Wearing tiny polyester pants affects the sex life of rats. Rocks have distinct brand personalities. Dragonflies have a fatal attraction to black tombstones. Things may look different when you bend over and view them between your legs.
These are just some of the scientific revelations that were celebrated, tongue firmly in check, at the 26th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony on September 22. The awards are organized by the magazine Annals of Improbable Research, which combs through thousands of scientific journals for amusing (but not necessarily trivial) research news. Recent articles have covered the kissing games of adolescents in Ohio, the health benefits of dirty water and smoking, and feminist glaciers.
This year’s awards—given in honor of “achievements that first make people laugh then make them think”—went to a man who lived as a goat, a man who wrote a multi-volume autobiography on the pleasures of collecting flies, and a team that studied the reception of pseudo-profound bullshit. The awards were held at Harvard University’s Sanders Theatre during a hijinx-filled live webcast that featured genuine Nobel laureates giving out the awards (live tweets gave a taste of the proceedings). The full list is on the Ig Nobel website, but here are a few highlights—and if you happen to be near MIT on September 24, there will be a “half-afternoon” of informal public lectures by the winners.
REPRODUCTION
For studying the effects of wearing polyester, cotton, or wool trousers on the sex life of rats, and for conducting similar tests with human males.
For discovering why white-haired horses are the most horsefly-proof horses, and for discovering why dragonflies are fatally attracted to black tombstones.
Winners: Gábor Horváth, Miklós Blahó, György Kriska, Ramón Hegedüs, Balázs Gerics, Róbert Farkas, Susanne Åkesson, Péter Malik, and Hansruedi Wildermuth
For two projects: to Charles Foster, for living in the wild as, at different times, a badger, an otter, a deer, a fox, and a bird; and to Thomas Thwaites, for creating prosthetic extensions of his limbs that allowed him to move in the manner of, and spend time roaming hills in the company of, goats.
For a three-volume autobiographical work about the pleasures of collecting flies that are dead, and flies that are not yet dead.
Winner: Fredrik Sjöberg
Book: The Fly Trap is the first volume of Fredrik Sjöberg’s autobiographical trilogy, En Flugsamlares Vag (“The Path of a Fly Collector”), and the first to be published in English, by Pantheon Books.
Nearly 40 years after Star Wars arrived in theaters, it has become virtually impossible to find a retail category that hasn’t picked up the franchise’s valuable license. A Tauntaun sleeping bag? You can have one. A severed Wampa arm ice scraper? Sold out, but keep checking. A waffle maker that can make breakfast in the shape of the Death Star? Yours for $39.99.
Now you can show up for job interviews with OppoSuit’s line of Star Wars-inspired men’s formal wear. The first designs—“Strong Force,” a colorful multi-panel collage, and “Stormtrooper,” a sleek black and white number—are on sale now, with more designs expected to arrive between the December release of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and May 2017’s Episode VIII.
OppoSuits
“We have been big Star Wars fans our entire lives and are therefore extremely proud of these great additions to our range of suits,” Jasper Castelein, creative director and co-founder of OppoSuits, told Licensing.biz.
Each suit retails for $109.99. Consumers can help OppoSuits decide on future designs by signing up for their newsletter.
As a recurring feature, our team combs the Web and shares some amazing Amazon deals we’ve turned up. Here’s what caught our eye today, September 23.
Mental Floss has affiliate relationships with certain retailers, including Amazon, and may receive a small percentage of any sale. But we only get commission on items you buy and don’t return, so we’re only happy if you’re happy. Good luck deal hunting!
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft successfully launched on September 8 from Cape Canaveral, Florida. It will spend the next two years traveling to the asteroid Bennu. After meticulous study of the asteroid, OSIRIS-REx (Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security-Regolith Explorer) will eventually touch Bennu’s surface and take a small sample before returning to Earth.
So how does a space-faring robot with no legs or landing gear snatch up asteroid material and bring that sample home to Earth? It uses a highly specialized tool called the Touch-And-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism, or TAGSAM for short.
