the dream or. vision or. the phrase dead her old. but that's funny i guess today knows all about the humor of science of the ig nobel prize and they had her old angels of improbable research magazine. joins me now. marc abrahams to founder of the ig nobel prize editor of the angels of improbable research magazine hi great to see you again strange times these are today you tell

me they are they quite are love your hat. i've heard you say that the problem with science in general is that it takes itself to seriously and i agree that science shouldn't be all about cancer or atomic research but you're saying strange times but seriously looking at how things turn out this year don't you think that there is another problem which is we haven't taken science seriously enough. yes i agree with you on both counts the problem with science and everything else is people take it too seriously not seriously enough problem is that every day we hear about things that seem completely foolish and crazy and many of them are foolish and crazy but some of those will turn out to be real and important and it's difficult to tell when you 1st hear about something what it means. you know scientists talented humor is our way to deal with something that is really having in alternately with our mortality but also with circumstances that politicians

pandemics etc the one a bunch of really smart people gather to celebrate they can oh well do you think that the laffer could actually deep inside be some kind of a defense mechanism and if so against what. i suppose. it has another you know laughter is a strange thing it's a funny thing and we're most interested in laughter that comes because you have seen something that's a big surprise you don't know what to make of it but it's such a surprise it's so far outside your experience that you laugh and now you're paying attention to it and now that you're paying attention to it you can start to try to figure out what it means and what it is so that's what we're playing with mostly. things are easier to digest when there are spiced up with humor in any in any field great teams or yes things are easier to do just when they're interesting if

something's dolly you're not going to just that if it's funny it's interesting at least for the moment but do you feel like humor can make signs easier to comprehend is while. you are can open the door. but when the door is closed you're not going to understand because you don't want to understand why should you think back to when you were a kid there are a lot of kids who really are scared about science they're scared they're going to get a bad grade they're scared that they won't understand things if you're scared of something you're not going to understand. but if you're interested or you think it's funny. it's funny you're not scared of it so now you'll start maybe thinking it was a deer experience here or scared as a kid of science and i know i loved it because i thought it was funny it could be so much of it just seemed crazy to me it didn't make sense and so i wanted to know how do you make sense of this and that turned out to make science an easy thing to

get more and more involved with and i saw a lot of kids are grew up with were not like that they were scared of it and that was the end of it now they're grown up now they're old like me and they're still scared of it they know they cannot understand anything about it so when i read the complete list of the ig nobel prize winners try to home everyone it's a blast i do you know it is does aspect of childlessness some storage and i mean when you're little you know you're running around poking ants with sticks and saying how many legs does a fly really need to keep on living etc and it isn't what you did when you were a child oh i tried i tried some of that yeah i still do it no i'm over it oh no i'm going to stop. i don't know i'm just too busy running around catching ansun flies but maybe if i have time you have assistants now you have people who you can ask them to go out and get some answers for you maybe that will make my life easier in

this pandemic because it's really strange times i'm going to try to but anyways i probably didn't same happy fun in curiosity when i read about someone studying community cockroaches is scientific curiosity mostly a serious matter the noble heroic quest for truth or is it the stuff of this childhood pursuit of new stuff that is fun a good love. oh it's both fear you know anybody who is you know a true hero out there questing every day for something. if they're serious about it every moment then they're insane. life is very complicated moment to moment. there are people who do science for a living that's their job and their real job is they're being told by everybody else you figure out this stuff that nobody else has been able to understand and you tell us what it means because we don't have the time to do it so you do it. and

they better keep themselves amuse they better keep themselves interested and the best way to try to figure out the interesting parts the parts that you don't understand is look at the parts that seem crazy when something doesn't make sense well it makes sense somehow it exists so it just means that the way you're thinking about it doesn't work try to think of some other way to think about it try to think of some crazy way to look at it maybe maybe that will help you make sense of it and if you keep doing that enough you will stumble on to some way that does make sense and once you do that then you get very very serious about it but until you find the right way to do that that begins to make sense all you can do is you know stumble and try things which seems crazy and he has scientists who actually when they can about prizes when they're working on something they can about worthy. are they aware of the error any at all i mean does someone pick actually pick an area to

research knowing that it will be indeed quite funny. let's look at it this way if you if you ever talk to a scientists and this can be any scientist on any level. who has discovered something and asked them what what was it like the 1st day that you thought of this the 1st day you started to work on this did everybody else understand that this was really important and great the answer is always no this is this is true of everything that we were taught in school you know we're taught that all these great scientific discoveries were made by geniuses and everybody understood at the 1st moment how wonderful it was that's never true it's if you really if you go and look at the history if you meet them if you talk to them when they 1st thought of it the 1st day the people they work with said that's stupid wrong that's always how

everything starts and it's how things start with all of us every day you know even with your neighbors with your family you think of something to explain a little mystery in the family and people say that iran. but if it turns out that you're right later on. the whole story is she was a genius she understood and the moment she told us we understood how wonderful it was no they didn't know they didn't they're pretending. do you know any cases when scientists actually work intentionally to receive a call about prizes oh sure people people try all the time you know we get something like 10000 new nominations every year and about 10 or 20 percent of those are people who nominate themselves the ones who nominate themselves almost always lose if you're trying for 2 of these prizes or strange. ignore it nobel prize or not for the best something they're also not for the worst something they're there

