. No click. Consistently. Thank you very much. You can collect your $10 trillion bill from the Nobel laureates over there. In public events, it's now a habit to have a keynote speech. There's no avoiding it. Here it is. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Oh, okay. The theme of this year's Nobel Prize is habits. Now, let's not be overly polite about it. Some people have the habit of not paying attention when other people are talking. You see, some people have the habit of not paying attention when someone else is talking. That's a bad habit. Yes, that is a bad habit. And some people have the habit of not really saying anything when they're giving a speech. And when some people give a speech, they don't actually say much. That too is a bad habit. Bad. Bad. Want to wrap up this keynote speech? Good. By reminding you of something said here, here on this stage many years ago by an Ig Nobel Prize winner all the way from Japan, Dr. Nakamatsu. Well, go ahead. Oh, I'll just go ahead and say it. Dr. Nakamatsu said life should be long, speeches should be short. Let's get out of here. Please, yeah, please. Thank you. The Anatomy Prize. The winners are from France. The prize goes to Roger Musee and Boros Ben-Gouffida for measuring scrotal temperature asymmetry in naked and clothed postmen in France. The winners were not able to travel to the ceremony tonight. Here, though, to give a short tribute to the winners is a postman from the United States Postal Service. Please welcome Eric Eimold. Speak into the microphone. I guess you're wondering about my package. We postmen take good care of every package. On behalf of my fellow American postmen, I say thank you to the two scientists in France. They care about packages just as much as we do. This scientific research is very exciting. We knew that French postmen are cool. Now we know exactly how cool they are. We American postmen, we send our warmest regards to the two French scientists especially to all the French postmen, brothers in good standing. Now we have a demonstration. Not safe for work indicator has called off the demonstration. Some of our Ig Nobel Prize winners from previous years like to come back to our stage to take a bow and to help honor the new Ig Nobel Prize winners. We have several with us this year. Welcome them. The 2015 Ig Nobel Physics Prize was awarded to Patricia Yang, David Hu, Jonathan Pham, and Jerome Chu for testing the biological principle that nearly all mammals empty their bladders in about 21 seconds, plus or minus 13 seconds. Please welcome David Hu and Patricia Yang. The 2009 Ig Nobel Chemistry Prize was awarded to Javier Morales Castillo, Miguel Apatica and Victor Castaño of Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México for creating diamonds from liquid, specifically from tequila. Please welcome Javier Morales Castillo. The 2008 Ig Nobel Chemistry Prize was awarded to two teams of scientists, one of whom discovered that Coca-Cola is an effective spermicide and the other team discovered that it's not. Please welcome Dr. Deborah Anderson. 2012 Ig Nobel Acoustics Prize was awarded to Kazutaka Kurehara and Koji Tsukada of Japan for creating the speech jammer. Speech jammer is a machine that disrupts a person's speech by making them hear their own spoken words in a very slight delay. Please welcome Kazutaka Kurehara and Koji Tsukada. They have brought with them a new, improved and much bigger version of the speech jammer. They will not demonstrate it here. They will demonstrate this Saturday at the Ig Informal Lectures at MIT. We hope you'll join us then. There's a charismatic fellow named Roy Glauber who died this past winter at age 93. We want to give him a sweeping tribute. In the mid-1990s, Roy Glauber began sweeping paper airplanes every year at this ceremony. In 2005, Roy was awarded a Nobel Prize in Physics for his work offstage. After that and nearly every year, Roy returned to the stage here to humbly sweep paper airplanes and to gleefully present Ig Nobel Prizes. Several years ago, Bruce Petschek, our videographer, created a video about some of Roy's Ig Nobel appearances over the years. We would like to show that video again. Here's Roy. We have the show of keepers of the Hock with the sweet detritus off the stage. Roy Glauber, the official keeper of the Hock who will sweep detritus from the stage. Roy Glauber. There are still paper airplanes to be swept, and in keeping with Roy's wishes, his broom will keep on sweeping on. May we have the broom, please? Thank you. This particular broom began its life as a gift to Roy from many of his graduate students who signed their names to it. This year, Roy's broom and Roy's mission