2015 Ig Nobel prizes: dinosaur-like chickens and bee-stings to the penis

Guardian ^ | 9/17/2015 | Alan Yuthas

[JimSEA]

A man stung dozens of times by bees, mathematicians who wanted to know whether a man could physically be able to sire 600 sons, and chemists who unboiled an egg were honoured on Thursday night with one of science’s most storied awards, the Ig Nobel prize.

Professors, researchers, students and actual Nobel laureates from around the world gathered at Harvard University at the 25th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony, the absurdist celebration of science that “makes you laugh, then think”.

Entomologist Justin Schmidt and Cornell researcher Michael Smith jointly won for their painstaking experiments charting how painful insect stings are, and where the stings hurt worst. Smith pressed bees up against different parts of his body until the insects stung him, five stings a day, a total of 25 different locations, for 38 days. He rated the pain one to 10, and published.

[JimSEA]

I recall a couple of these "studies" from other news sources. Of interest was "A group of physicists from the US and Taiwan won for finding “the law of urination”: the principle that nearly all mammals empty their bladders in about 21 seconds (plus or minus 13 seconds), whether they’re the size of an elephant or a shrew."

Well it does take your mind off the gloom and doom of the day.

[Jim from C-Town]

Th eanswer to the sons question is no, I have tried.

[Lurkina.n.Learnin]

“The law of urination”: the principle that nearly all mammals empty their bladders in about 21 seconds (plus or minus 13 seconds), whether they’re the size of an elephant or a shrew.”

I call B.S. Takes me way longer than that to get up in the middle of the night to get to the, bathroom and that’s usually in a hurried state.

[MeshugeMikey]

who could ever have imagined!??

[Robert DeLong]

Apparently not hard enough, LOL.

[BitWielder1]

I suspect old men with prostate problems were not included in that study.