 Throughout a long year, under pandemic conditions, the Ig Nobel Board of Governors kept a single-minded focus on our goals, persistently applying basic engineering principles. We managed to bring together all the people and all the things needed to produce the 31st annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony. Well, this year, what year is this? 2021. Is it really 2021? The COVID-19 pandemic is still keeping many of us in our home. For the second year in a row, the Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony is not in its traditional home, Sanders Theatre at Harvard University. So I will skip the usual theater safety announcement about identifying the nearest exit, silencing all phones and electronic devices, no smoking in the theater, etc. So again, this year, do any damn thing you want. Don't identify the nearest exit. Shout at your cell phone. Eat something. Now get your paper airplanes ready. I said get your paper airplanes ready. The 31st annual meeting of the Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony is about to begin. Welcome. I'm Robin Abrams and I am your airplane announcer for the evening. I also write the misconduct column in the Boston Globe about ethics, etiquette and engineering, everything that enables us to build bridges. There will be three airplane tosses tonight. Got your stash ready? I've got mine. But first, welcome to the 31st first annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony. Airplane toss number one. In the name of ethics, straighten up and fly right in 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Gentlemen, welcome to the 31st first annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony. And now Professor Jean Bergo Gleason will deliver the traditional Ig Nobel Welcome, Welcome speech. We are on a journey. Welcome. Welcome. A journey to witness the awarding of this year's Ig Nobel Prizes. I am Karen Hopkins, creator of the Stud Muffins of Science calendar. Soon, we'll welcome our most special guest, the new Ig Nobel Prize winners. This year's winners come from six continents. Six. Now, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, literati, literati, pseudo-intellectuals, quasi-seudo-intellectuals, pseudo-quasi-intellectuals, bugs, pests, and the rest of you. May I introduce our master of ceremonies, the editor of the Annals of Improbable Research, Mark Abrams. Today we honor some remarkable individuals and groups. Each of them has done something that makes people laugh and then think. The Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony is produced by the magazine, the Annals of Improbable Research, and proudly cosponsored by the Harvard Radcliffe Science Fiction Association and the Harvard Radcliffe Society of Physics Students. This is year two of the COVID-19 pandemic. It's also the 31st year for the Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony. Because of the pandemic, instead of doing the ceremony with 1,100 gleeful spectators in Sanders Theater, doing it live, instead of that, we're doing it online, whatever that is. Let's refresh your memory or bring you up to speed with a 15-second video of the way we usually do it in non-pandemic times. Commence paper airplane throwing. There goes a paper airplane. That was pretty quick. The editors of the Annals of Improbable Research have chosen a theme for this year's ceremony. That theme is engineering. The theme may or may not apply to particular things in the ceremony. Tonight, 10 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 and whoever, please welcome the Nobel Laureates. 1993 Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine, Rich Roberts. I'm new to you. You will help. Is that right? 2018 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, Francis Arnold. Okay, but I have to get my chewing gum. 2008 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, Marty Chalfee. Should we keep it as a surprise or should you want to hear what I've been thinking about? 2007 Nobel Laureate in Economics, Eric Maskin. It's there every day, in fact. It's an everyday sword. How often do you use it? Only when necessary. 2001 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, Barry Sharpless. Well, you can do that. I know you can. 2001 Nobel Laureate in Physics, Carl Wyman. Practice here. 2012 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, Bob Lefkowitz. That's my honor indeed. 2001 Nobel Laureate in Physics, Eric Cornell. No way. Hey. How? 1990 Nobel Laureate in Physics, Jerome Friedman for 28 of the past 29 years was prevented from joining us. This year, he is again prevented from joining us. He appears now as per tradition in a prerecorded video. Please welcome Professor Friedman. Congratulations. I hope you are enjoying this as much as I am. Thank you, Professor Friedman. Tonight's webcast is happening in several languages, among them Japanese, Spanish, and probably English. There will also be a specially edited version of the ceremony on the day after Thanksgiving broadcast on public radio on the Science Friday with Ira Flato program. Now, let's get it over with the awarding of the 2021 Ig Nobel Prizes. We are giving out 10 prizes. The winners come from many nations. This year's winners have truly earned their prizes. Karen and Christopher, tell them what they've won. This year's winners each get an Ig Nobel Prize. Gosh. And a piece of paper saying they've won an Ig Nobel Prize. Gosh. This piece of paper has been signed by several Nobel Laureates. Gosh. And they also get money. Gosh. 10 trillion dollars. Gosh. 10 trillion dollars. A Zimbabwean 10 trillion dollar bill. Gosh. Well, you see, because of the pandemic, we don't trust the international postal services to deliver anything this valuable. So each year's winners will actually get a counterfeit Zimbabwean 10 trillion dollar bill. Wow. Gosh. Now, ladies