Ig Nobel Prizes 2014 2014年度搞笑诺贝尔奖

The 24th Ig Nobel prizes were announced on September 18. The prizes annually award scientific research that “first makes people laugh and then makes them think.”

The ceremony was food-themed including competitions such as Win-a-Date-With-a-Nobel-Laureate Contest. The awards for individual categories were presented at Harvard University by “a group of genuine， genuinely bemused1） Nobel Laureates.” And the winners are：

9月18日，第24届搞笑诺贝尔奖评选结果揭晓。这些奖项每年颁发给“乍看引人大笑、而后发人深省”的科学研究。

颁奖典礼以食品为主题，设有诸如“与诺奖得主有约大赛”等比赛。各个类别的奖项由“一群真心感到困惑的真正的诺贝尔奖得主”在哈佛大学颁发。获奖者如下：

The prize went to Kiyoshi Mabuchi of Kitasato University for his work “measuring the amount of friction between a shoe and a banana skin， and between a banana skin and the floor， when a person steps on a banana skin thats on the floor.” Also tested were apple peels and orange skin—found to be less dangerous. Apparently the banana peels form a sugary gel under pressure that makes them more slippery. No humans were injured during the experiment.

该奖项颁发给了北里大学的马  ；清资，因为他的研究“计算了当一个人踩到地板上的香蕉皮时，鞋与香蕉皮之间的摩擦力，以及香蕉皮与地板之间的摩擦力”。苹果皮和橘子皮也被拿来做测试——结果表明这两种果皮的危险性较小。显然，香蕉皮在受到压力时会形成一种含糖的凝胶，这种凝胶导致香蕉皮变得更滑。实验过程中没有人受伤。

Creatures of the night are， on average， “more self-admiring， more manipulative and more psychopathic2）” than people who habitually wake up early in the morning， according to Peter Jonason of the University of Western Sydney and colleagues. More specifically， the team showed that people with the Dark Triad3） set of personality traits—narcissism， psychopathy， and Machiavellianism4）—would do well after dark， because people would generally pay less attention to their manipulations.

西悉尼大学的彼得·约纳松及其同事研究发现，夜猫子通常比早上习惯早醒的人“更自恋，更有控制欲，更变态”。更具体地说，该研究小组发现，具有“黑暗人格三合一”特质（自恋、心理变态和精于权谋）的人在天黑之后状态较好，因为天黑后，人们通常就不太注意他们的权谋了。

Researchers from the US， India， Japan and the Czech Republic shared the prize “for investigating whether it was mentally hazardous for a human being to own a cat.” Cats rule the internet， but these researchers revealed that owning a pet cat is associated with some personality changes， including lowering intelligence in men and feeling less guilt in women. Two different teams won this prize. One focused on a cat-borne parasite that can infect humans and is known to manipulate the behaviour of its victims； the second looked at whether depression correlated with being bitten by cats.

该奖项由来自美国、印度、日本和捷克共和国的研究人员共同获得，“因为他们调查了养猫是否会给人带来精神上的危害”。互联网已经是猫的天下，但是这些研究人员发现，养宠物猫与人的某些性格变化相关，包括男性智商的下降和女性内疚感的减少。两个不同的小组获得了这个奖项。一个小组重点研究猫身上的一种寄生虫，这种寄生虫能感染人类，而且已经发现能操纵被感染者的行为；第二个小组研究了抑郁症与被猫咬伤之间是否存在相关性。

Kang Lee at the University of Toronto and colleagues bagged the neuroscience prize “for trying to understand what happens in the brains of people who see the face of Jesus in a piece of toast.” Their results show that this behaviour is quite normal： The human brain is wired to quickly recognise faces in things with slight suggestions of one， no matter whether they are on a dogs behind or on a naan bread5）. To find the regions of the brain involved in this， the researchers created a bunch of images of random noise6）， stuffed participants in an MRI tube， and told them that half of the images contained a face （they did a separate study where they were told they contained a letter）. Over a third of the time， the subjects thought they saw a face.

多伦多大学的李康及其同事将神经科学奖收入囊中，“因为他们试图了解在面包片上看到耶稣面孔的人的大脑活动”。他们的研究结果表明这种行为很正常：人类的大脑会本能地在稍具面孔特征的事物上很快辨认出面孔，无论这些面孔是在狗屁股上，还是在印度烤饼上。为了发现与此相关的大脑区域，研究人员制作了一批带有随机噪声的图像，把参与者推入核磁共振仪，并告诉他们有一半的图像中含有一张脸（他们还做了另一项研究，参与者被告知图像中含有一个字母）。在超过三分之一的情况中，受试者都认为自己看到了一张脸。

After more than 5，000 observations， Vlastimil Hart of Czech University of Life Sciences and colleagues found that dogs prefer to align themselves to the Earths north-south magnetic field while urinating and defecating. Its nomination in the Ig Nobels was probably expected as soon as the paper was published. The researchers concluded that their findings forced “biologists and physicians to seriously reconsider effects magnetic storms might pose on organisms.” And no doubt those who have to clean up after them.

