Not-So-Bright Ideas in Science.

Not-So-Bright Ideas in Science.

Every year, Harvard’s science-humor-journal, The Annals of Improbable Research, hands out its Ig Nobel Prizes for genuine experiments “that cannot, or should not, be reproduced.” This year’s award winners include the scientist who figured out how to extract vanilla from cow dung and the man who invented a bottomless bowl of soup.

So as not to overwhelm you I will tell you about those two.

Nutrition: The Bottomless Bowl of Soup.

To test the psychology of eating, Brian Wansink of Cornell University created a bottomless bowl of soup, which constantly refills itself through a tube hidden underneath the table. Wansink invited a study group over for a meal, without disclosing that some of the soup bowls were rigged. Participants who ate from the self-refilling bowls devoured 73 percent more soup but claimed to have eaten the same amount as everyone else. They also didn’t report feeling fuller: Wansink discovered that without a visual cue like an empty bowl, people just keep eating.

Chemistry: Finding the Sweetness in Cow Dung

Farmers in Japan have finally found a purpose for their surplus cow dung---they can use it to flavor ice cream. By applying heat and pressure to the excrement, Mayu Yamamoto of Tokyo’s International Medical Center was able to produce vanilla flavoring. Actually, the breakthrough promises to be quite lucrative because cow dung is much cheaper than vanilla beans. To side-step the issue of “bovine excrement” appearing on the ingredient list in foods, manufacturers are only putting cow vanilla in soaps, candles, and shampoos. Regardless, Toscanini’s ice cream shop in Cambridge, Mass., created a new flavor using Yamamoto’s extract in honor of the Ig Nobel ceremony. The temporary offering was called Yum-Moto Vanilla Twist.

One additional one you deserve to know the rest of the story.

Peace: The Gay Bomb

Why nuke your enemies when you can make them fall in love instead? Researchers at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio are developing a sort of combat Chanel No 5 that will cause enemy soldiers to become sexually irresistible to one another. The idea of the “gay bomb” is to make the enemy too distracted by their libidos to fight back. Other fascinating chemicals the same researchers worked on include a spray that lures bugs to enemy lines, a chemical that gives enemy soldiers horrible halitosis, and a chemical that makes skin extremely sensitive to sunlight (an especially bad condition in places like the Middle East).