and gentlemen, now I will show you the coveted Ig Nobel Prize. This year's prize is a PDF. It's a document that can be emailed and printed. And then assembled to make a gear with human teeth. Wow. A real gear? Yes. A real gear made of paper. With real human teeth? Well, no. It's just pictures of human teeth. You know, printed on the paper. Gosh. Gosh. A biology prize. Well, the biology prize. The winner is from Sweden. The prize is awarded to Suzanne Schütz for analyzing variations in purring, chirping, chattering, trilling, tweedling, murmuring, meowing, moaning, squeaking, hissing, yowling, howling, growling, and other modes of cat human communication. The prize will be presented by Nobel laureate Eric Cornell. This gives me a great deal of pleasure to present this prize. Somehow we all believe that you would win in this cat glory. Indeed, the Royal Academy has made a superb choice. And in recognition of your accomplishments, so impressive, you will win this beautifully crafted object which has been designed to be disassembled and sent via its component out of the Internet. However, my Wi-Fi is a little slow today, so it may require some assistance. I'm going to try to, Suzanne, if you could, if you could help me. Here it comes. Thank you so much. Thank you. What an honor this is. Really, really. Thank you. And that's not all, as they say on television. Here's your $10 trillion bill. Thank you. Wow. Wow. I'm speechless. Suzanne, I wonder if we could impose on you to make as many of those sounds now as you possibly can. Oh, let me have a go. Start with purring, trilling, meowing, squeaking, moaning, trill meowing, which is a combination, purr meowing, howling or yowling, hissing, snarling, jumping and chattering. I feel inspired. I feel almost an obligation to suggest that we do a little musical collaboration between you and an eminent trombone player. Why not? Thank you. I'm so honored to receive this prize. As you may know, domestic cats have a large vocal repertoire, and they also vary their voices and their melodic patterns when they communicate using sounds. I became really interested in this variation, and I used the methods that I normally use to study human speech sounds, phonetic analysis, to describe the different cat call types and the variation within each type. However, I couldn't have done this without the help of my colleagues in my research project, Joost van de Veijer and Robert Eklund. All the wonderful people working in the Lund University Humanities Lab, and of course, I could never have done this without the help of these guys. So again, thank you so much. The Ecology Prize. The winners are from Spain and Iran. The Ecology Prize is awarded to Leila Satari, Alba Guillen, Angela Vidal Verdu and Manuel Porcar for using genetic analysis to identify the different species of bacteria that reside in wads of discarded chewing gum stuck on pavements in various countries. The prize will be presented by Nobel laureate Francis Arnold. I want to thank you for this very important contribution to mankind and to our deep knowledge of our built environment. Now that you have your prizes here is your $10 trillion bill. Thank you very much. Thank you. Winners, are you collecting samples of chewing gum from famous scientists? No. What do you mean, Mark? You have an opportunity to persuade a famous scientist to donate a sample of chewed chewing gum to you. We could do the same stuff through the right as well. Do you want to try? It's amazing. So the transportation of chewing gum. You publish a scientific paper on this. I hope you will share that with the world. Yes, we will. Thank you. The team will now present its acceptance speech, which was pre-recorded. Now, here's a musical treat. The world premiere of a new mini opera called A Bridge Between People. Tonight's opera is called A Bridge Between People. The plot is simple. The adults in this town, they're angry. Angry. The adults, they all hate each other. The kids in this town want to solve that problem. The kids are going to build bridges between people. Little tiny bridges. Each of these little tiny bridges is going to connect two angry adults. Stuck with each other. Stuck to each other. The angry adults will learn to live with each other. This crew drawing is going to show you the basic idea. Angry so angry, such shouting and pouting and spouting and moaning and groaning and groaning and groaning and groaning and groaning and groaning and groaning. Then some more groaning and then some more moaning and pouting and shouting. A star. To the two opposite ends, the two opposite ends of a nice tiny, nice tiny. Power so bitter, so carefully cooking up new kinds of kooky contempt to don't make the smallest attempt to be neighborly. Won't say hello. Won't say hi. Not to anyone. Anytime. Won't even look at each other. We want to fix that, so that's why we're going to live. And close enough even to hit or to spit. That is for, that is for it. That's a long time. Chemistry, pride. The winners represent these countries, Germany, the UK, New Zealand, Greece, Cyprus, and Austria. The chemistry prize is awarded to Jörg Wicker, Nicholas Krauter, Bettina Derstroff, Christoph Stahner, Efstradius Porzukidis, Achim Edbauer, Jochen Wolf, Thomas Kluepfel, Stefan Kramer, and Jonathan Williams for chemically analyzing the air inside movie theaters to test whether the odors produced by an audience reliably indicate the levels of violence, sex, antisocial behavior, drug use, and bad language in the movie the audience is watching. The prize will be presented by Nobel laureate Barry Sharpless. Gotten him, das ist fantastisch. Research on smell is undervalued, and it's very important. It either makes us dreadfully fearful or disgusted or happy there's food down the road. And that was true for little guys too, just bacteria. And so I think the, I really look