The 17th annual Ig Nobel Prizes, co-sponsored by three Harvard University student groups and informally supported by university faculty and staff, were announced yesterday at the university. It's not quite the anti-Nobel, as you're bound to learn about some real, albeit strange, science if you pay attention...

What other awards are given to someone who explores and explains why woodpeckers don't get headaches, or for conducting experiments to learn why people dislike the sound of fingernails scraping on a blackboard, or for a medical case report entitled Termination of Intractable Hiccups with Digital Rectal Massage?

Of the 10 winners receiving awards at last night's ceremony, the 2007 Ig Nobel for "peace" went to the Air Force Wright Laboratory in Dayton, Ohio. In 1994, researchers there submitted a three-page proposal to develop a chemical weapon that could make enemy soldiers sexually irresistible to each other.

In physics, L. Mahadevan of Harvard and Enrique Cerda Villablanca of Santiago University, Chile, for studying how sheets become wrinkled.

So, too, were Brian Witcombe of Gloucester, UK, and Dan Meyer of Antioch, Tenn., for their report Sword Swallowing and its Side-Effects in the British Medical Journal.

A team at Quilmes National University in Buenos Aires, Argentina, came up with a study that found, when given Viagra, hamsters need 50 percent less time to recover from a six-hour time zone change, i.e., jet lag.

Genuine Nobel laureates presented the prizes to winners. Winners listed HERE and HERE.

How Old Does This Make You Feel?
Hey, boomers, the Beav is turning 60.

Leave it to Beaver legend Jerry Mathers is about to turn the big 6-0, while his TV brother, Tony Dow, is 62.

Mathers quote from USA Today: "And the Eddie Haskell character was more sexual than anything else."

Noted.

(Image via TV Land)

From Russia ... with Love?
This is a four-parter:

1) This week, Russia celebrates the 50th anniversary of the launch of Sputnik-1, an event that many hold to be the Soviet Union's most important victory in the international arena of science and technology competition.

According to NASA:

History changed on October 4, 1957, when the Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik I. The world's first artificial satellite was about the size of a beach ball (58 cm. or 22.8 inches in diameter), weighed only 83.6 kg. or 183.9 pounds, and took about 98 minutes to orbit the Earth on its elliptical path. That launch ushered in new political, military, technological, and scientific developments. While the Sputnik launch was a single event, it marked the start of the space age and the U.S.-U.S.S.R space race.

It was 500 miles up, traveling at 18,000 miles an hour, and it flew over the U.S. seven times a day.

"The landmark event was a heady cocktail of scientific experiment, military might, and pure propaganda," explains The Moscow News Weekly. "But determining the primary objective of the launch is not a simple question."

The official motivation for the Sputnik launch was research. Sputnik was not designed to do much more than remain in orbit and transmit radio signals. And, for those too young to remember, "the sound of its incessant beeping fascinated and disturbed the nation," notes The New York Times.

Sputnik's history via NASA and its legacy via Moscow News.

2) Asia is providing new competition, and the moon is the main focus of space programs throughout the world. Once again, space has become the playing field for national rivalries.

But it's also a place to play out international collaboration. Half a century later, the Cold War battle for the cosmos is history.

This week, Russian and U.S. space chiefs signed agreements to cooperate on unmanned missions that would search for potential water deposits beneath the surface of the moon and Mars, The Associated Press is reporting.

"The agreements signed by NASA Administrator Michael Griffin and Russian Space Agency chief Anatoly Perminov deal with putting Russian instruments on board NASA probes that would be sent to the moon and Mars. The first Russian instrument will be mounted on an unmanned NASA probe that is to be launched in October 2008 to search for possible sources of water under the moon's poles, according to AP. "A similar Russian instrument will be placed on a NASA rover that is to be sent to roam Mars in 2009."

The missions are important for choosing landing sites for future missions to the moon and Mars.

3) Five years ago, declassified material was revealed at the World Space Congress in Houston, Texas: Laika, the first earthling in orbit — and a dog — died of fright just after take-off.

As noted by DogsInTheNews.com (via Fark):

The report, presented by Dimitri Malashenkov of the Institute for Biological problems in Moscow, ended decades of speculation as to the fate of the great canine cosmonaut sent into space aboard Sputnik 2 on Nov. 3, 1957. Russian authorities had previously circulated reports that Laika survived in orbit for four days and then died when the cabin overheated due to a battery malfunction.

In reality, though, medical sensors recorded that immediately after the launch, as Laika's capsule reached speeds of nearly 18,000 miles per hour (28,800km/h), her pulse rate increased to three times its normal level, presumably due to overheating, fear and stress. Five to seven hours into the flight, no further life signs were received from Laika.

Laika paved the way for manned space flight, the next being fellow cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, the first human in orbit.

4) A Russian astronomer claims an asteroid could hit Earth in 2029. Boris Shustov, director of the Institute of Astronomy, said at a forum that the Apophis asteroid — discovered three years ago — could have a bigger impact than an asteroid that hit Siberia in 1908, the Novosti news agency reported.

According to United Press International (via PhysOrg):

The Tunguska astral event affected 830 square miles and blasted 80 million trees. The force of the impact was about 1,000 times more powerful than the atomic bomb the United States dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, at the end of World War II and measured 5.0 on the Richter scale.

Apophis predicted track would take it within 17,000 miles of Earth in 2029, Shustov said.

Earth-like Planet Forming Nearby?
An Earth-like planet is likely forming 424 light-years away, according to astronomers using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope.

Scientists have discovered a huge belt of warm dust — enough to build a Mars-size planet or larger — swirling around a distant star that is just slightly more massive than our sun, according to Johns Hopkins University.

ScienceDaily:

The dust belt, which they suspect is clumping together into planets, is located in the middle of the system's terrestrial habitable zone. This is the region around a star where liquid water could exist on any rocky planets that might form. Earth is located in the middle of our sun's terrestrial habitable zone.

At approximately 10 million years old, the star is also at just the right age for forming rocky planets.

The findings will be presented next week at the American Astronomical Society Division for Planetary Sciences and published in an upcoming issue of Astrophysical Journal.

Artist's conception of an Earth-like planet that appears to be forming 424 light years away
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/JHUAPL


Cheers.