HOW IT WORKS
The TAGSAM looks like a pogo stick with a wide suction cup at the bottom. The “stick” is a 10-foot reticulated arm; the suction cup is a sample collection head that’s about the diameter of a dinner plate and as thick as a dictionary. During launch, the whole mechanism was tucked safely inside the spacecraft, and it will stay there during the voyage to Bennu. Following the mapping and characterization of the asteroid, a process that will last two years, the OSIRIS-REx team will identify a scientifically interesting spot, and the sampling phase will begin. The spacecraft will release a protective cover—the team calls it the “garage door”—and the TAGSAM arm will fully extend. OSIRIS-REx’s human support team on Earth will then rehearse how they will collect the sample. They will check thrusters, maneuverability, and the collection arm’s dexterity. They want to be sure that everything is behaving as expected. When the team feels comfortable, the actual collection will begin.
The Touch-and-Go Sample Arm Mechanism (TAGSAM) is tested in a Lockheed Martin facility. Image credit: Lockheed Martin Corporation
The spacecraft will approach Bennu at 10 centimeters per second, the pogo stick perpendicular to the surface. On contact, the collection head will disturb the asteroid surface, and as it presses into the asteroid, it will release a burst of nitrogen gas. This will create a dust-up of sorts, sending regolith—the loose soil and other material covering the solid rock—into a collection chamber. After two years of travel and another year of study, OSIRIS-Rex’s direct contact with Bennu will last just about five seconds.
Scientists have a few expectations about what will happen after that contact. Remember how the Philae lander touched down on comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko and then bounced around? That resulted in a bad outcome for Philae but turned out to be great news for the OSIRIS-REx team, because it is counting on the bounce. After the sample collection, the arm’s contact with the asteroid will spring the spacecraft outward. To measure how much material it has collected, it will begin a spin maneuver. The mass of the collected sample will alter the angular momentum of the spinning spacecraft. Changes in spin from before and after collection will reveal how much material it has captured. If an insufficient amount is collected, the spacecraft will be able to “kiss” the asteroid two more times.
Team members are confident that they will get the sample they seek. “We’ve tested this arm extensively over the last decade,” Rich Kuhns, program manager of OSIRIS-REx, said at a press conference held at the Kennedy Space Center on the day of the launch. “We’ve exposed it to vacuums. We’ve exposed it to temperature. We’ve tested it both pre- and-post vibration, and we’ve tested it over a very wide range of materials.” Insufficient collection has never been a problem during testing. The team intends to collect a minimum of 60 grams of asteroid regolith.
Christina Richey, the deputy program scientist of OSIRIS-REx, tells mental_floss that testing suggests the TAGSAM will collect closer to its maximum capacity—just under 5 pounds of material.
The cameras carried by OSIRIS-REx will record TAGSAM’s contact with Bennu’s surface. So even if TAGSAM fails to capture a single atom of regolith, it will have performed an invaluable science experiment. Very little is known about random mechanics in a micro-gravity environment. Just by watching how the regolith behaves when stimulated, scientists will have new data for constructing models.
Once its prodding and spinning tasks are completed, the arm will bring the collection head to the sample return capsule, where the head will detach. Once the capsule seals and the sample is secured, the spacecraft will begin its journey back to Earth.
FROM MACH 35 TO 10 MPH
Returning home with a sample of Bennu is the (relatively) easy part. That’s because the sample return capsule is proven technology. In 1999, NASA sent a spacecraft called Stardust to comet Wild 2. Like OSIRIS-REx is meant to do, Stardust collected a sample and brought it back to Earth. Its sample capsule detached and landed successfully in Nevada. OSIRIS-REx will use the same design. In 2023, when OSIRIS-REx arrives back at Earth, it will eject its capsule, and the sample will land using parachutes.
“When it re-enters the environment, it’s traveling 27,000 mph,” said Kuhns. “By the time it gently touches down, it’s moving less than 10.” It’s scheduled to land at the Utah Test and Training Range, a U.S. Air Force installation in the West Desert of Utah. From there, NASA will bring the capsule to the same facility where samples from the Apollo program and the Stardust mission are stored and studied—the Johnson Space Center in Houston. Between now and then, NASA will invest in cutting-edge laboratories and equipment for sample analysis.
What happens next—how the sample will be analyzed—is still being decided. Right now, the team is focused on the mission at hand. “OSIRIS-REx has always had the strategy to go slowly and carefully and methodically,” Dante Lauretta, the leader of the mission, said at the press event. “That’s still going to be our plan.” That’s one of the reasons OSIRIS-REx launched on time and under budget. When the sample collection capsule lands on Earth, the team will still have two years of funding to perform a full sample analysis, with all the attendant science.
