Researchers at Georgia Tech are being recognized for, of all things, their findings on urination.
If you're laughing, that's exactly what judges for the Ig Nobel Prize (a play on the words ignoble and Nobel). The pronunciation used during the ceremony is /ˌɪɡnoʊˈbɛl/ ig-noh-bel, not like the word "ignoble". want you to do, according to a Business Insider report.
The annual ceremony at Harvard University recognizes research that “makes people first laugh, then think,” says Ig Nobel Prize founder Marc Abrahams, who along with a panel of experts evaluates thousands of nominations each year.
David L. Hu and his fellow Georgia Tech scientists sought to find out why humans of all sizes and ages take roughly the same amount of time to empty their bladders.
The team's research concludes that, in fact, all mammals weighing more than 7 pounds, require about 21 seconds.
Hu hopes their research helps to make water towers and hydration backpacks more efficient, and has gone "from number one to number two” with a new mammal defecation study.
Other Ig Nobel prize winners include:
• Japanese allergist who found that eczema and hay fever sufferers experience reduced skin allergies after kissing.
• Business school professors who found that corporate leaders exposed to natural disasters at an early age are less risk-averse than their peers.
• Chile scientists discovered that attaching a weight to a chicken's tail causes it to walk like a dinosaur.
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