The Ig Nobel Prize is a parody of the Nobel Prize awarded every autumn to celebrate ten unusual or trivial achievements in scientific research.  Since 1991, the Ig Nobel Prizes have been awarded to "honor achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think."  The name of the award is a pun on the word ignoble, which means "characterized by baseness, lowness, or meanness," and is satirical social criticism that identifies "absurd" research, although, occasionally, such research has succeeded in yielding useful knowledge.  Organized by the scientific humor magazine, the Annals of Improbable Research (AIR), the Ig Nobel Prizes are presented by Nobel laureates in a ceremony at the Sanders Theater, Harvard University, and are followed by the winners’ public lectures at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  The Ig Nobels were created in 1991 by Marc Abrahams, editor and co-founder of the Annals of Improbable Research, editor-in-chief of the Journal of Irreproducible Results and master of ceremonies at all subsequent awards ceremonies.  Awards were presented at that time for discoveries "that cannot, or should not, be reproduced".  Ten prizes are awarded each year in many categories, including the Nobel Prize categories of physics, chemistry, physiology/medicine, literature, and peace, but also other categories such as public health, engineering, biology, and interdisciplinary research.  The Ig Nobel Prizes recognize genuine achievements, with the exception of three prizes awarded in the first year to fictitious scientists Josiah S. Carberry, Paul DeFanti, and Thomas Kyle.  In 2010, Sir Andre Geim, who had been awarded an Ig Nobel Prize in 2000 for levitating a frog by magnetism, was awarded a Nobel Prize in physics in 2010, for his work with graphene.  He thereby became the first (and only) individual to have received both a Nobel and an Ig Nobel.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ig_Nobel_Prize

Who organizes the Ig Nobel Prizes? — The Ig Nobel Prizes are organized by the magazine Annals of Improbable Research.  The ceremony is co-sponsored by the Harvard-Radcliffe Society of Physics Studentsand the Harvard-Radcliffe Science Fiction Association.  Who has won this prize? — Ten Ig Nobel prizes have been awarded each year since 1991.  The winners page contains a complete list. 

How do I find out about past years? — The Ig Archive page collects details, videos, and links from past ceremonies.  Can I nominate someone for an Ig Nobel prize?— Of course!  For details on how the nomination process works, please read here.  https://www.improbable.com/ig/ 

Confessions of a Wasteful Scientist | David Hu | TEDxEmory  Dr. David Hu is a mechanical engineer who studies the interactions of animals with water.  His team has discovered how dogs shake dry, how insects walk on water, and how eyelashes protect the eyes from drying.  Originally from Rockville, Maryland, he earned degrees in mathematics and mechanical engineering from M.I.T., and is now Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Biology and Adjunct Professor of Physics at Georgia Tech.  He is a recipient of the National Science Foundation CAREER award for young scientists, the Ig Nobel Prize in Physics, and the Pineapple Science Prize (the Ig Nobel of China).  He serves on the editorial board of Nature Scientific Reports and The Journal of Experimental Biology.  His work has been featured in The Economist, The New York Times, Saturday Night Live, and Highlights for Children.  He has defended basic research in a Scientific American article, Confessions of a Wasteful Scientist.  He lives with his wife Jia and children Harry and Heidi in Atlanta, Georgia.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7FYw8Bd964  18:46

THE CLOCK WITH NO FIVE, a true story recounted by Martha Esbin  The little boy loved to sit in front of the grandfather's clock.  It chimed every fifteen minutes, and when he heard a signalling click that the chime was about to play, he was so excited.  So she got him a small alarm clock, wrapped it in pretty paper and placed it under the Christmas tree.  But the alarm rang, so she unwrapped it, planning to stop the ringing.  At that point, a very observant person said "Do you see something odd about this clock?"  I didn't, but he pointed out there was no five.  She took it back the store and said "Do you see something odd about this clock?"  The clerks didn't.  She point out the lack of a five and said she'd like to trade the clock for one with a five.  But not one of the matching clocks in the store had a five. 

Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood On The Music Of 'Phantom Thread'  Lots of kids dream of growing up to be rock stars.  Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood was no different—though his interest was less in the glory and more in the intricacies of craft.  "I was obsessed with bands," the British multi-instrumentalist says, "and would always listen to my favorite records wondering, 'How do you write that kind of music?' more than, 'How do you play guitar solos?'  It was all about how you arrange music."  As it turned out, he's learned to do both (in one of the world's biggest rock bands, no less).  But beyond his many years with Radiohead, in the past decade Greenwood has quietly made a name for himself as a composer, most notably of scores for the films of Paul Thomas Anderson.  Phantom Thread starring Daniel Day-Lewis is set in 1950s London.  How did you think about the place in conjunction with the sound?  It's strange, 'cause lots of British music in the '50s is quite twee.  And if there's anything this film isn't— or at least the lead character, Reynolds Woodcock, he's not twee in any way.  So instead, we started thinking about what music he would listen to, and that kind of led me to things that are little more austere.  Also, I'm a big fan of all of these really over-the-top baroque recordings from that era, where they didn't care at all about what was authentic, and so they would have enormous romantic orchestras playing Bach and Vivaldi and stuff, and it sounds glorious.  It's not how they do it anymore.  Rachel Martin  Read the rest of the interview and link to 3:53 video at https://www.npr.org/2018/02/26/588397390/radioheads-jonny-greenwood-on-the-music-of-phantom-thread

