Marc Abrahams: A science award that makes you laugh, then think

175,019 views ・ 2014-10-24

TED


Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.

00:16
George and Charlotte Blonsky, who were
0
16831
3406
00:20
a married couple living in the Bronx in New York City,
1
20237
3372
00:23
invented something.
2
23609
1245
00:24
They got a patent in 1965 for what they call,
3
24854
3979
00:28
"a device to assist women in giving birth."
4
28833
5675
00:34
This device consists of a large, round table
5
34508
3930
00:38
and some machinery.
6
38438
1753
00:40
When the woman is ready to deliver her child,
7
40191
3209
00:43
she lies on her back,
8
43400
1401
00:44
she is strapped down to the table,
9
44801
2431
00:47
and the table is rotated at high speed.
10
47232
3079
00:50
The child comes flying out
11
50311
3425
00:53
through centrifugal force.
12
53736
7031
01:01
If you look at their patent carefully,
13
61717
4529
01:06
especially if you have any engineering background or talent,
14
66246
3869
01:10
you may decide that you see
15
70115
1459
01:11
one or two points where the design is not perfectly adequate. (Laughter)
16
71574
6687
01:18
Doctor Ivan Schwab in California
17
78261
2769
01:21
is one of the people, one of the main people,
18
81030
1954
01:22
who helped answer the question,
19
82984
1586
01:24
"Why don't woodpeckers get headaches?"
20
84570
5711
01:30
And it turns out the answer to that
21
90281
1217
01:31
is because their brains
22
91498
2224
01:33
are packaged inside their skulls
23
93722
1771
01:35
in a way different from the way
24
95493
2500
01:37
our brains, we being human beings,
25
97993
2504
01:40
true, have our brains packaged.
26
100497
3959
01:44
They, the woodpeckers, typically
27
104456
2383
01:46
will peck, they will bang their head
28
106839
2188
01:49
on a piece of wood thousands of times every day. Every day!
29
109027
5291
01:54
And as far as anyone knows,
30
114318
1913
01:56
that doesn't bother them in the slightest.
31
116231
1206
01:57
How does this happen?
32
117437
2266
01:59
Their brain does not slosh around like ours does.
33
119703
2926
02:02
Their brain is packed in very tightly,
34
122629
2712
02:05
at least for blows coming right from the front.
35
125341
2856
02:08
Not too many people paid attention
36
128197
1943
02:10
to this research until the last few years
37
130140
3084
02:13
when, in this country especially,
38
133224
2615
02:15
people are becoming curious about
39
135839
1388
02:17
what happens to the brains of football players
40
137227
2195
02:19
who bang their heads repeatedly.
41
139422
2728
02:22
And the woodpecker maybe relates to that.
42
142150
5068
02:27
There was a paper published
43
147218
2093
02:29
in the medical journal The Lancet
44
149311
1745
02:31
in England a few years ago called
45
151056
1430
02:32
" A man who pricked his finger and smelled putrid for 5 years."
46
152486
7417
02:39
Dr. Caroline Mills and her team
47
159903
1808
02:41
received this patient and didn't really know what to do about it.
48
161711
4099
02:45
The man had cut his finger,
49
165810
1860
02:47
he worked processing chickens,
50
167670
3473
02:51
and then he started to smell really, really bad.
51
171143
2436
02:53
So bad that when he got in a room
52
173579
1219
02:54
with the doctors and the nurses,
53
174798
1317
02:56
they couldn't stand being in the room with him.
54
176115
2759
02:58
It was intolerable.
55
178874
1801
03:00
They tried every drug,
56
180675
1499
03:02
every other treatment they could think of.
57
182174
1818
03:03
After a year, he still smelled putrid.
58
183992
2231
03:06
After two years, still smelled putrid.
59
186223
1809
03:08
Three years, four years, still smelled putrid.
60
188032
3230
03:11
After five years, it went away on its own.
61
191262
3037
03:14
It's a mystery.
62
194299
3699
03:17
In New Zealand, Dr. Lianne Parkin
63
197998
2349
03:20
and her team tested an old tradition in her city.
64
200347
5562
03:25
They live in a city that has huge hills,
65
205909
2727
03:28
San Francisco-grade hills.