will be in the good hands of his colleague and friend Misha Lukin. Please welcome Professor Lukin. Get to work. And now, get set for something special. The 24-7 Lectures. We've invited several of the world's top thinkers to tell us very briefly what they're thinking about. Each 24-7 lecturer will explain her or his topic twice. First, a complete technical description in 24 seconds. And then, after a brief pause, a clear summary that anyone can understand in seven words. The 24-second time limit will be enforced by our not-safe-for-work indicator, and by misconduct, writer of the misconduct column in the Boston Globe, who also happens to be my wife, Robin Abrams, and who will put up, I assure you, with no nonsense, somebody's missing, so I'm pretending he's not. Okay, are you here? No, he's not. Okay, pretence is over. The first 24-7 lecture will be delivered by a scientist who won the 1993 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, Rich Roberts. His topic, serendipity. First, a complete technical description of the subject in 24 seconds. On your mark, get set, go. Serendipity is exemplified when your clever experiment fails because nature is trying to tell you something important, and it leads to a Nobel Prize-winning discovery. It's also exemplified when you're booked on a plane, flying from Boston to Los Angeles on September 11th, and the meeting you're attending is moved one day earlier, and at the last minute, you have to fly on September 10th instead. This happened to me in 2001. That's it. Well, I don't know what to say after that. Well, yes, I do. Now, a clear summary that anyone can understand in seven words. On your mark, get set, go. Serendipity means good luck has struck again. The next 24-7 lecture will be delivered by a professor of cognitive science at Hampshire College, Joanna Morris. Her topic, theory of mind. First, a complete technical description of the subject in 24 seconds. On your mark, get set, go. Theory of mind is the ability to impute mental states, beliefs, intentions, desires, emotions to oneself and to others, and to understand that others have beliefs, desires, intentions that are different from one's own. Theory of mind is probably viewed as a theory because mental states are not directly observable. Each human can only intuit the existence of his or her own mind through introspection, and no one has direct access to the mind of another. The presumption that others have a mind enables one to understand that mental states, you know, know well. And now a clear summary that anyone can understand in seven words. On your mark, get set, go. Surprise! Other people are just like you. The next 24-7 lecture will be delivered by the president of the B.F. Skinner Foundation, Julie Skinner Vargas. Her topic, habit. First, a complete technical description of the subject in 24 seconds. On your mark, get set, go. Words. A habit is an operant under discriminative control of S.D.s correlated with facilitating post-sedance which are delivered when emitted in their presence. Clear summary that anyone can understand in seven words. On your mark, get set, go. A habit is acting as usual again. Before we begin the second act of tonight's opera, we have a special treat connected to the second act of tonight's opera. A really quick lecture by Karen Pryor. Karen Pryor is one of the founders of Clicker Training. And the Ig Nobel Prize-winning study that she wrote is the basis for the song that we're about to hear. But first, just before we hear that song, there may be some people who are not familiar with Clicker Training. Karen Pryor will tell us ever so briefly about Clicker Training. Here's Karen Pryor. Oh, goody. This device may not all have one in your pocket, but you will someday. It's a clear, sharp sound. And what it tells you when someone has made a move that you like and you click during the move, you have learned that they did exactly the right thing and they have learned that and they feel successful. And you're right. They are successful. It adds up quickly to a clear form of communication between different people, all positive information, and what we communicate this way will be true, will work for you, and furthermore, it works for all animals down two guppies. That's it. Act two of the mini opera, Creatures of Habit. Here's our narrator, Karen Hopkins. Thank you, you marvelous molten lava cake. Oh, what a lucky day you chose to visit the Museum of Bad Habits. Today, there's a special demonstration. We are going to get to see how people can be trained to learn a new habit. And when I said that this is a lucky day, I wasn't kidding. These are not just ordinary people who are going to be trained