forward to meeting you. I hope I can get to Germany or you get over here in San Diego. And I love to talk to you about things. Okay, and now the prize? Oh, the prize. Yeah, prize. Okay, this is the prize. Okay, you all have your prize. Great. And here is your $10 trillion bill. I'm very happy to be associated with this prize for you guys. I campaigned the chemist because of smell because I memorized 3,000 compounds at least in stock rooms. I just go into stock rooms and spend two hours sniffing everything. We're not allowed to do that anymore. Hey, and once at my college start, I went into the stock room and I smell a bottle that was in the hood and it was ethyl chloroformic. I passed it knocked me out. I didn't smell anything. It hit me in the back. I dropped to the floor and I put the bottle down before I fell. And it was at three in the morning that I was doing this. I moved faster than anybody because I knew what things were coming out of a reaction. I could smell them and it was like a gift from heaven. But I lost my smell because it is 30 years ago. So I paid the price, but I don't regret it at all. Okay, so I got some popcorn. Yeah, what do you want me to throw it all? Okay, well, this is popcorn. This is about the famous prize and I just want to show how happy I am. Oh my God, we're in the water. Mostly in our solar powered fountain. And now the winners will present their acceptance speech by pre-recorded video. The instruments that you can see and hear behind me are normally used to investigate the chemistry going on over the Amazon rainforest. But for this project, we took these instruments to a local movie theater. And here in the movie theater, if you measure the air composition continuously, you'll see that some chemicals vary in sync with scenes in the film. And what that means is, is that the audience is broadcasting out chemicals as they respond emotionally to the contents. We developed algorithms that were able to tell which scene the audience was watching and what age classification movie had, only based on the breath profile in the air in the movie theater. Our algorithms were looking for patterns and profiles that are specific to certain movies, scene types and film categories. Now get set for the 24 seven lectures. We've invited several of the world's top thinkers to tell us very briefly what they're thinking about. Each 24 seven lecturer will explain their subject twice. First a complete technical description of the subject in 24 seconds. And then after a brief pause, a clear summary that anyone can understand in seven words. 24 second time limit will be enforced by musicians. This 24 seven lecture will be delivered by Francoise Brouchard, who is a professor of theoretical soft matter at the Curie Institute in Paris, France. Her topic, soft matter. First, a complete technical description in 24 seconds. On your mark, get set, go. So material knowledge was introduced in the comics Babar sur la planète Moll and invented by Nobel Prize laureate Pierre Gilles Dogen for describing complex form of matters like liquid crystals, polymer or adhesion. Plus a move, plus a call, said Babar when he lost his sticky shoe. Soft matter is a science of everyday life. And now a clear summary that anyone can understand in seven words. On your mark, get set, go. The next 24 seven lecture will be delivered by Dr. Guignet Massacoumé. Dr. Massacoumé is a cancer epidemiologist at the WHO, the World Health Organization. Please welcome Dr. Guignet Massacoumé, Massacoumé, his topic, coffee drinking. First, a complete technical description of this subject in 24 seconds. On your mark, get set, go. The structures which permit deglutational coffee arise from the endoderm, mesoderm, ectoderm, and urochrist, colonic metabolites following coffee consumption like hemocomaric and dihydroferylic acid exhibit a high antioxidant activity. No surprise that a multinational prospective longitudinal course study only reduced risk for death of various causes in coffee drinkers. Although it's 65 degrees Celsius, 150 degrees Fahrenheit or higher, probable evidence of casino genicity exists for it's over just three months ago. And now a clear summary that anyone can understand in seven words. On your mark, get set, go. Coffee drinking, good, good for you. Maybe. This 24-7 lecture will be delivered by Patricia Yang, assistant professor of power, mechanical engineering at National Tsinghua University, Taiwan. Please note that Professor Yang has been awarded two Ig Nobel Prizes. Her first Ig Nobel Prize in the year 2015 was for testing the biological principle that nearly all mammals empty their bladders in about 21 seconds, plus or minus 13 seconds. Her second Ig Nobel Prize in the year 2019 was for studying how and why wombats make cube-shaped poo, of which this is a sample. Please welcome Patricia Yang. First, a complete technical description of the subject in 24 seconds. On your mark, get set, go. Memo is free species with thin layer of follicle mucus inside the wall of the intestine, the large intestine. It lubricates the process of the excretion. When mammals push to excrete, they are pushing the mucus. The mucus makes the world slippery and it helps the species move toward the outer world. While mammals have a cylindrical species, the speed of excretion depends on the new thickness of mucus layer. For large mammals, they have, oh, can I do it again? Sorry. And now, now, now, now, now, now, a clear description that anyone can understand in seven words. On your mark, get set, go. Pushing out feces requires some lubricating fluids. Okay, here we go. The economics prize. The winner represents these countries, France, Switzerland, Australia, Austria, the Czech Republic and the UK. The economics prize is awarded to Pablo Blavatsky for discovering that the obesity of a country's politicians may be a good indicator of that