Directing Daniel Day-Lewis:  ‘I know.  I’ve killed off the world’s greatest actor’  Paul Thomas Anderson on directing Daniel Day-Lewis in his final film, Phantom Thread by Tara Brady   In 2017,  Daniel Day-Lewis announced that his role in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Thread would be his last.  The film stars Day-Lewis as a freakishly fussy 1950s dressmaker.  This is Daniel Day-Lewis after all, an artist that comes with his own mythology.  Industry lore tells us he remained in his wheelchair on the set of My Left Foot, learned Czech for The Unbearable Lightness of Being, sparred for 18 months for The Boxer, slept in an abandoned prison during the shoot of In the Name of the Father, and who, by staying in flimsy period costume, caught pneumonia while making Gangs of New York.  For the purposes of Phantom Thread, the 60-year-old actor consulted Cassie Davies-Strodder, the former curator of fashion and textiles at the Victoria and Albert Museum, in London, and apprenticed (for months) under Marc Happel, the costumier at the New York City Ballet.  In preparation for Phantom Thread, Anderson honed in on Christian Dior, Lucien Freud, Charles James and the 20th-century Spanish couturier Cristobal Balenciaga.  Working alongside the veteran costume designer Mark Bridges, everyone involved in the production read The Master of Us All:  Balenciaga, His Workrooms, His World.  The tone of the film flirts with the supernatural by way of George Cukor’s Gaslight (1944) and Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca (1940), was an undiscovered country for Anderson.  https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/film/directing-daniel-day-lewis-i-know-i-ve-killed-off-the-world-s-greatest-actor-1.3365845

Daniel Day-Lewis  Awards  showing all 143 wins and 92 nominations  https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000358/awards  As of this writing, Day-Lewis is the only male actor in history to have three wins in the lead actor category.

"Figgy pudding" is a seemingly misinformed synonym for “plum pudding,” a British Christmas favorite.  In fact, figgy pudding or Christmas pudding has a long, delicious history.  The dish that eventually evolved into plum pudding originally contained preserved, sweetened meat “pyes” and boiled “pottage” (that is, vegetables) and was enjoyed in Britain as early as Roman times.  By Elizabeth I’s day, prunes had come into vogue, “and their name became a portmanteau label for all dried fruits.”  As plums became synonymous with fruit, plum dishes with and without meat became party food.  Steamed plum puddings soon became much-anticipated Christmas treats that required plenty of patience.  By the 19th century, cooks traditionally gave their plum puddings at least a month to develop their signature spicy flavors.  Charles Dickens managed to almost single handedly revive old Christmas traditions with his 1843 book A Christmas Carol, which celebrated a nostalgic holiday of redemption and love.  One of the traditions he upheld was that of the now-iconic Christmas pudding.  In a long passage, he shows Mrs. Cratchit steaming and preparing the pudding for her excited family:  Suppose it should not be done enough! Suppose it should break in turning out! . . . All sorts of horrors were supposed . . . In half a minute Mrs. Cratchit entered—flushed, but smiling proudly—with the pudding, like a speckled cannon-ball, so hard and firm, blazing in half of half-a-quartern of ignited brandy, and bedight with Christmas holly stuck into the top.  Maybe Mrs. Cratchit used this 1837 recipe (on page 112 of The Housekeeper's Book) at  https://books.google.com/books?id=QAEqAAAAYAAJ&dq=%22christmas%20pudding%22&pg=PA112#v=onepage&q=%22christmas%20pudding%22&f=false which features bread crumbs, flour, suet, sugar, currants, raisins, candied citron, orange peel, lemon peel, nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger, brandy, white wine and eggs.  “We Wish You a Merry Christmas”  It’s not entirely certain where the carol that contains the famous reference to a figgy pudding comes from.  In 1939, a composer named Arthur Warrell received a copyright for the carol “A Merry Christmas,” but acknowledged that it was an arrangement of a traditional English song.  The carol is thought to date from the 16th or 17th century, when carolers demanded refreshments like figgy pudding to keep them going throughout the chilly English nights.  https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/brief-history-figgy-pudding-180957600/

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  December 12, 2018  Issue 2003  346th day of the year