66
208636
1619
03:30
And in the winter there, it gets very cold
67
210255
2117
03:32
and very icy.
68
212372
1184
03:33
There are lots of injuries.
69
213556
1594
03:35
The tradition that they tested,
70
215150
2265
03:37
they tested by asking people
71
217415
1632
03:39
who were on their way to work in the morning,
72
219047
2399
03:41
to stop and try something out.
73
221446
1943
03:43
Try one of two conditions.
74
223389
2003
03:45
The tradition is that in the winter,
75
225392
2753
03:48
in that city, you wear your socks on the outside of your boots.
76
228145
4716
03:52
And what they discovered by experiment,
77
232861
3399
03:56
and it was quite graphic when they saw it,
78
236260
2169
03:58
was that it's true.
79
238429
1415
03:59
That if you wear your socks on the outside rather than the inside,
80
239844
3319
04:03
you're much more likely to survive and not slip and fall.
81
243163
5353
04:08
Now, I hope you will agree with me that these things
82
248516
5378
04:13
I've just described to you,
83
253894
2215
04:16
each of them, deserves some kind of prize. (Laughter)
84
256109
6180
04:22
And that's what they got,
85
262289
1635
04:23
each of them got an Ig Nobel prize.
86
263924
3275
04:27
In 1991, I, together with bunch of other people,
87
267199
3992
04:31
started the Ig Nobel prize ceremony.
88
271191
2903
04:34
Every year we give out 10 prizes.
89
274094
2932
04:37
The prizes are based on just one criteria. It's very simple.
90
277026
6983
04:44
It's that you've done something that makes people laugh and then think.
91
284009
5984
04:49
What you've done makes people laugh and then think.
92
289993
3844
04:53
93
293837
2008
04:55
94
295845
2737
04:58
their only possible reaction is to laugh.
95
298582
3311
05:01
And then a week later,
96
301893
1923
05:03
it's still rattling around in their heads
97
303816
1691
05:05
and all they want to do is tell their friends about it.
98
305507
2760
05:08
That's the quality we look for.
99
308267
2198
05:10
Every year, we get in the neighborhood
100
310465
2785
05:13
of 9,000 new nominations for the Ig Nobel prize.
101
313250
4442
05:17
Of those, consistently between 10 percent
102
317692
2829
05:20
and 20 percent of those nominations
103
320521
2483
05:23
are people who nominate themselves.
104
323004
3910
05:26
Those self-nominees almost never win.
105
326914
3967
05:30
It's very difficult, numerically, to win a prize if you want to.
106
330881
4319
05:35
Even if you don't want to,
107
335200
1845
05:37
it's very difficult numerically.
108
337045
2716
05:39
You should know that when we choose somebody
109
339761
3650
05:43
to win an Ig Nobel prize,
110
343411
1272
05:44
We get in touch with that person, very quietly.
111
344683
3576
05:48
We offer them the chance to decline
112
348259
2561
05:50
this great honor if they want to.
113
350820
3382
05:54
Happily for us, almost everyone who's offered a prize
114
354202
3324
05:57
decides to accept.
115
357526
3509
06:01
What do you get if you win an Ig Nobel prize?
116
361035
2941
06:03
Well, you get several things.
117
363976
1577
06:05
You get an Ig Nobel prize.
118
365553
3530
06:09
The design is different every year.
119
369083
2331
06:11
These are always handmade from extremely cheap materials.
120
371414
4806
06:16
You're looking at a picture
121
376220
1661
06:17
of the prize we gave last year, 2013.
122
377881
4029
06:21
Most prizes in the world also give
123
381910
2036
06:23
their winners some cash, some money.
124
383946
4698
06:28
We don't have any money,
125
388644
1063
06:29
so we can't give them.
126
389707
1511
06:31
In fact, the winners have to pay their own way
127
391218
2876
06:34
to come to the Ig Nobel ceremony,
128
394094
2804
06:36
which most of them do.
129
396898
1863
06:38
Last year, though, we did manage to scrape up some money.
130
398761
2993
06:41
Last year, each of the 10 Ig Nobel prize winners
131
401754
4511
06:46
received from us 10 trillion dollars.