country's corruption. The prize will be presented by Nobel laureate Rich Roberts. Well, many congratulations. This is really a great honor, as I'm sure you realize. And I'm wondering if this works for politicians in Western countries, as well as it does in the post-Soviet countries. So anyway, congratulations. Well, thank you. And now, here is your $10 trillion bill. Thanks. Rich, do you have any questions? Well, I'm wondering, you know, did you, all of the work that was reported was done on politicians in the post-Soviet countries? Did you look at politicians in other countries? No. No. It's great fun receiving this award. Let me just steal 55 seconds of your attention to tell you what this award is all about. So I downloaded pictures of politicians from Internet, and I ran them through an artificial neural network. This neural network was trained not only to recognize human faces, but also to estimate the body mass index. I found that countries that are perceived as relatively corrupt have relatively high estimated body mass index of a median cabinet minister, whereas countries that are perceived as less corrupt have slimmer politicians. In a follow-up work, I also found that there is intertemporal correlation between obesity of politicians and perceived corruption. So grand political corruption is literally visible from the faces of politicians. The Medicine Prize. The Medicine Prize is awarded to a team that represents the countries of Germany, Turkey, and the UK. The Medicine Prize is awarded to Jam Bullitt, Darae Oledakhan, Burkhard Lippert, and Ralph Hohenberger for demonstrating that sexual orgasms can be as effective as decongestant medicines at improving nasal breathing. The prize will be presented by Nobel Laureate Robert Lepkowitz. Well, I'd like to offer my heartfelt congratulations to this outstanding team for this groundbreaking piece of work. I know how hard you've all worked on this project, and certainly this award is a fitting climax for all the work that you've done. As the famous soliloquy by Hamlet, I would quote those words, a consummation devoutly to be wished. And so, again, my heartiest congratulations as I present this Ig Nobel Prize to your team. And here is your $10 trillion bill. On behalf of my entire team, I would like to thank you for this prize. We are very honored. Instead of preparing a long acceptance speech, we actually made a little video to explain our research and findings in a fun way. We hope you enjoy it. Thank you again. This is Zichmann Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, and one of his best buddies, Wilhelm Fliess, a German physician. In 1897, they theorized on a connection between the nose and genitals, postulating genital spots located inside the nose. Fliess even performed surgery on Freud to prove this link. In the century since, their theory has been all but forgotten. In 2020, these guys, Chairman Ralf, picked up the idea. They found out that sexual intercourse with orgasm can improve nasal breathing to the same degree as the congestive nasal spray. So, if you're your partner suffer from a block nose, there might be a natural solution with positive side effects. Give it a try. You're welcome. It's time for act two of the mini opera, A Bridge Between People. The adults in this town, they're diligent. Yeah, they like diligently spending their time being mad at each other, am I right? Well, you know, now that their kids are going to build all these little bridges and attach the adults to those bridges. Well, now the adults are angry at the kids too. Yeah, you know, but that doesn't bother the kids. No, sir, these kids, they're very confident. Yeah, you know, these kids are diligent, good engineers, and they plan to keep things simple. Kids are going to build a bridge, build a bridge, build a bridge. Say they're going to do it. What a stupid thing to say. Nobody can build a bridge, build a bridge, build a bridge. Not without a billion dollars, not in just a day. Nervy pushy, stupid kids, stupid kids, stupid kids, stupid pushy, nervy kids, all go away. We are going to build a bridge, build a bridge, build a bridge. We are going to build a bridge later today. If you're going to build a bridge, any bridge, every bridge, you must engineer it in the legalistic way. Simplest way to build a bridge, build a bridge, build a bridge. Simply keep it simple and let no one you dismay. They don't know that it takes go, lots of go, they don't know that it goes slow so very, very slow. Tell me every part we need, part we need, part we need, tell me every part we need, and then we will proceed. Towers that are high enough gotta be strong and tough, towers that are made of steel or maybe other stuff. Good on cables that extend from the start to the end, good and sturdy even when they have to sway and bend. Anchors that are permanent, maybe glue or cement. If the anchors anchor right, cables stay tight. Little cables that descend, so the road will suspend. Little cables hold the road, hold by a load. Gotta have a stable deck, stable deck, stable deck, cause without a stable deck we're gonna have a wreck. Gotta have a stable base so the bridge stays in place. Gotta have a good foundation to this first way, no way. We are gonna build it in a very simple way. Get ready for the public real clock today. Now please enjoy this brief intermission and we will be back right after this. We hope you enjoy this brief intermission. Peace prize. Wait, wait, wait, hold on. We're getting the peace prize, the ignoble peace prize. Yeah, it's the most prestigious of them all. I assumed it was gonna be in biology or anthropology. It could be in any of those, but this is perfect for the peace prize. Okay, wonderful. The winners are from the USA. The ignoble peace prize is awarded to Ethan Becerris, Stephen Nailway, and David Carrier for testing the hypothesis that humans