2009 Ig Nobel Prizes Awarded To 10 Distinguished Researchers And Innovators

by Myra Per-Lee

4. The 2009 Ig Nobel Prize In Economics

Image: Nordicphotos/Alamy via Guardian UK went to the directors, executives, and auditors of four Icelandic banks — Kaupthing Bank, Landsbanki, Glitnir Bank, and Central Bank of Iceland — for demonstrating that tiny banks can be rapidly transformed into huge banks, and vice versa — and for demonstrating that similar things can be done to an entire national economy. (The Icelandic economy actually recessed more than our economy in the U.S. and had no bailout.)

5. The 2009 Ig Nobel Prize In Chemistry

I'll take that one! (via Zimbio.com)

went to Javier Morales, Miguel Apátiga, and Victor M. Castaño of Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, for creating diamonds from tequila. I'll take mine straight please, without the ring.

The Growth of Diamond Films From Tequila was published in 2008 and was proposed as an alternate way to produce diamond film for industrial uses.

6. The 2009 Ig Nobel Prize In Physics

from PregnantBellyPictures.blogspot.com

went to Katherine K. Whitcome of the University of Cincinnati, USA, Daniel E. Lieberman of Harvard University, USA, and Liza J. Shapiro of the University of Texas, USA, for analytically determining why pregnant women don't tip over.

Fetal load and the evolution of lumbar lordosis in bipedal hominins is the reason. Lumbar lordosis is the hollow back or "saddle back" a woman develops to compensate for the distribution of her body weight in her belly. This can become painful, even after pregnancy, if the curve is not corrected.

7. The 2009 Ig Nobel Prize In Public Health

went to Elena N. Bodnar, Raphael C. Lee, and Sandra Marijan of Chicago, Illinois, USA, for inventing a brassiere that, in an emergency, can be quickly converted into a pair of protective face masks, one for the brassiere wearer and one to be given to some needy bystander. The patent for a “Garment Device Convertible to One or More Facemasks” explains how this is done.

Just tear off your bra and share it. Below, inventor
Elena Bodnar kindly converts half of her bra to a gas mask for Wolfgang Ketterle, recipient of the 2001 Nobel Prize in physics.

Photograph by Steven Senne, AP