CER Practice - Ig Nobel

Mr. Smith stung himself with honey bees. On a scale of 1-10, he noticed stings at the nostril and upper lip had an average pain rating of 9 and 8.7, respectively.

The nostril is the most painful location for a honey bee sting. The upper lip is the 2nd most painful.

Measured neural activity show increased sensitivity at thumb, tongue, lips, and digits

Pain is more intense at locations with thinner skin.

Knuckle cracking does not lead to arthritis of the fingers.

It is possible that there is an osteoarthritis preventative therapeutic benefit from the exercise effect on joint lubrication resulting from habitual knuckle cracking.

For 50 years, the author deliberately cracked knuckles on his left hand twice a day but did not do the same to his right hand. At the end of 50 years, the hands were compared. There was no arthritis in either hand, and no apparent difference between hands.

Brown test surfaces trapped 21 horseflies while white test surfaces attracted 1 horsefly.

Horseflies are attracted to higher polarization of light reflected from dark surfaces. Since white animals reflect light with lower polarization, fewer horseflies are attracted to white horses.

Horseflies are less attracted to white horses than dark horses.

Brown horses stay 2.2x longer in horsefly-free shady forest than white horses.

Black horse models trapped 25.5x more horseflies than white horse models.

Duration of urination does not change with body size.

Urination time is highly sensitive to urethral cross-section. Larger animals have larger bladders, but they also have larger urethral cross-sections, resulting in a greater flow rate. Thus, larger bladders are offset by greater flow rates.

Scientists observed 32 animals across six orders of magnitude of body mass (from 0.03 to 8000 kg.) Despite this wide range in mass, urination time remained constant for all animals heavier than 3kg.

Cow feces can be used to produce vanilla extract.

By heating up cow dung under different pressures and using liquid chromatography for analysis, scientists were able to extract vanillic acid and vanillin from cow dung. Vanillic acid and vanillin could not be extracted from tiger dung using the same process.

Vanilla can be produced from a bipolymer known as lignin, which is found in wood pulp. Cows, which are herbivores, have lignin in their excrement, Carnivores, like tigers, do not.