evolved beards to protect themselves from punches to the face. The prize will be presented by Nobel Laureate Eric Maskin. This is it. You richly deserve it and let me give it to you. Thank you. And here is your 10 trillion dollar bill. How in the world did you come to this research topic? So actually this work came out of an argument I had with a colleague a decade or so ago. We were arguing about sperm whales at a meeting in the hall and the conversation sort of got out of hand. And at one point he waved his fist in my face and he said, I can hit you with this, but that's not why it evolved. And while I was doing that I was thinking, well, wait, maybe, maybe, maybe there is something to that. I didn't say anything to him because he was so upset, but we looked at the role that this posture may play in hand anatomy. Then from there we went to the face and the face led us to beards. Well, that's science for you. Any of you ever received a punch to the face? So I've never given a punch to the face, but I got one many years ago. There was a movement called the United Farm Workers and I was helping out with their grape boycotts. I was on the picket line and not all the shoppers appreciated the picket line and one showed his displeasure quite forcefully. Do you wish you'd had a beard to cushion the blow in retrospect? We are pleased we're honored to receive the ignoble peace prize. Our question came from the observations that humans are unique among the great apes in having facial hair in males, but not in females, and that male beards cover some parts of the face that are most vulnerable when one is punched. We ultimately decided against testing our hypothesis by punching each other both with and without beards. Instead we used a sheet fleece model to model the hair and an epoxy composite sheet to model the facial bones. We then used a device that drops a known weight to test the samples and measure the energy required to fracture them both with and without a fleece coating. We found that the total energy absorbed by the samples was 37% greater when the sample was covered with the fleece. This result is consistent with the hypothesis that humans are anatomically specialized for fighting with fists. There is no doubt that humans are the most empathetic and cooperative species on the planet, but given that reducing violence in the future is a goal that we all share, it is important to keep in mind that our anatomy reminds us that in certain circumstances we can and sometimes do respond with aggression. It's time now for round two of the 24-7 Lectures. This 24-7 lecture will be delivered by Chouki Abdallah, the executive vice president for research at Georgia Institute of Technology. His topic, feedback control. First, a complete technical summary of the subject in 24 seconds. On your mark, get set, go. Birds and bees do it to find their way home, and people give it freely but receive it poorly. When bats use it, it's audio-vocal, but when machines do it, they're intelligent. Schools of fish practice it to avoid predators, and the blue angels use it to delight spectators. It is feedback that keeps our gut bacteria calibrated, and by monitoring the present, it helps us control the future. And now a clear summary that anyone can understand in seven words. On your mark, get set, go. Feedback keeps everything from turning to crap. This 24-7 lecture will be delivered by Iman Farabakh, associate professor of metallurgy, engineering, and manufacturing at Iran University of Science and Technology. He's also winner of the 2019 Ig Nobel engineering prize for inventing a diaper-changing machine for use on human infants. He is now founded a company called Baby Washer Incorporated. His topic is baby washing technology. First, a complete technical description of the subject in 24 seconds. On your mark, get set, go. Baby Washer is a new automatic device, a gentle robot. It changes dirty diapers. It washes the bottoms of babies and also the bottoms of elderly. Baby Washer removes a soil diaper by super soft jobs, washes the bottom with warm water, then drys it with warm air. And now a clear summary that anyone can understand in seven words. On your mark, get set, go. Henderly changing baby diapers washing elderly bottoms. Please fasten your seat belts. Airplane toss number two for etiquette. Straighten up and fly polite in ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. I want to speak briefly about the past and the future. Back in the year 2014, the Ig Nobel biology prize was awarded to a team from the Czech Republic, Germany and Zambia for carefully documenting that when dogs defecate and urinate, the dogs prefer to align their body axis with Earth's north-south geomagnetic field lines. Now, today in the year 2021, my colleague here, who is a dog, aligns herself without defecation. Her name is Wednesday. As you can see, Wednesday hopes that you will help us fund the Ig Nobel prizes. In the years before the pandemic, funding was a struggle for us. Now, thanks to the pandemic, it's a struggle and an adventure. You can help us keep the Ig Nobel prizes alive and well for next year. And on into a time that Wednesday calls the future. Do that at our website, improbable.com. Wednesday, thanks you. And so do I. Excuse me. Sorry. Watch out. Excuse me. There it is. The physics prize. The winners represent these countries, the Netherlands, Italy, Taiwan and the USA. The physics prize is awarded to Alessandro Corbetta, Jasper Mejusen, Chung Min Lee, Roberto Benzi and Federico Toschi for conducting experiments to learn why pedestrians do not constantly collide with other pedestrians. The prize will be presented by Nobel laureate Marty Chalfi. It's a real pleasure to present you with this year's Ig Nobel prize in physics. Congratulations to all of you. I only have one real question though. Was this study done with or