Monday, April 1, 2024

IgNobel Prizes for April Fools Day, a holiday special

Happy April Fools Day! I considered today's topic in PBS Eons and SciShow on Piltdown Man for April Fools Day, a Science Saturday holiday special.
I might write about the IgNobel Prizes next year, which I haven't done for nearly a decade. Time to return to them.
My readers reinforced this idea, as Science awards from the ridiculous to the sublime, 2013 edition has seen a surge in interest so far this year, earning 305 page views from December 1st to now. Without any further ado, listen to Ig Nobel prize 2023: Science that makes you laugh (and think) | New Scientist Weekly podcast 215.

A smart toilet with a camera inside that analyses your poop, plus a study of people who are fluent in speaking backwards – these are just two recipients of this year’s Ig Nobel prize. As the satirical sister to the Nobel prize, the Ig Nobels honour scientific achievements that make people laugh…then think. Prize founder Marc Abrahams on this year’s hilarious winners - and why even robots made from reanimating dead spiders can have a more serious side.
Two of the prizes connect to stories I tell my students, geologists, particularly paleontologists, licking rocks and spiders moving their limbs by hydraulic action. Science Friday went into more detail on both in Saluting Science’s Silly Side, Virtually (click to listen).
This year’s awards included prizes for explaining why many scientists like to lick rocks, for re-animating dead spiders to use as mechanical gripping tools, and for using cadavers to explore whether there is an equal number of hairs in each of a person’s two nostrils.
I'm a paleontologist, so I know what geologists do in the field, including tasting rocks for composition and chewing on them for texture. I tell my students about the chew test for siltstone versus shale, but I also tell them not to do it to their specimens; the rocks are already identified. Besides, they can tell by rubbing them.

Using reanimated spiders as robots is creepy, but it makes perfect sense given the anatomy of spiders. I'll try to remember this research when I lecture about spiders this summer and fall in Organismal Biology.

The Education Prize touches on my teaching philosophy: "If I'm bored, my students are bored, and nobody is learning." I try to keep my lectures interesting for that reason, including telling jokes and, hopefully, interesting stories. That's a third story I tell my students that I now know has scientific support, thanks to the IgNobel Prizes.

Ars Technica has detailed descriptions of all the winners, including ones New Scientist and Science Friday missed, such as the Nutrition Prize recognizing "Homei Miyashita and Hiromi Nakamura, for experiments to determine how electrified chopsticks and drinking straws can change the taste of food" and the Physics prize acknowledging "Bieito Fernández Castro, Marian Peña, Enrique Nogueira, Miguel Gilcoto, Esperanza Broullón, Antonio Comesaña, Damien Bouffard, Alberto C. Naveira Garabato, and Beatriz Mouriño-Carballido, for measuring the extent to which ocean-water mixing is affected by the sexual activity of anchovies."

I hope my readers enjoyed today's excursion into "achievements that first make people LAUGH, then make them THINK." All of them are real research. No hoaxes today!

Follow over the jump for a retrospective of the most read posts about holidays during the 13th year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News.


The most read post about holidays last year came from the back catalog, Dancing German witches for Halloween, posted on October 29, 2016. As I wrote in Stats for the 13th year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News on Throwback Tuesday, "'Dancing German witches for Halloween' waltzed into fifth place with 33 results. I'm not surprised." People clicking on the link after it showed up in search resulted in 528 page views between March 21, 2023 and March 20, 2024, landing the post in 22nd place overall. It also made the top 20 during October 2023 with 166 default and 244 raw page views, tying it for 15th according to the first measure and ranking it twelfth by the second.


I shared 'The Mehdi Hasan Show' examines the politics of 'Andor' for Revenge of the Sixth posted on May 6, 2023, at the Coffee Party USA/Citizen Connect Facebook page. Steve in Manhattan then shared it at Crooks and Liars. Both contributed to the entry earning 423 default and 441 raw page views, ranking it second overall and first among entries posted during May 2023. It continued gaining page views since, ending the blogging year with 441 default and 502 raw page views, ranking it 15th by the first metric while the second placed it 19th among entries posted during the blog's 13th year and 27th overall.