to learn a new habit. These are extraordinarily special, genius class people. These are medical students. They are going to become orthopedic surgeons and we are going to see them acquire a vital skill. They are going to learn how to drill a hole. Oh, here comes their trainer, I mean teacher. Chemistry prize. The winners are from Japan. The prize goes to Shigeru Watanabe, Mineku Onishi Kaori Imae, Aiji Kawano and Seiji Igarashi for estimating the total saliva volume produced per day by a typical five-year-old child. He's welcome, Shigeru Watanabe and his adult sons who were some of the research subjects 35 years ago. Thank you, Chairman. And thank you so much for this honorable award. We found out an important fact that the total saliva volume per day in five-year-old children to be 500 milliliters. How do we measure saliva? Do you want to know? I'll show you here. This is balance. And I measured food weight and cup. They are my sons who are my subjects for 35 years ago from Japan. Are you ready? Okay, eat. Chewing, chewing, chewing, and spit out. Spit out again. You can collect your $10 trillion bill from the Nobel laureates over there. Please collect your belongings. For a special tribute to this research, please give your attention to Nobel laureate Eric Maskin. As we recognize this research tonight, I would like to lead a toast to all the graduate students who helped collect interesting data. Excuse me, Professor Maskin, would you mind coming over and collecting your own interesting data into your health? The second and final round of 24-7 lectures is about to begin. And now it is beginning. The next 24-7 lecture will be delivered by a graduate student at Harvard's Center for the Fundamental Laws of Nature, Carrie Cesarotti. Her topic, LHC, the Large Hadron Collider. First, a complete technical description of the subject in 24 seconds. On your mark, get set, go. The LHC is a 27-kilometer ring that pumps protons with energy as they cycle around. Any driver knows that fast objects don't make sharp turns, and the large radius is needed to keep the protons on track. When the protons finally collide, we can probe their particle substructure to a billionth of a billionth of a meter, and their energy is converted to sprays of new, heavy or exotic particles too unstable for our world. And now a clear summary that anyone can understand is that, go. Measure small by building big. Size matters. The next 24-7 lecture will be delivered by an economist who won the 2007 Nobel Prize in Economics, Eric Maskin. His topic, voting. First, a complete technical description of the subject in 24 seconds. On your mark, get set, go. In most American elections, two citizen votes for one candidate and the one with the most votes wins. This is a flawed system. It led to Donald Trump. Trump won Republican primaries by less than a majority because the anti-Trump vote was split over 15 other candidates. A better system lets voters rank candidates. If no one gets a majority of first-place votes, the least favorite is dropped. Second-ranked choices move into first place, and the process continues until there is a majority. And now, a clear summary that anyone can understand in seven words. On your mark, get set, go. Let a majority choose who's in authority. Final 24-7 lecture will be delivered by Associate Dean of the Harvard College Curriculum and a lecturer on computer science, Rebecca Nesson. Her topic, mathematical truth. First, a complete technical description of the subject in 24 seconds. On your mark, get set, go. Goodell proved that no consistent, formal system that's expressive enough for arithmetic could derive all mathematical truths. In his system, each proposition encodes both an arithmetical and a logical claim. His proposition P is an arithmetical proposition, which encodes also the logical claim that it's not provable. If P is provable, then it's false, but also true. And now, a clear summary that anyone can understand in seven words. On your mark, get set, go. We can know truths that we can't prove. The engineering prize. The winner is from Iran. The prize goes to Van Farabaaksh for inventing a diaper-changing machine for use on human infants. The winner could not travel to the ceremony. He planned to send us a video acceptance speech that video has not yet arrived. Damn. The economics prize. The winners are from Turkey, the Netherlands and Germany. The prize goes to Habib Gedek, Timothy Voss and Andreas Voss for testing which country's paper money is best at transmitting dangerous bacteria. Please welcome Andreas Voss and Timothy Voss who are father and son. When staying in a foreign country, had you ever had the feeling that the money