Listen Up: Strange scientific discoveries unveiled at quirky Ig Nobel Awards
Practise your English with our short listening exercises: play the audio; answer the questions; and check the answers at the bottom of the page.
Professor James Liao accept a prize for physics for explaining the swimming abilities of a dead trout during a performance at the Ig Nobel Prize ceremony at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Photo: APQuestions
1. When were the Ig Nobels handed out this year?
A. July 11
B. August 4
C. September 12
D. October 10
2. Which animals mentioned in the podcast can breathe air through their intestines?
A. rats, loach fish and pigs
B. horses, dogs and cats
C. zebras, rats and horses
D. pigs, cats and loach fish
3. Which word can replace “crackpot” in the podcast?
A. silly
B. kooky
C. wacky
D. all of the above
4. What did the winners of the botany prize study?
A. how plastic pollution affects plants
B. how plants can look like plastic plants
C. how plastic plants help the environment
D. how Boquila plants grow
5. How long did the researchers who won the probability prize spend flipping coins?
A. 80 seconds
B. about 100 minutes
C. four months
D. three years
6. Why did the researchers who won the probability prize have to use massage guns?
A. to avoid getting tired during the experiment
B. to celebrate the end of the experiment
C. to help them relax before flipping coins
D. to ease the pain in their shoulders
7. What did Saul Justin Newman discover about many people who are famous for living long lives?
A. They lived in places with excellent healthcare.
B. They had a healthy diet and exercised regularly.
C. They lived in places that did not usually hand out birth certificates.
D. Their family members also lived long lives.
8. What did the researchers who won the anatomy prize discover about hair whorls?
A. Clockwise whorls are more common in the southern hemisphere.
B. Counter-clockwise whorls are more common in the southern hemisphere.
C. The direction of one’s hair whorls depends on their age.
D. Some people do not have hair whorls.
9. Which two types of fish did James Liao, the physics prizewinner, compare in his study?
A. saltwater fish and freshwater fish
B. live fish and dead fish
C. fish with fins and fish without fins
D. fast-swimming fish and slow fish
10. Based on your understanding of the podcast, what is the purpose of the Ig Nobels?
A. to award serious scientific achievements
B. to reward groundbreaking inventions that helped save lives
C. to honour the youngest prestigious scientists in the world
D. to recognise humorous and thought-provoking discoveries
11. Match the descriptions of the following discoveries to the awards they won. (4 marks)
(i) Trained pigeons can help guide missiles.
(ii) It is better to eat fake medicine that makes you feel bad than to take fake pills that have no side effects.
(iii) Many mammals can breathe through their bottoms when they are in danger.
(iv) There is a way to tell drunk worms apart from the sober ones.
Answers
1. C
2. A
3. D
4. B
5. C
6. D
7. C
8. B
9. B
10. D
11. (i) peace; (ii) medicine; (iii) physiology; (iv) chemistry
Script
Adapted from Agence France-Presse
Voice 1: Mammals that can breathe through their backsides, homing pigeons that can guide missiles and sober worms that outpace drunk ones: these are some of the strange scientific discoveries that won this year’s Ig Nobels, the quirky alternative to the Nobel Prizes.
Voice 2: The annual awards for achievements that make people laugh and think were handed out at a rowdy ceremony at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States. The event was held on September 12, a month before the real Nobel Prizes. Here are the 10 winners of the 34th edition of the Ig Nobels.
Voice 1: The physiology prize went to Japanese and US researchers for discovering that many mammals can breathe through the anus in emergencies. The scientists were inspired by loach fish, which are capable of intestinal air-breathing, according to their 2021 study. The researchers found that mice, pigs and rats can also do this, suggesting that guts could be repurposed as an accessory breathing organ. They even suggested this could be a way to deliver emergency oxygen to patients during a ventilator shortage, such as during the Covid pandemic.
Voice 2: The peace Ig Nobel went to the late US psychologist BF Skinner for putting trained pigeons in the noses of missiles to guide them during World War II. Project Pigeon was called off in 1944 despite a seemingly successful test on a target in New Jersey. In 1960, Skinner wrote: “Call it a crackpot idea if you will; it is one in which I have never lost faith.”
Voice 1: The botany prize was awarded for research which found that some natural plants imitate the shapes of nearby plastic plants. Prizewinner Felipe Yamashita of Germany’s Bonn University said the scientists hypothesised that the Boquila plant has some sort of eye that can see. He said, “How they do that, we have no idea.”
Voice 2: The probability prize was awarded to researchers who tossed 350,757 coins. Inspired by a magician, the researchers found that the side facing upwards before being flipped won around 50.8 per cent of the time. After over 81 work days’ worth of flipping, the team had to employ massage guns to soothe sore shoulders.
Voice 1: The demography prize was awarded for detective work that discovered that many of the people famous for living the longest happened to live in places that were lousy at keeping records of births and deaths, the Ig Nobel website said. Australian researcher Saul Justin Newman read a poem at the ceremony, concluding that the real way to longevity is to move to a place where birth certificates are rare and start lying.
Voice 2: The chemistry prize went to a team which used a complex analysis called chromatography to separate drunk and sober worms. The researchers demonstrated the study by re-enacting a race on stage between a sober worm that had been dyed red, and a blue worm they got drunk. The sober worm won.
Voice 1: The anatomy prize went to a team of French and Chilean researchers, who found that most people’s hair whorls swirl clockwise; however, in the southern hemisphere, counter-clockwise whorls are more common.
Voice 2: The medicine Ig Nobel went to European researchers, who demonstrated that fake medicine which causes painful side effects can work better than phoney medicine that does not.
Voice 1: The physics prize was awarded to US-based scientist James Liao for explaining the swimming abilities of a dead trout. As Liao accepted the award, he said, “I discovered that a live fish moves more than a dead fish but not by much.”
Voice 2: The biology prize went to the late US-based researchers Fordyce Ely and William E Petersen for a bizarre experiment in 1941. They exploded a paper bag next to a cat standing on the back of a cow to explore how and when cows spew their milk.