Winners of the 2020 Shnobel Prize announced

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05Harvard University held its 30th annual Shnobel Prize ceremony. 10 new laureates were named, each of whom made a discovery that made people laugh and then think.



For example, scientists answered such important questions as: what do alligators sound like when they breathe helium? Are knives made from frozen feces real cutting tools? These and other unusual research topics were celebrated at the virtual ceremony.

The Shnobel Prize was created in 1991 and is a good-natured parody of the Nobel Prize. Recognized research may seem pointless at first glance, but that doesn't mean it's devoid of scientific value. Here are all 10 winners this year.

Acoustics
A team of scientists won the award for making a female Chinese alligator roar in a sealed chamber filled with helium air, in a bid to test whether these sounds could be a way to indicate body size.

The authors did conclude that helium caused the female alligator’s vocal tract to resonate, a common occurrence in mammals and birds. Furthermore, “because birds and crocodilians share a common sweden number data ancestor with all dinosaurs, a better understanding of their vocal control systems may also provide insights into the communication of extinct archosaurs,” the authors wrote in their 2015 paper.

Psychology
Scientists were awarded for developing a method for identifying daffodils by studying their eyebrows.

Among psychologists, narcissism is a “dark” personality trait that accompanies selfishness and arrogance. Scientists wanted to determine the mechanism underlying some people’s experience of immediately identifying narcissists. Scientists found that eyebrows are one of the most distinctive facial features. They found that people primarily pay attention to eyebrows to accurately identify a person with narcissism.

Materials science
A team of researchers was awarded for demonstrating that knives made from frozen human feces do not work well.

Scientists decided to test the legend of an Inuit who was left without tools. The man defecated and then sharpened the feces into a frozen blade. He used the knife to butcher a dog and use its bones and hide to create a sled.

The scientists conducted several experiments in their lab to see if the frozen feces knife could actually function as described. The team molded the knives from their own feces and then froze them. The knives were tested on pig skin, muscle, and tendons. As a result, the knives simply melted without making any cuts. However, the authors noted that the cutting was done in a room with a temperature of about 10 ° C, and therefore “colder conditions will be used in future experiments.”