that goes through your hands gets sticky on your fingers and is kind of dirty? The question is, is it contaminated with anything that causes a health risk? So we have a look into that and the fact is that banknotes that feel sticky or dirty do not have to be contaminated. Actually, the Romanian and the dollar were one of the worst things there is. So I have a proposition for you to get risk of the health risk in your wallet. We please ask you to take your crispy dollar notes, fold them into an airplane and throw them away during the next period. For all others, we just accept wash your hands even when you have contact with GAL. Please stop. Thank you very much. Please stop. Please be very sure to collect our bill. The second for airplane deluge is about to commence. It will be 30 seconds in duration. Please prepare your paper airplanes and please aim for the designated target only. Safety first. Safety first everyone. The countdown begins. T minus 7 seconds. T minus 7. T minus 6. T minus 5. 4, 3, 2, 1. Commence paper airplane drawing. Here tonight are many official delegations that have come from far and near and elsewhere. Karen Hopkin will direct our attention to some of these delegations. Thank you my magical little monkey bread. When I introduce each of these delegations, it will make its presence known by standing up and twirling in place. Three times, counter clockwise. Please greet these people with all the respect they deserve. We have the greater Worcester humanists whose habits include reason, compassion and free inquiry. Mensa, the organization for people with abnormal scores on certain standardized psychological tests. Harvard Radcliffe Science Fiction Society. The Museum of Bad Art. Celebrating art too bad to be ignored. This medical office in the habit of recovering hearts and saving lives with the impella heart pump. We have Access Atoms School from Portland, Oregon in the habit of making up everything. MIT's Night Science Journalism Fellows. Their habits include carrying tiny notebooks and asking questions to strangers. The Harvard Radcliffe Society of Physics Students. And finally, lab central in the habit of dressing in costume more than the average five-year-old. The Peace Prize. The winners are from the UK, Saudi Arabia, Singapore and the USA. The prize goes to Gada A Bin Saif, Alexandru Papayou, Liliana Benari, Frances Maglone, Sean Quatra, Yonghua Chan and Gil Yosipovich for trying to measure the pleasurability of scratching an itch. The winners could not travel to the ceremony, so instead they sent this video acceptance speech. I'm awfully sorry, Mark, that I'm not able to join you at our amazing ceremony, for all of us are so grateful for winning your amazing Ig Nobel Prize. You can work out for yourself where on this particular effigy on the side of my shoulder you would like to scratch and then send me an email. Anyway, have a great day everybody and thanks again very much for this honour and on behalf of all of my co-authors. Thank you. Thank you Dr. Maglone. Are those back scratchers? What do you do with those? We have three Nobel Prize winners who don't know what to do with a back scratcher. And a physics professor next to them who's giving no advice whatsoever. And B.F. Skinner's daughter next to them who's just looking on and laughing. Alright, it's time then for act three of the mini opera Creatures of Habit. Here's our narrator Karen Hopkins. Thank you my magnificent mochaccino muffin. The people who work at the museum of bad habits only have their own bad habits. It's a form of job security. Each of them, each and every staff member spends all day asking themselves the same question. Why? Why did those people those people with bad habits why did they keep doing those things? It drives me mad. These people talking about people who have bad habits. Just listen to them. The winner is from Germany. The prize goes to Fritz Strock for discovering that holding a pen in one's mouth makes one smile which makes one happier and for then discovering that it does not. Please welcome Fritz Strock. The replication ballot. Not an opera, just the ballot. A study once found that a pencil is a valuable research utensil. The procedure was used to make people amused and to show that a smile is extensive. Years after this shocking result no reason was left to exalt. Trying to replicate some failed to get it straight. But after some serious thinking the literature gave an inkling. A cam cost a sham producing much spam and the proof was pretty convincing. Codom, if this story has a moral it is to end a useless quarrel. To claim a finding is not real has a lot of sex appeal. But rather than insinuate return to science