Prix Ig Nobel 2024
La 34e cérémonie des prix Ig Nobel s'est déroulée le 12 septembre dernier au MIT Museum.
Les prix Ig Nobel sont décernés chaque année à dix recherches scientifiques qui font d'abord rire les gens, puis qui les font réfléchir.
Parmi les 10 recherches récompensées, en voici quelques-unes qui font déjà parler d'elles:
Le prix Ig Nobel de physiologie a été décerné à une équipe nipo-américaine pour avoir découvert que de nombreux mammifères sont capables de respirer par l'anus.
PHYSIOLOGY PRIZE [JAPAN, USA]
Ryo Okabe, Toyofumi F. Chen-Yoshikawa, Yosuke Yoneyama, Yuhei Yokoyama, Satona Tanaka, Akihiko Yoshizawa, Wendy L. Thompson, Gokul Kannan, Eiji Kobayashi, Hiroshi Date, and Takanori Takebe (June 2021) Mammalian Enteral Ventilation Ameliorates Respiratory Failure. Med, vol. 2, pp. 1-11.
Background
Several aquatic organisms such as loaches have evolved unique intestinal breathing mechanisms to survive under extensive hypoxia. To date, it is highly controversial whether such capability can be adapted in mammalian species as another site for gas exchange. Here, we report the advent of the intestinal breathing phenomenon in mammalians by exploiting EVA (enteral ventilation via anus).
Methods
Two different modes of EVA were investigated in an experimental model of respiratory failure: intra-rectal oxygen O2 gas ventilation (g-EVA) or liquid ventilation (l-EVA) with oxygenated perfluorocarbon. After induction of type 1 respiratory failure, we analyzed the effectiveness of g-EVA and I-EVA in mouse and pig, followed by preclinical safety analysis in rat.
Findings
Both intra-rectal O2 gas and oxygenated liquid delivery were shown to provide vital rescue of experimental models of respiratory failure, improving survival, behavior, and systemic O2 level. A rodent and porcine model study confirmed the tolerable and repeatable features of an enema-like l-EVA procedure with no major signs of complications.
Conclusions
EVA has proven effective in mammalians such that it oxygenated systemic circulation and ameliorated respiratory failure. Due to the proven safety of perfluorochemicals in clinics, EVA potentially provides an adjunctive means of oxygenation for patients under respiratory distress conditions.
L'article est ici: doi.org/10.1016/j.medj.2021.04.004
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Le Ig Nobel de la paix a été remis à B.F. Skinner pour des expériences visant à déterminer s'il est possible d'héberger des pigeons vivants à l'intérieur de missiles afin de guider les trajectoires de vol de ces derniers.
PEACE PRIZE [USA]
B.F. Skinner (1960) Pigeons in a Pelican. American Psychologist, vol 15, no. 1, pp. 28-37.
This is the history of a crackpot idea, born on the wrong side of the tracks intellectually speaking, but eventually vindicated in a sort of middle class respectability. It is the story of a proposal to use living organisms to guide missiles—of a research program during World War II called 'Project Pigeon' and a peace-time continuation at the Naval Research Laboratory called 'ORCON,' from the words 'organic Control.' Major sections are: Project Pelican, Orcon, and The Crackpot Idea. Wide-ranging speculation about human affairs, supported by studies of compensating rigor, will make a substantial contribution toward that world of the future in which… there will be no need for guided missiles.
L'article est ici: psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/h0045345
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Le Ig Nobel de probabilité a été remis à une équipe européenne pour avoir démontré, à la fois en théorie et par 350 757 expériences, que lorsque l'on joue à pile ou face, la pièce a tendance à tomber du même côté que celui d'où elle est partie.
PROBABILITY PRIZE [THE NETHERLANDS, SWITZERLAND, BELGIUM, FRANCE, GERMANY, HUNGARY, CZECH REPUBLIC]
František Bartoš, et al., (2023) Fair Coins Tend to Land on the Same Side They Started: Evidence from 350,757 Flips.
Many people have flipped coins but few have stopped to ponder the statistical and physical intricacies of the process. In a preregistered study we collected 350,757 coin flips to test the counterintuitive prediction from a physics model of human coin tossing developed by Diaconis, Holmes, and Montgomery (DHM; 2007). The model asserts that when people flip an ordinary coin, it tends to land on the same side it started -- DHM estimated the probability of a same-side outcome to be about 51%. Our data lend strong support to this precise prediction: the coins landed on the same side more often than not, Pr(same side)=0.508, 95% credible interval (CI) [0.506, 0.509], BFsame-side bias=2359. Furthermore, the data revealed considerable between-people variation in the degree of this same-side bias. Our data also confirmed the generic prediction that when people flip an ordinary coin -- with the initial side-up randomly determined -- it is equally likely to land heads or tails: Pr(heads)=0.500, 95% CI [0.498, 0.502], BFheads-tails bias=0.182. Furthermore, this lack of heads-tails bias does not appear to vary across coins. Additional exploratory analyses revealed that the within-people same-side bias decreased as more coins were flipped, an effect that is consistent with the possibility that practice makes people flip coins in a less wobbly fashion. Our data therefore provide strong evidence that when some (but not all) people flip a fair coin, it tends to land on the same side it started. Our data provide compelling statistical support for the DHM physics model of coin tossing.
L'article est ici: doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2310.04153
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Les grands fans des prix Ig Nobel peuvent visionner l'entièreté de la cérémonie sur Youtube.