without cell phones? Marty just asked you a question. Depends. Where's the cell phone? You had the cell phone, but depends. There were people with and without cell phones. We have five millions. So I assume, yeah, many. I just wondered if the people that were looking at their cell phones collided more with other people. Oh, that's a very good question. I mean, this is something we need to look into, but we don't have resolution to this thing, which people with cell phones without for the moment at the moment. So this is something we cannot yet do. But yeah, this is a very good point. Good. Did I present you with your $10 trillion bill? Let's do that now. Here's your $10 trillion bill. Winners, now that you're wealthy, do you have any questions that you would like to ask Marty Chalfi? How do we get the Nobel Prize ourselves? I think this is a very good start. Work on something no one else has ever worked on. Greetings from the Netherlands, from California and from Italy. First of all, we wish to thank the committee for the award of this ignoble prize. We are flattered that people laugh and then thought because of our work. So thanks. Thank you so much. Now to the matter. Do you still think that physics can only be used to explain how people move? Actually, you can use physics to explain the hydrogen atom. Physics can even be used to describe gases of interacting molecules, which resemble human crowds. In our work, we started a million of pedestrian trajectories and we assured that we can explain the dynamics in a robust way, of course, from a statistical point of view. Gas molecules in a crowd can also kiss each other or run. Van Anba, even if you think you can choose your destination, and regardless, you are a person in a crowd. Or a gas molecule. Physics can predict your statistics. The Kinetics Prize. The winners are from Japan, Switzerland, and Italy. The Kinetics Prize is awarded to Hisashi Murakami, Claudio Feliciano, Yuta Nishiyama, and Katsuhiro Nishinari for conducting experiments to learn why pedestrians do sometimes collide with other pedestrians. The prize will be presented by Nobel Laureate Carl Wyman. And Professor Wyman reminds us that we can all help the environment by recycling old manufactured objects, making those objects into new manufactured objects. Professor Wyman is going to personally recycle one of last year's Ig Nobel prizes, transforming it during its journey through the internet into a recycled new 2021 Ig Nobel Prize. Here is Professor Wyman making the presentation. It's an honor for me to present this prize for such an important physics discovery. And here is your 10 trillion dollar bill. Beautiful. Winners, do you have any questions for Professor Wyman? How do we remove Ig from this prize? With a lot of hard work. Yeah, I know. Maybe. Congratulations on your achievement. We are super happy to accept the Ig Nobel Prize. We discovered mutual anticipation between pedestrians facilitates the order of movements in human crowds. In our experiment about the rational flow, we visually distracted only some of the pedestrians to disturb their anticipatory abilities. Then we observed the distraction clearly delayed the collecting by the formation. Surprisingly, not only distracted pedestrians, but also non-distracted ones had trouble avoiding collision in advance while navigating. So we can see that anticipation is mutual. To distract pedestrians, we got participants to use this. That is, mobile use while walking. However, we hope you are not just distracted by the risk of mobile use, but interested in the remarkable human interaction ability, where mobiles are not used. We consider mutual anticipation is important to understand the barrier of self-organizing systems. It's time for Act 3 of the mini opera A Bridge Between People. Okay, you're a clever kid. And you're gonna design a bridge. Yeah, like that. What kind of bridge you're gonna design? There are so many different kinds. Are you gonna make a truss bridge? A cable say bridge? Oh, you can make an arch bridge. Yeah. Well, you know the best kind of bridge. If you love suspension bridges, is a suspension bridge. A suspension bridge. Best kind of bridge you can get around these parts. Bridge, bridge, bridge, bridge, bridge, bridge, bridge, bridge, bridge. Always animated in suspension, always attracting lots of attention It has got to be the best invention, it's a big suspension bridge Everywhere the air is all that matters, we're here with flies over there Everywhere you're just too scared to try to leap from here to there Where there is a distance that's too distant, can't you think that they're here persisting? Engineering won't be just a suspension bridge to build a life-size suspension bridge Build the bridge from Africa to India from Africa Build a bridge from Africa to India from Africa That's how you get from Africa Do India from Africa You build a bridge from Africa to India from Africa Then you travel to Australia, build a bridge from India How you travel to Australia, build a bridge from India From India to reach Australia, India to reach Australia Build a bridge to reach Australia, build a bridge from India Bridge, bridge, bridge, bridge, bridge We're gonna travel from way down under From down under, to Ecuador From Ecuador take a nice little walk Take a little walk, bridge, bridge, bridge I'm gonna get some way down under How we go from way down under The little bridge to Ecuador And then walk, walk, walk, walk to York Bridge, bridge, bridge Then build a bridge from the state of New York From the state of New York To Reykjavik Then spend a nice night in Reykjavik Cause the nice and the nicest nights are there Iceland is pretty isolated In fact, that is often overstated Pretty good, there's lots of transportation Airplane toads, not just a bridge But time travel to Mozambique From Reykjavik to West Technique