132
406265
5778
06:52
A $10 trillion bill from Zimbabwe. (Laughter)
133
412043
5433
06:57
You may remember that Zimbabwe had a little adventure
134
417476
2824
07:00
for a few years there of inflation.
135
420300
2595
07:02
They ended up printing bills
136
422895
1620
07:04
that were in denominations as large as 100 trillion dollars.
137
424515
3856
07:08
The man responsible, who runs the national bank there, by the way,
138
428371
2785
07:11
won an Ig Nobel prize in mathematics.
139
431156
2773
07:13
The other thing you win is an invitation
140
433929
1752
07:15
to come to the ceremony,
141
435681
1503
07:17
which happens at Harvard University.
142
437184
1742
07:18
And when you get there,
143
438926
1135
07:20
you come to Harvard's biggest meeting place and classroom.
144
440061
2717
07:22
It fits 1,100 people,
145
442778
1285
07:24
it's jammed to the gills,
146
444063
1126
07:25
and up on the stage,
147
445189
831
07:26
waiting to shake your hand,
148
446020
1794
07:27
waiting to hand you your Ig Nobel prize,
149
447814
2272
07:30
are a bunch of Nobel prize winners.
150
450086
2649
07:32
That's the heart of the ceremony.
151
452735
1299
07:34
The winners are kept secret until that moment,
152
454034
2150
07:36
even the Nobel laureates who will shake their hand
153
456184
2427
07:38
don't know who they are until they're announced.
154
458611
3243
07:41
I am going to tell you about just a very few
155
461854
3120
07:44
of the other medical-related prizes we've given.
156
464974
3054
07:48
Keep in mind, we've given 230 prizes.
157
468028
2256
07:50
There are lots of these people who walk among you.
158
470284
2294
07:52
Maybe you have one.
159
472578
2120
07:54
A paper was published about 30 years ago
160
474698
2144
07:56
called "Injuries due to Falling Coconuts."
161
476842
2510
07:59
It was written by Dr. Peter Barss,
162
479352
1955
08:01
who is Canadian.
163
481307
2211
08:03
Dr. Barss came to the ceremony
164
483518
2186
08:05
and explained that as a young doctor,
165
485704
1867
08:07
he wanted to see the world.
166
487571
1481
08:09
So he went to Papua New Guinea.
167
489052
2289
08:11
When he got there, he went to work in a hospital, and he was curious
168
491341
2339
08:13
what kinds of things happen to people that bring them to the hospital.
169
493680
5515
08:19
He looked through the records, and he discovered
170
499195
1298
08:20
that a surprisingly large number of people
171
500493
2790
08:23
in that hospital were there
172
503283
1166
08:24
because of injuries due to falling coconuts.
173
504449
3547
08:27
One typical thing that happens is
174
507996
1786
08:29
people will come from the highlands, where there are not many coconut trees,
175
509782
3799
08:33
down to visit their relatives on the coast,
176
513581
2248
08:35
where there are lots.
177
515829
1460
08:37
And they'll think that a coconut tree
178
517289
1390
08:38
is a fine place to stand and maybe lie down.
179
518679
2669
08:41
A coconut tree that is 90 feet tall,
180
521348
2607
08:43
and has coconuts that weigh two pounds
181
523955
2223
08:46
that can drop off at any time.
182
526178
4052
08:50
A team of doctors in Europe
183
530230
1793
08:52
published a series of papers about colonoscopies.
184
532023
3509
08:55
You're all familiar with colonoscopies,
185
535532
2030
08:57
one way or another.
186
537562
1292
08:58
Or in some cases,
187
538854
1315
09:00
one way and another.
188
540169
3505
09:03
They, in these papers,
189
543674
3349
09:07
explained to their fellow doctors who perform colonoscopies,
190
547023
4168
09:11
how to minimize the chance
191
551191
1971
09:13
that when you perform a colonoscopy,
192
553162
2661
09:15
your patient will explode. (Laughter)
193
555823
3590
09:19
Dr. Emmanuel Ben-Soussan
194
559413
1960
09:21
one of the authors,
195
561373
1174
09:22
flew in from Paris to the ceremony,
196
562547
3159
09:25
where he explained the history of this,
197
565706
1891
09:27
that in the 1950s,
198
567597
1176
09:28
when colonoscopies were becoming a common technique for the first time,
199
568773
5328
09:34
people were figuring out how to do it well.