In the future, scientists who haven’t been born yet will have pristine Bennu sample material to work with. Only 25 percent of the sample will be used by scientists today. Most will be studied at NASA, but 4 percent will go to the Canadian Space Agency, a mission partner that provided the spacecraft’s laser altimeter, and another 0.5 percent will go to the Japanese Space Agency, reciprocating for the sample of the asteroid Itokawa (sampled by its Hayabusa spacecraft) that it provided to the United States in 2010. The rest—75 percent of the sample—will go into long-term storage for scientists of the future, who will be able to study it using tools and techniques not yet conceived.
The purpose of studying the regolith is to analyze its chemical composition. Scientists will be looking for volatiles and organic molecules such as amino acids. This will help explain the role of meteorites in the creation of life on Earth. If they helped us along, they might well have helped other planets develop life as well.
As for OSIRIS-Rex’s timeline, after its successful launch, the next step will be to go into orbit around the Sun before meeting Earth again in September 2017. It will then fly under Antarctica in order to bend its trajectory and slingshot to Bennu. (The trajectory adjustment is necessary because the asteroid is located 6 degrees off of the orbital plane of Earth.) It will make its approach of Bennu in 2018, where it will spend a year, and another year in the sampling process. The return window for its voyage to Earth opens in March 2021.
After OSIRIS-REx reaches home two years later and jettisons the sample capsule, it will remain in space. It will likely still have fuel and be fully functional, with a working payload of cameras, spectrometers, and a laser altimeter. At that time, NASA will have to decide whether to extend its mission, possibly sending it back to deep space where it can continue its charge of exploring the unknown.
In 1925 an all-black baseball team in Wichita, Kansas played an exhibition against a local KKK Klavern, with Irish Catholics serving as umpires. The black team won 10-8.
In the 1960’s, US spy planes were taking photos of Cuba. Those who analyzed them noticed something peculiar. They were building soccer fields. Cubans don’t like soccer, they like baseball. Russians like soccer. This is how the Cuban Missile Crisis started.
There is an island in the Scottish Hebrides that is owned entirely by its people. With a population of 83, the Isle of Eigg has been owned by its community since being bought in 1997, after decades of issues with absentee landlords, and generates 100% of its electricity using renewable energy.
Australian cattle ranchers have gone hi-tech for herding, but the cows are striking back. A pilot in a Robinson R22 Beta mustering helicopter was herding cattle at a Coen Cattle Station in Queensland when it crashed to the ground on Sunday. The cause? A cow. The pilot believes that the helicopter’s landing gear became entangled in the cow’s horns, pulling it off-balance. The helicopter was engulfed in flames after the crash, and the Rural Fire Service extinguished the blaze. The helicopter pilot escaped with no injuries. So did the cow.
HOSPITAL HIRES ROBOT TO PATROL PARKING LOT
Bakersfield Memorial Hospital in Bakersfield, California, has unveiled its new security guard: an egg-shaped robot. The robot is able to move about without human control, and has been assigned to the hospital’s emergency room parking lot.
Equipped with several cameras, the meandering machine also has a security button that can be pressed to alert human guards. Ken Keller, the hospital’s chief operating officer, also said after a software upgrade, people will be able to give it commands in both English and Spanish.
“It’s here for three reasons: safety, security and surveillance,” said Keller.
The hospital is currently running a contest to name the robot.
SPIDER CAUSES CAR CRASH
An unidentified woman lost control of her car and went off the road in Portland, Oregon, on Wednesday. The car rolled over into a ditch and landed upside-down. The driver was okay, emerging with only a scratch on her hand. The reason she lost control was fright -when a spider fell from her rearview mirror. The fate of the spider is unknown.
GOLF COURSE ADAPTS TO BALL-STEALING CAT
A cat named Merlin has been stealing golf balls from the Aldeburgh Golf Club in Suffolk, UK. The cat’s owner, Peter Bryson, says Merlin brings home up to a half-dozen golf balls a day. Witnesses have seen him carrying balls away in his mouth. The exasperated club managers have issued a temporary rule change to deal with the cat burglar. A new notice says,
“A large brown coloured Burmese cat has been seen picking up and carrying away golf balls in the vicinity of the 14th hole.
“Where this has been witnessed or when it is virtually certain that a ball has disappeared from the closely-mown surfaces, a substitute ball may be dropped.”