在进行了5000多次观察后，捷克生命科学大学的弗拉斯季米尔·哈特和同事们发现，狗在排尿和排便时喜欢让自己的身体跟地球南北磁场平行。估计该论文刚刚发表，人们就预计这项研究将获得搞笑诺贝尔奖提名。研究人员得出的结论是，他们的发现迫使“生物学家和医生认真地重新考虑磁暴可能对生物造成的影响”。毫无疑问，对必须在狗身后清理粪便的人也会产生影响。

The aesthetics of paintings have been a subject of interest for scholars for hundreds of years. Now Marina de Tommaso of the University of Bari and her colleagues have won the Ig Nobel prize for getting quantitative about it. The prize was given “for measuring the relative pain people suffer while looking at an ugly painting， rather than a pretty painting， while being shot [in the hand] by a powerful laser beam.” They found that the perception of pain can be changed based on the aesthetic content of the painting. Technically， however， they couldnt tell whether the art was altering the perception of the pain from the laser， or if the pain was an additive effect of looking at a painfully ugly piece of art while the laser was on.

千百年来，绘画美学一直是学者很感兴趣的主题。如今，巴里大学的玛丽娜·德托马索和同事们对其进行了定量研究而获得了搞笑诺贝尔奖。获奖理由是“他们测量了人们观看一幅丑陋的画作（而非美丽的画作）时[手部]接受强激光束照射所产生的相对痛感”。他们发现，根据画作的审美内容不同，人们对疼痛的感知会发生变化。然而，从技术上讲，他们无法分辨到底是艺术改变了人们对激光照射所产生的疼痛的感知，还是说疼痛是人们在激光照射下观看一件无比丑陋的艺术品时所产生的附加效应。

Sonal Saraiya of Michigan State University and her colleagues won the Ig Nobel prize in medicine for developing nasal tampons made from bacon. Their use is specifically for Glanzmann Thrombasthenia7）， a blood disorder which can lead to “uncontrollable nosebleeds.”

密歇根州立大学的索娜尔·萨莱娅及其同事因研制腌猪肉做的鼻腔止血塞而获得了搞笑诺贝尔医学奖。这种止血塞专门用于治疗血小板无力症，这种血液疾病可导致“无法控制地流鼻血”。

Reindeer arent safe in Norway. Eigel Reimers and Sindre Eftest?l of the University of Oslo noticed that polar bears were stalking them. To find out whether the reindeer were able to respond to the threat from bears， Reimers and Eftest?l had people approach the reindeer. To make the experimental and control groups as similar as possible， they got some humans to dress in polar bear costumes. The results showed that reindeers ran twice the distance when they saw a person in a polar bear costume.

在挪威，驯鹿并不安全。奥斯陆大学的艾格尔·赖默斯和辛勒·奥菲斯托尔注意到，北极熊正在跟踪驯鹿。为了弄清驯鹿能否对北极熊的威胁做出反应，赖默斯和奥菲斯托尔让人去接近驯鹿。为了使实验组和对照组尽可能相似，他们让一些人化装成北极熊。结果表明，当驯鹿看到化装成北极熊的人时，它们跑开的距离是看到人时的两倍。

When you think of healthy eating， you probably dont think of sausages. But that may change， thanks to the amazing power of baby poop. With noses held tight， a team of medical researchers obtained bacteria from the faeces8） of infants， then tested which ones could both help to ferment sausages and also pass through the stomach to take up residence in the gut. Their finding could ultimately lead to probiotic9） sausages.

考虑到健康饮食，你可能不会想到香肠。但是，有了婴儿便便的神奇力量，这可能会发生改变。一帮医学研究人员捏紧鼻子，从婴儿粪便中获取了细菌，然后测试哪些细菌既有助于香肠发酵，也能经过胃部而在肠道定居。他们的发现最终可能会导致益生菌香肠的出现。

While the world loves the Ig Nobels， not all scientists take it in the same spirit. Peter Stahl， from the University of Victoria and a previous prizewinner， said there was a session at the end of the event where researchers are able to discuss the scientific aspects of their work. “But they could do a lot more to give people the context in which the science being mocked was done，” Stahl said.

Harry Flint， from the University of Aberdeen， said a certain amount of negativity was attached to the prize and the hard work by scientists. “Most scientists wont want to be an award winner of the Ig Nobel Prize，” he said.

虽然全世界都热爱搞笑诺贝尔奖，但并非所有科学家都对其抱有同样的态度。维多利亚大学的彼得·斯塔尔曾是获奖者，他说颁奖典礼最后有一个会议，研究人员可以在会上讨论其工作科学方面的内容。“但他们其实可以做更多的工作来让人们了解这些受到嘲弄的科学的研究背景。”斯塔尔说。

阿伯丁大学的哈里·弗林特说，人们对这个奖项和科学家的辛勤工作有一些负面的联想。“大多数科学家不想成为搞笑诺贝尔奖的获奖者。”他说。

1. bemused [b??mju?zd] adj. 困惑不解的；茫然的

2. psychopathic [?sa?k???p?θ?k] adj. 心理变态（者）的；患精神病的

3. Dark Triad：“黑暗人格三合一”，心理学名词，由自恋、心理变态和精于权谋这三种人格特质构成。

4. Machiavellianism [?m?ki??veli?n?z（?）m] n. 马基雅弗利主义；（玩弄权术、不择手段等）政治家的狡诈伎俩

5. naan bread：印度烤饼

6. noise：此处指图像噪声，即图像中妨碍人们接收其信息的各种因素。

7. GlanzmannThrombasthenia：血小板无力症，是一种遗传性出血病。

8. faeces [?fi?si?z] n. [复]粪便，排泄物

9. probiotic [?pr??ba???t?k] adj. 益生菌的