IG Nobel Tour

Wednesday 14th March - Cabot Auditorium, 5pm

The IG Nobel Prizes honor achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think. The prizes are intended to celebrate the unusual, honor the imaginative — and spur people's interest in science, medicine, and technology. Every year, in a gala ceremony in Harvard's Sanders Theatre, 1200 splendidly eccentric spectators watch the winners step forward to accept their Prizes. These are physically handed out by genuinely bemused genuine Nobel laureates.

Marc Abrahams will review the past year’s improbable research and IG Nobel Prize winners. Several IG winners, and other scientists who have done things just as improbably impressive, will try to explain what they did and why they did it, and will field questions.

This year’s speakers are:

Dr David Gadian
Dr. Gadian and his colleagues won the 2003 IG Nobel Medicine Prize for presenting evidence that the brains of London taxi drivers are more highly developed than those of their fellow citizens. He's a lot of fun.

Desmond Donovan
Desmond Donovan is a Professor Emeritus at University College, London. He will be discussing his paper, gradual diminution of the human head, which appeared in our recent "Body Parts" issue of the Annals of Improbable Research

Dr Makoto Imai
Dr. Makoto Imai is one of the winners of the 2011 IG Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the Wasabi Fire Alarm, which can be used by the deaf and other populations who wouldn’t be able to use a typical alarm system. Instead of noise the alarm releases the overwhelming smell of wasabi, which is guaranteed to get anyone out of bed!

Michael Lewis
Michael Lewis from the University of Cardiff will talk about why eyewitnesses should not do crosswords prior to identity parades

For further information about IG Nobel, please visit www.improbable.com