and debate. Thank you. Please select your $10 trillion bill. Was there something that you guys were going to hand out? Oh well. What do you do with your pens? You don't want a smile. Alright, so now the question is are you happy? Thank you. The Physics Prize. The winners are from the USA, Taiwan, Australia, New Zealand, Sweden and the UK. The prize goes to Patricia Yang, Alexander Lee, Miles Chan, Alynn Martin, Ashley Edwards, Scott Carver and David Hu for studying how and why wombats make cube shaped poo. Please note this is the second Ig Nobel Prize that was awarded to Patricia Yang and David Hu. In the year 2015 they and some other colleagues were awarded the Ig Nobel Physics Prize for testing the biological principle that nearly all mammals empty their bladders in about 21 seconds plus or minus 13 seconds. Today, please welcome Patricia Yang, David Hu, Alexander Lee, Scott Carver and Ashley Edwards. Thank you. Wombats, a solitary Hoverus marsupials. They produce cube shaped scats which they place on a rock, a log or a stump to communicate with one another. See, the cubing prevents them from rolling away. So naturally we asked how do they produce cubed poo in a soft intestine? A wombats feces is only two thirds as wet as your own feces. When feces dry, it contracts and forms cracks. The formation of cubes is similar to the cooling of lava into hexagons like those found in giant causeway Ireland. The process is assisted by the muscles that move food among the lower intestine. These muscles vary in thickness as much as three times that shape the corners of cubes. Wombats are scientific proof that you can squeeze a square pig into a round hole. There are feces in the future such as moss that generate bond shaped feces, bears that generate big cylindrical feces, bears that generate pellet shaped feces, cows that generate poops in and back. Finish up. Before we finish up with the triumphal handshaking of the winners and then the stirring grand finale of the opera we remind you to join us this Saturday afternoon at MIT. The new winners will give free public talks to explain what they can, what they did, and why they did it. Those free public lectures happen this Saturday, 1 o'clock, MIT building 10, room 250. We're also televising those or webcasting those live. We hope you'll come. No tickets necessary for that. Just show up. Get there early if you want a seat. Now it's time before we come to the conclusion of the opera. It's time for the traditional triumphal handshaking. All the new Ig Nobel Prize winners will now emerge one by one through the sacred curtain there to receive a token handshake from Nobel laureate Jerome Friedman. Let the emerging and the shaking begin. And now that you've acquired the habit of watching operas it is time for the thrilling conclusion to the mini opera Creatures of Habit. Here's our narrator, Karen Hopkin. Thank you. Mark. We have some distinguished visiting scholars who are visiting the Museum of Bad Habits today to personally study the exhibits. They've arrived just in time for the thrilling conclusion of the opera. And it will be thrilling because in case you haven't figured this out each and every one of you in the audience here today is specially treasured by the Museum of Bad Habits because you yes, you have your own special bad habit. You, yes you should be on exhibit in the Museum of Bad Habits and surprise from now on you will be on exhibit in the Museum of Bad Habits the museum director and the entire museum staff have a special welcoming message especially for you. Listen up. Museum Orchestra on piano Julia on accordion Dr. Thomas Michel on bass Dr. Bruce Copeland on cello Dr. Julie Ryman Lijo Shah behavioral quirk chorus the soloist Sonia Lijo Bobby and Thomas soloist and our opera director Maria Florente Professor Jean Berco Gleason will deliver the traditional Ig Nobel goodbye, goodbye speech Now ladies and gentlemen let's honor all of the many and there are many, many people who put this ceremony together they're all around us please then thank you all of you Ig Nobel Prize winners and the Nobel Laureates the teachers and the past winners and the opera performers all gather here at the front of the stage come up toward the lip of the stage please all gather for a pointless photo opportunity everybody please whack your hands together shower them with self-esteem on behalf of the Harvard Radcliffe Society of Physics students and the Harvard Radcliffe Science Fiction Association and especially from all of us at the annals of improbable research please remember this final thought if you didn't win an Ig Nobel Prize this year and especially if you did better luck next year thank you