200
574101
2639
09:36
And there were some difficulties at first.
201
576740
2760
09:39
The basic problem, I'm sure you're familiar with,
202
579500
3971
09:43
that you're looking inside a long, narrow, dark place.
203
583471
5329
09:48
And so, you want to have a larger space.
204
588800
3555
09:52
You add some gas to inflate it
205
592355
2131
09:54
so you have room to look around.
206
594486
1914
09:56
Now, that's added to the gas, the methane gas,
207
596400
2727
09:59
that's already inside.
208
599127
1508
10:00
The gas that they used at first, in many cases, was oxygen.
209
600635
3000
10:03
So they added oxygen to methane gas.
210
603635
2449
10:06
And then they wanted to be able to see,
211
606084
1715
10:07
they needed light,
212
607799
1248
10:09
so they'd put in a light source,
213
609047
1405
10:10
which in the 1950s was very hot.
214
610452
1776
10:12
So you had methane gas, which is flammable,
215
612228
3318
10:15
oxygen and heat.
216
615546
2792
10:18
They stopped using oxygen pretty quickly. (Laughter)
217
618338
5138
10:23
Now it's rare that patients will explode,
218
623476
2521
10:25
but it does still happen.
219
625997
5739
10:31
The final thing that I want to tell you about is a prize
220
631736
3575
10:35
we gave to Dr. Elena Bodnar.
221
635311
2431
10:37
Dr. Elena Bodnar invented a brassiere
222
637742
4125
10:41
that in an emergency
223
641867
1558
10:43
can be quickly separated
224
643425
1193
10:44
into a pair of protective face masks.
225
644618
3519
10:48
One to save your life,
226
648137
1767
10:49
one to save the life of some lucky bystander. (Laughter)
227
649904
5324
10:55
Why would someone do this, you might wonder.
228
655228
3027
10:58
Dr. Bodnar came to the ceremony
229
658255
2132
11:00
and she explained that she grew up in Ukraine.
230
660387
2961
11:03
She was one of the doctors who treated victims
231
663348
1716
11:05
of the Chernobyl power plant meltdown.
232
665064
2044
11:07
And they later discovered that
233
667108
2584
11:09
a lot of the worst medical problems
234
669692
1925
11:11
came from the particles people breathed in.
235
671617
2122
11:13
So she was always thinking after that
236
673739
1928
11:15
about could there be some simple mask
237
675667
1627
11:17
that was available everywhere when the unexpected happens.
238
677294
4696
11:21
Years later, she moved to America.
239
681990
1613
11:23
She had a baby,
240
683603
844
11:24
One day she looked, and on the floor,
241
684447
1756
11:26
her infant son had picked up her bra,
242
686203
3071
11:29
and had her bra on his face.
243
689274
1859
11:31
And that's where the idea came from.
244
691133
1681
11:32
She came to the Ig Nobel ceremony
245
692814
2003
11:34
with the first prototype of the bra
246
694817
2340
11:37
and she demonstrated:
247
697157
4354
11:41
(Laughter) (Applause)
248
701511
23764
12:10
["Paul Krugman, Nobel laureate (2008) in economics"]
249
730265
8429
12:40
["Wolfgang Ketterle, Nobel laureate (2001) in physics"]
250
760574
7009
12:55
I myself own an emergency bra. (Laughter)
251
775663
3620
12:59
It's my favorite bra,
252
779283
2338
13:01
but I would be happy to share it with any of you,
253
781621
2652
13:04
should the need arise.
254
784273
1849
13:06
Thank you.
255
786122
956
13:07
(Applause)
256
787078
4997
About this website

This site will introduce you to YouTube videos that are useful for learning English. You will see English lessons taught by top-notch teachers from around the world. Double-click on the English subtitles displayed on each video page to play the video from there. The subtitles scroll in sync with the video playback. If you have any comments or requests, please contact us using this contact form.

https://forms.gle/WvT1wiN1qDtmnspy7