Things are very fast and sweet To go from Iceland to Mozambique If you have to ride in Mozambique And cannot delay until the weekend If you're going to dock the best You'll get these bridge and cattle Airplane toads number three For engineering Straighten up and fly tight In ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five Four, three, two, one The entomology prize The winners are from the USA The entomology prize is awarded to John Mulrenan Jr. Roger Grathaus Charles Hammond And Jay Lambden For their research study A new method of cockroach control On submarines The prize will be presented By Nobel Laureate Francis Arnold I'm thrilled to be able to award you This prize for your contributions To an age-old battle Of man versus cockroach A battle we have not yet won But your contributions were important Thank you Now the presentation of the prize And here is your ten trillion-dollar bill I've been out of the Navy Retired in 1979 from the Navy It's been a long time Back in those days we were limited On what we could do The procedure that had been used for years Was to fumigate the submarines With carboxid gas Carboxid gas is a combination Of carbon dioxide and ethylene oxide And the reason we had to do what we did Was because up in New London We had an incident where A submarine was fumigated with carboxid In the wintertime And after they aerated the submarine And the crew went back aboard The ethylene oxide had condensed Into a liquid form And when they heated the submarine Back up, the ethylene oxide Went back into a gaseous state And we had an incident Where one of the crew members Was affected by the gas And that was one of the problems They had and in fact There was a fatality In one of those incidents We had to find some other way To do it that was safer And that's what we did It was safer It was more economical And it was just as effective Or more effective than the gas So it worked out That was our mission And I think we accomplished our mission And the Navy was happy at the time I don't know what they're doing now To be honest with you Here's the rhino ready The transportation prize The winners represent these countries Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania, Brazil The UK and the USA The transportation prize is awarded To Robin Radcliffe, Mark Jago Peter Markle, Estelle Markle Pierre Dupriere, Pete Betel Birgit Cotting, Baker Manuel John Hendrick Dupriere, Michelle Miller Julia Philippe, Stephen Parry And Robin Gleed for determining By experiment whether it is safer To transport an airborne rhinoceros Upside down The prize will be presented By Nobel laureate Rich Roberts Here's the prize And I have to say When I have to be transported To a safer place I hope not to be doing it Upside down But many congratulations Winners, if you could hold up your prize And display it Great And now here is your Ten trillion dollar bill You got the red You got the original article And we've got the one Oh, very nice Rich, you've had a glimpse At what all of these people did To win their prize I felt sorry for the rhinoceros I must say Well, should he feel sorry for the rhinoceros? No Because they're They're being moved to a safe area Where they're protected That I know it was just the manner of transportation That I was concerned about Well, that's why we did a research The rhinos in the experiments Were only two inches off the ground Maybe six inches, Dr. Gleed Did you run any tests Before you had a large rhinoceros Using any of yourselves? Actually, we first tested a lot of other animals Before we got to the rhino And of course, including a few human beings So, yep, we didn't start with rhino That's for sure I hope they were volunteers Any of you test subjects? I think Dr. Morgan We've all been tested We've all been hung at some stage The beauty of it is It's really changed Rhino-translocation And actually on the back of it It's even more so elephant-translocation It's become Picking these big animals up by their feet It's accepted Of course, the next thing we've got to do Is do some research on some of the other species Like elephant, buffalo, hippo Maybe even giraffe Which should be picked up by their feet But it's totally changed Rhino and elephant-translocation Richard, now that you have the perspective Of a number of years Since you won your real Nobel Prize What do you say was the most Impact from your discovery? Well, you know, if you look at The COVID mRNA vaccines They would not have been possible Without my discovery Oh, very cool But the first real Clinical application came about Three years ago When an ex-postdoc of mine Someone who'd been a postdoc with me Found a cure For spinal muscular atrophy Not so much a cure as a treatment That would allow kids to develop properly And that was the very first clinical application Just 40 years after we made the discovery So, you know, basic research Doesn't necessarily give results immediately But over time it gives terrific results Wow, thank you Congratulations Fantastic, awesome But you know, it was luck If you ask anybody Who was won a Nobel Prize They'll tell you almost always It was luck Because they were working on something It didn't quite work out The way they had predicted it should And they went the extra step To see why it failed And they discovered something That no one had been expecting Sometimes it's a big discovery Sometimes it's small And if it's big, then luck Will eventually give you the Nobel Prize So Winners will now Give their pre-recorded acceptance speech People are puzzled Why are we hanging rhinos upside down? Mark and Pete We were asked to rob in for conservation purposes To move a significant number of rhino From a core breeding area To other very remote regions Capture release was going to be In really difficult places to get to So we looked at the options And we found that rhinos Would probably