People go a little nuts over anything that is “pumpkin spice” flavored in autumn. Starbucks’ Pumpkin Spice Latte became such a hit that the pie flavors (cinnamon, cloves, ginger, nutmeg, and sometimes allspice) were put into everything: candy, cookies, ice cream, soda, and now french fries. Would you eat pumpkin spice fries? You won’t get the chance unless you’re in Japan. Pumpkin spice fries are normal everyday fries with a squirt of chocolate sauce and a squirt of pumpkin spice sauce. McDonald’s Japan is offering pumpkin spice fries beginning on September 28.
BUS SHELTER STOLEN
A full-size bus shelter has disappeared from Torea Street in Granity, New Zealand. It was taken sometime between June and August as construction was being done in the area. Police are asking for information from the public, stating that it is a highly unusual item for anyone to try to hide. One would think that if no one noticed in three months, maybe they don’t really need a bus shelter in that location.
If you’ve spent September (a.k.a. National Yoga Month) hitting the mat and want to keep up the routine of stretching and centering yourself, packing your bags for a yoga retreat can be a great option. You’ll take part in regular classes (often two a day) with a relaxing setting to help you unwind. For those reasons, these kinds of retreats have become big business in recent years—in fact, wellness travel in general makes up about 14 percent of all tourism spending worldwide, according to a 2013 study by the Global Wellness Institute [PDF].
Going on vacation to do yoga might seem like it’s only for people who are super-bendy and totally Zen and spend hours hanging out in downward dog. But a lot of resorts and companies offer packages that are open to newbies. You can work on your sun salutations in the morning and then go surfing, try some new dance moves, head for a hike, or take serious advantage of happy hour. Here are four brands that host awesome retreats—both across the country and abroad—that boast all kinds of fun extras.
These three-day retreats, organized by outdoor gear giant REI, offer a little something awesome for all women who love getting outside. Get your blood flowing during daily yoga sessions led by PrAna athletes and instructors, then pick and choose which activities excite you. Into nature? Go kayaking, rock climbing, mountain biking, or learn about wilderness survival. A little more laid-back? Try your hand at photography on a relaxing hike, learn about map and compass basics, or enjoy a class about essential oils. Whatever your adventure, you’ll stay fueled up with meals fresh from local farms, then camp out or opt to spend your nights in a nearby hotel. Travelers this year headed to Lake Tahoe, California, and Powder Mountain near Salt Lake City.
If there’s a little bit cowgirl in you, these four- to seven-day trips are the retreats for you. You’ll enjoy the fresh mountain air of various locations in Montana while you move through an energizing practice every morning and a restorative session each evening (before heading off to sleep in luxe lodging); plus, you’ll also get active with hiking and horseback riding. (If you’re looking for a different destination, you’re in luck—the company boasts a few special trips to Costa Rica and Philo, California, as well.)
Choose a getaway to Yellowstone and you can relax in the national park’s natural hot springs in between your classes on the mat. Other activities to choose from, depending on the package you pick, include wine tasting, and Nordic skiing, as well as pottery-making and journaling to boost your creativity.
This popular yoga studio chain (it boasts more than 150 outposts around the U.S.) hosts getaways that combine stretching with adventure in scenic destinations like the Red Rocks in Denver. This November, they’re leading a week-long trip to hotspot Tulum, Mexico.
Each day, they’ll lead you through two 75- to 90-minute yoga sessions (which incorporate light weights and cardio bursts), plus guided meditation each morning. In between your bouts on the mat, you can take up all kinds of eco-adventures—hike the nearby Mayan ruins, try a tour, or go snorkeling. Some extra R&R more your speed? Book some healing bodywork at the Maya Tulum spa before heading to an ocean- or garden-view bungalow for the night.
If you couldn’t tell from the name alone, this company’s excursions are far from the typical relaxing retreat. For one thing, you can expect to trade in those nature sounds and that New Age-y music for upbeat playlists including tunes from artists like Outkast and Led Zeppelin. Instructors lead you through yoga and meditation classes, but then you can take on fun extra activities—like hiking, stand-up paddleboarding, and dancing—based on your interests and where you go (some recent locales include Croatia, Ireland, and Cuba). During the upcoming December trip to Cuba, for instance, you can spend your time in between twice-daily yoga sessions hitting the beach in Havana, taking a nostalgic car tour, going on a walking tour of the old city, and visiting a tobacco farm.
