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Pineapples for bizarre advances in science
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Gorillas with extraordinary mathematical and art skills, electronic dance music that reduces the appetite of mosquitoes, and the dialects of birds.
Ten different bizarre scientific studies won this year鈥檚 Pineapple award on Saturday in Wenzhou in east China鈥檚 Zhejiang Province.
For 10 years in a row, China鈥檚 equivalent of the Ig Nobel Prize, the US parody of the Nobel, has explored and recognized the fun side of science and encouraged curiosity-led scientific research.
Due to their outstanding performance in counting and painting, gorillas were the winners of this year鈥檚 award for Mathematics and Art.
Researchers from the Primate Research Institute of Kyoto University in Japan proved through a series of experiments that their captive chimpanzee Abu could remember random numbers more quickly and accurately than university students in the control group.
The achievement should not be underestimated, said Wang Yami, the chief planner of the Pineapple Science Award.
鈥淭o remember the numbers not only requires an excellent working memory capacity but the quantitative analysis of abstract digital symbols.鈥
Hungry mosquitoes
The graffiti skills of some chimpanzees and orangutans demonstrate their ability to connect the real three-dimensional world with the two-dimensional world on paper, reflecting a huge leap in the brain, Wang said.
The prize for medicine was awarded to a mosquito project by the University of Malaysia Sarawak and a mosquito research and control unit of the Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands.
Their unique project showed that electronic dance music could reduce the appetite of mosquitoes, and the Grammy-winning song of Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites worked the most.
鈥淭he female mosquitoes in the control group took only 30 seconds to bite a hamster, while mosquitoes that listened to the song took around three minutes on average to do so,鈥 said Dr. Hamady Dieng, from the mosquito research and control department of Grand Cayman Island.
In addition, researchers from the University of Pisa in Italy won the psychology award for their discovery in humans鈥 imitative behavior.
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