be the safest Most effective and animal-friendly way Of doing it Pete So we came up with a plan Of lifting them up by their feet Having them upside down We then lifted a rhino with a crane It managed that okay And we were good to go Good to lift a rhino with a helicopter The thing I love about wildlife veterinarians Is you guys have to really think About how to move a rhino Upside down is a good example You have to be ingenious and creative And sometimes even a little bit Crazy to move rhinos this way The new Ig Nobel Prize winners Will give free public lectures To explain if they can What they did and why they did it In a more normal year With no pandemic we do that at MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology But in this pandemic year We're doing it online You can see that at our website Improbable.com In the coming months And now it's time for the thrilling conclusion To tonight's new mini opera A bridge between people The kids are doing it The kids They're building lots of little suspension Bridges And they are gluing angry adults To these little tiny bridges You know each pair of angry adults Permanently Those angry adults Oi They're going to have to find a way to get along So let's all enjoy this Happy and I warn you Multiply Angry Angry Angry Childish Childish Childish Childish Childish Childish Childish Childish Childish Childish Childish Childish Childish Childish Childish Childish Childish Childish The other adults in town are angry too. You know they see their future. They hate kids. They hate bridges. They hate engineering. You know what they really hate? Each other. Danger, danger, danger, danger, danger, danger, danger, danger, danger, danger, danger, danger, danger, danger, danger, danger, danger, danger, danger, danger, danger, danger, danger, danger, danger, . . illnesses. And the bridge-building plans by any kid in our little town will be quickly forbidden. Children Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, lady, shirt, buddy too. Stay away! Stay away! Get the hell away! I know all kinds of modern martial arts. Stutter it, butt your lungs, and rip out your hearts. There's a lot of ways to cause pain. Hey! I can make you go insane! The kids are proud of what they've done. Really proud? You know, kind of obnoxiously proud. All these adults so bitter, Blind ways to make life bitter, They are stuck together in pairs. Fasting together, forever. At opposite ends, of a little tiny bridge, It's finding its own, To get along, together, forever. At easing all the tensions, and all is so crazy. Press all the anger, justice rich. They need a good suspension bridge. And thank people, they have edges good. At easing all the tensions, and all is so crazy. Press all the anger, justice rich. They need a good suspension bridge. The opera performers, The engineering instrumentation orchestra On piano, Julia Yoon. On cello, Dr. Julie Ryman. On accordion, Dr. Thomas Michelle. The narrators, Karen Hopkins and Christopher Hopkins. The soloist, Dr. Abby Schiff. Ted Sharp. Dr. Fred Tsai. Lisa Ferretti. Michael Skuhersky. David Kessler. Cinda Lavely. David Perasso. And singer and our opera director, Maria Farante. Okay, that's that. Now, Professor Jean Berco Gleason Will deliver the traditional Ig Nobel Goodbye, goodbye speech. Ich bin so böse. Goodbye. Normally, at this point in the ceremony, We ask everybody in the ceremony To gather together at the front of the stage For a pointless photo opportunity. But with the pandemic, we can't do that. So here's a 10 second long look back At the ceremony. We engineered this year's ceremony With help from a lot of very good people And a cat and a dog. Take a look at what they did. Here's a 5 second look back at the ceremony. If you'd like to help the Ig Nobel prizes Continue for another 31 years or so, Please donate a little money. And if you'd like to discover some more things That are just as surprising as the things You discovered here tonight, Subscribe to the magazine, The Annals of Improbable Research. You can do both of those things at our website Improbable.com Now, we hate to say Goodbye, goodbye. So just before we finish, Here's a 1 second long look back At the ceremony. We hope, we hope that the pandemic Will be tamed and that next year We can do the 32nd first annual Ig Nobel prize ceremony back in our Traditional home at Sanders Theatre. Now, on behalf of the Harvard Radcliffe Society of Physics Students and the Harvard Radcliffe Science Fiction Association And especially from all of us at 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 Danger, danger, danger-da, da-da,と思います pourquoi? Danger, danger, danger-da, 2021 Da-dda, da-dda, da-da, da-dam, dan-da-dam Da-dda, da-dda, da-dda, da-dam Dun-da-dum-damn, dun-da-dum, lil-dem Dun-da-d담, dun-da-dum-damn Dun-da-dum-damn, dun-da-damm Dun-da-dur-rule, digo-rum, dun-da-dum Dun-da-drum-damn, dun-die-dim Dun-dam-information, dun-dam- włail monde Dun-dam- afteroo-sem Dun-dam- widespread information Dun-dam- Minor weight up to smash Dun-dam-up approximately 18 plug We'll be playing plans by Andy kid And our little town will be for Bim Children irritatingly persistent, They are the reason we get pissed Tim Di-dim-dim, Tim Di-dim-dim, Tim Di-dim-dim, Tim Di-dim-dim, Tim Di-dim-dim, Tim Di-dim-dim, Tim Di-dim-dim, Tim Di-dim-dim, Tim Di-dim-dim, Much-much-much-much-much-much Get away, stay away! Get the hell out of here! I know all kinds of modern martial arts Get a rip by your tongues and a rip by your heart Go and sing! I just want you to know that we spent 50 bucks driving the engineer to do that at just the right time. That train runs down this track only often enough to keep this line from being officially legally derelict. That happens like once every six or seven months or whatever the time is. This is not true. And you got to see it. You get to see it. Thank you.