“Smart toilet” that knows if you are sick and exactly how many nose hairs do we have? These studies win an Ig Nobel Prize | Science & Planet

The competition is a big nod to the real Nobel Prizes that will be awarded in December, but they are also very popular in the scientific world. For 32 years, these prizes have recognized scientific research that seems absurd and funny at first glance, but makes you think afterwards.

Although the name is similar to the real Nobel Prizes, the reward is not comparable. In this competition, winners receive a 10 trillion Zimbabwean dollar note, a currency that no longer exists and is therefore worth nothing.

Belgium once again failed to win any prizes this year. The last time scientists from our country were able to receive an Ig Nobel Prize was in 2020 for research into misophonia. Belgian researchers then investigated when we experience feelings of hatred and disgust when hearing specific sounds. The results showed that these feelings were often caused by human sounds such as breathing, smacking or slurping.

The researchers investigated why the legs of a dead spider keep curling up and discovered that if you apply pressure with a hollow needle and some glue, the legs can straighten again. As a result, the team created a ‘spider grabber’ with which you can grab some objects.

Most of us are familiar with the phenomenon of déjà vu: the feeling that we have experienced something before, even though we haven’t. The opposite of this is jamais vu effect: a feeling of newness or unfamiliarity with something we have seen or experienced before, usually with a word but also sometimes with people or places.

Researchers studied this effect by repeating the same word so many times that a familiar word suddenly became strange: “It almost seems as if it is not really a word, but someone has fooled me,” said one of the participants after the experiment. experiment.

A Polish scientist identified why many geologists and paleontologists lick rocks. The research showed that wetting the surface makes fossils and minerals more visible.

Researchers in Japan found that the taste of food can be instantly and reversibly changed by electrical stimulation. When test subjects ate or drank something with electrically charged chopsticks or straws, the taste changed depending on the number of volts. With this discovery, the researchers want to create new taste sensations that we have not been able to create until now.

Students being bored in class is not a new phenomenon. Chinese research now shows that if teachers appear bored – for example by teaching the same material year after year – their students become bored more quickly.

A “smart toilet” that can see whether you are sick via all kinds of sensors on your urine and seat bar. A corona test and anus camera could not be missed.

When people are experts at speaking backwards, researchers saw more gray matter in these people on brain scans. In addition, the brain areas of these people can work better together.

Scientists at the University of California Medical School counted the nose hairs of 20 corpses. This shows that on average we have about 120 nose hairs per nostril that vary between 0.81 and 1.035 centimeters. With these results, the researchers want to gain more insight into a certain form of hair loss.

Ocean water mixing has been an important area of ​​research for climate scientists for years. New research shows that the sexual activity of anchovies can mix the different water layers in the oceans, directly affecting ocean turbulence.