The 2009 Ig Nobel Prizes demonstrate why your cow should have a name

Ignoble Bovines

Give your cows names. You won’t be sorry.

In last Friday’s e-Alert (“Down on the Farm” 10/15/09), I told you about a controversial growth hormone that increases milk production in cows.

Besides being a potential health hazard to humans, this synthetic hormone also impacts animal health, often causing hoof problems, gastrointestinal problems, and painful udder infections.

Here’s an easy alternative with just one drawback: A drug company won’t get rich.

When agricultural researchers studying human-animal relationships questioned more than 500 stock managers on UK dairy farms, they found that about 75 percent believe cows are intelligent, and 90 percent believe cows have feelings. More importantly, on farms where cows are given names, milk yield is significantly higher than on farms where cows pass their days in anonymity.

There. Now isn’t that easier, safer, and a lot more affordable than messing with hormones?

That’s what the editors of the Annals of Improbable Research (AIR) thought. They gave the UK research team an Ig Nobel Prize.

Solving physical disputes

About a year ago I told you about the 2008 Ig Nobel Prizes. I’m going to follow that up today with the 2009 awards because most of the prizes impact health (or at least they do in a roundabout way).

According to AIR editors, the prizes are given to “research that makes people laugh, and then think.” A perfect example: Increasing milk production by naming cows.

Here’s another: “Does Knuckle Cracking Lead to Arthritis of the Fingers?” – winner of the Ig Nobel Prize in Medicine.

Many years ago, Donald Unger’s mother told him he would develop arthritis if he kept cracking his knuckles. Donald was a curious teen, interested in science, so he began an experiment. Two times every day, he cracked all the knuckles on his left hand, but never cracked his right hand knuckles. His one-man study ended up spanning more than 60 years. The results: Knuckle cracking does not cause arthritis. In fact, the experiment caused no negative effect at all to his left hand.

Getting cracked in the head with a beer bottle, however, WILL produce a negative effect on your skull.

Researchers at Switzerland’s University of Bern open their study with a sentence that promises plenty of barroom drama: “Beer bottles are often used in physical disputes.” And you thought the Swiss were all about peace.

The Bern team wanted to get to the bottom of an age-old question: Will the skull fare better when conked with a full, unopened beer bottle, or an empty? A drop-tower experiment revealed a surprise: Both bottles can cause skull fracture, but an empty bottle is actually harder to break, so it will do more harm to a skull.

Good to know!

Diamonds & garbage

The Ig Nobel Public Health Prize went to a Chicago team that invented a bra that’s more James Bond than Victoria’s Secret. The undergarment can be quickly converted into two protective facemasks, which might come in handy if H1N1 really does turn into a genuine pandemic. Patent pending.

Japanese researchers took home the Biology Prize. In two studies they showed how kitchen garbage mass can be reduced by more than 90 percent using bacteria extracted from giant panda feces. The study abstracts don’t describe exactly how this debulking is accomplished. I guess I would pay to see the full studies if I had access to a giant panda.

And finally, the Ig Nobel Chemistry Prize was awarded to Mexican researchers who developed a process in which they make diamonds out of tequila. A closer reading of the study shows that they actually made “diamond film” out of tequila – a clarification that raises more questions than answers.

There they are – your 2009 Ig Nobels.

Sources:
“Exploring Stock Managers’ Perceptions of the Human-Animal Relationship on Dairy Farms and an Association with Milk Production” Anthrozoos, Vol. 22, No. 1, March 2009, ingentaconnect.com
“The 2009 Ig Nobel Prize Winners” Annals of Improbable Research, improbable.com/ig/winners