I shared NOVA warns of 'The Next Pompeii' for the Ides of March from March 15, 2024 at the Coffee Party USA/Citizen Connect Facebook page, then Steve in Manhattan linked to this post in Mike's Blog Roundup at Crooks and Liars. Those were enough to earn the post 485 default and 493 raw page views by 11:59 P.M. EDT on March 20, 2024, ranking it eleventh by the first measure and 20th among entries posted during the blogging year, 29th overall, by the second metric. It continued to gain readers, ending March 2024 with 485 default and 502 raw page views, ranking it first among entries posted during the month and second overall.


Both Infidel753 and Steve in Manhattan linked to Dancing American witches on Black Cat Day for Halloween from October 27, 2023 at Link round-up for 29 October 2023 and Mike's Blog Round-Up at Crooks and Liars, respectively, earning it 340 default and 342 raw page views during October 2023 to rank sixth for the month. It earned more since because of web search to end the blogging year with 459 raw page views to rank 22nd for entries posted during the 13th year of this blog and 31st overall. It also tied for second most comments on an entry posted during the 13th year of the blog with five.


I shared 'The Klingon Hamlet' and Klingons quoting Shakespeare for Talk Like Shakespeare Day posted on April 23, 2023 at the Coffee Party USA/Citizen Connect Facebook page, which earned it 384 default and 388 raw page views by the end of April 2023, ranking it fifth overall and fourth among entries posted that month. Web search continued bringing in page views, resulting in 435 raw page views by the end of the blogging year to rank 26th among entries posted during the 13th year of the blog and 35th overall. It also earned 4 likes and 1 reply to tie for the most active on Instagram during April 2023.


I shared The history of Cinco De Mayo, a Flashback Friday holiday special from May 5, 2023 at the Coffee Party USA/Citizen Connect Facebook page, earning it 370 default and 386 raw page views to rank third overall and second among entries posted during May 2023. Web search since then increased its page views to 387 default and 426 raw page views by the end of the blogging year to place it 18th according to the first metric and 28th among entries posted between March 21, 2023 and March 20, 2024, 37th overall, according to the second.


19 (31/40). I shared Some of my favorite bands at the 2024 Rose Parade for New Year's Day posted on January 1, 2024 at the Coffee Party USA/Citizen Connect Facebook page and by Steve in Manhattan in Mike's Blog Roundup at Crooks and Liars. Those earned the entry 347 default and 397 raw page views, ranking it second for the month by both measures during the month. It ended the blogging year with 383 default and 418 raw page views to rank it 19th by the first metric and 31st among entries posted during the blogging year and 40th overall by the second. It also had three likes and one comment on Instagram.

Now to recycle a post from 'Trump' hijacks the Resurrection to sell Bibles on 'SNL' for Easter.

I shared James Austin Johnson's 'Trump' hijacks the Last Supper on 'SNL' for Easter posted April 9, 2023 to the Coffee Party USA/Citizen Connect Facebook page. That helped it earn 340 default and 353 raw page views, ranking it tenth overall by both measures and eighth among entries posted that month. It earned more page views to end the blogging year with 401, ranking it 37th among entries posted between March 21, 2023 and March 20, 2024 and 46th overall. It was also one of April 2023's successful Twitter shares, earning 247 impressions and 10 total engagements, including 5 detail expands, 3 replies in 2 threads (most threads during the month), 1 retweet, 1 like, and 1 link click.
I have written that it's not really a holiday retrospective entry without mentioning Broken Peach, so I'm sharing this preview of coming attractions from a planned post about holidays on Twitter.


I tweeted Broken Peach sings 'One Way or Another' from 'Hocus Pocus 2' for Halloween from October 28, 2023 that same day. It earned 10 total engagements, including 6 likes (most during October 2023) one from Broken Peach themselves, 2 profile clicks, 1 reply in 1 thread, and 1 media engagement, on 87 impressions for an 11.5% engagement rate.

I plan on resuming this series on Wayback Wednesday after another installment of marching music for primary elections and caucuses tomorrow. Stay tuned.

Previous posts in this series Previous retrospectives about holidays.
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