only for things that make people laugh and then think if that's what you're trying to do you're trying to win an ignoble prize you're trying to think of something that will make everybody laugh and then think you're going to fail it's really almost impossible to think of something that has that quality it makes anybody laugh then think that quality it's an accident and it's an accident you may not even realize yourself. often when we call the winners to offer them the prize and we offer the prize you know people can say no if they want to most would say yes. often when we offer them that prize that's the 1st moment the scientists realizes that what they did is funny. to them what they were doing it was just their work it's what they do every day. one example always sticks with me is a team of scientists in australia we gave a prize to about 15 years ago they had published

a study called and then now lists this of the forces required to drag a sheep across in the various surfaces and think about an analysis of the forces acquired to drag sheep across various surfaces that's pretty cool 1000000 yet is that ahead it's pretty funny when you 1st hear about it was only during that phone call that they realised that what they did is funny that everybody else you know they live in a part of the world they live in a part of australia where sheep is the big industry and the people in the industry had hired these scientists to come spend a lot of time you watch everything we're doing and then tell us how we can do it and make more money and do it more safely so we don't injure the sheep and don't injure ourselves when we use these electric cutters and so that's what these scientists did and they wrote a report by the way their most important discovery they say this is a heard them say as many times as to their biggest discovery is. it's easier to

drag a sheep down hill. than a pal yes ok that's. why you seem to be laughing. the story behind this is in in this industry there as the industry grew there are these places where the farmers will bring their sheep so that the wool can be cut off and thousands of sheep can be brought in one day as the industry grew these buildings got bigger and bigger. and then people started to put new buildings next to them so you would have the building connected to another building by a tunnel connected to another building by a ramp and of course to move the sheep from one building to the next you drag it because the sheep don't go where you tell them you have to drag them you drag it from that building over here well how do you get there you drag it up this route

and so every day for decades all of these people have been dragging sheep uphill and they never thought about it until the scientist said you're dragging sheep uphill it's easier if you drag them the other direction hill. they did they really should have won that's a good thing that they won this prize i agreed to start about like this eric to see if a person i didn't like a fertile ground fell all sorts of weird and hilarious inventions and would actually help you know i just to the new reality like we have i don't know hugging and kissing through sheets of plastic are a hat made up you need bills like that i don't do it but i've read about this stuff but there is also i had that made of swimming pool noodles that enforces social distancing or a face mask with an automatic hold for eating have you considered any of those inventions for for the price of just a few of them part of what you're describing is new to me seems pretty strange but they're cool they're financing no yeah and some of them might even turn out to be

useful that's what i'm saying but who knows which ones. are going to take a short break right now when we're back we'll continue talking to the founder of that about price and that editor of the annals of improbable research magazine marc abrahams stay with us. today the industry prefers to spend millions of you know the. daily beast is. all about making money making profits the corporations international markets

import export do you imagine the number of chronic diseases that are out in every community today it is new due to new viruses all new microbes not true so it is due to. be. seen to be. the plague. if the so food industry is successful it will create more jobs it will create more value added it will create more growth so i don't see why we shouldn't also fight for the interest something into st not except that we are british and we want regulation i was in just a nice freedom behaved penalty just fine. boxing day special. boxing day is a holiday celebrated the day after christmas with us being the 2nd day of.

and we're back with marc abrahams the founder of the ig nobel prize and the editor of the angels of improbable research magazine talking about humor in science mark your field is mathematics but i mean he spent so many years both laughing and studying science tell me do you in your non representative sample of great scientists see a correlation between humor and intelligence do those scientists who know how to

make or take a joke have actually better working brains than those who don't i don't know about that i think they're a little happier than the others and the reason for this is this i have been told by many scientists is that their job is very frustrating you know scientists comes to work every day they're trying to figure out something nobody else can make sense of and so every day they're most likely to fail that day that day they're not going to succeed maybe tomorrow they will but that day they're not going to well if that's your job almost every day you're going to fail it helps to have a sense of humor about it you don't want to be. well you know you come from a country that's famous for your literature where everybody is depressed all the time maybe that's because russia has always been full of scientists who don't have a sense of humor about them but we have great sense a sense of self irony that really helps us get through i mean how do you think.

just being depressed no no no well about ourselves all the time i think that's the main thing and i also mention one other thing i think there are most people in the world despite the reputation of a lot of people that not many people are really stupid but i think the very few people who really are very stupid they don't laugh very much they don't have much of a sense of humor about themselves that's not difficult well all this uncertainty and stress this year i'm having an impression that a faith in science is becoming a little bit more shaky among the general public do you feel that. yeah i think that's true for a few reasons part of it is that it around the world there are now some people who are. just automatically reacting to everything that happens by saying that's wrong don't trust it. another thing though that's happening is that for the 1st time in

a long long time everybody is paying attention to scientists so now people are looking at what scientists actually do rather than what the movie version of scientists do in the movie version the scientists all they understand everything before they even begin to look at it that's not what really happens what really happens is most of the time scientists are very confused about most things and they're not sure and they spend most of their time trying to be less confused trying to become a little more sure they never no scientist ever reaches the point where they completely understand everything but if you just grow up and you watch the movies and all your picture is scientists do understand everything so i think what's happening right now is everybody now every day you read the news and you think about scientists for at least a minute which you normally don't do and you see that what they're doing well

they're not sure yet they think they have a vaccine that works but they're not quite sure well why aren't they sure you know the scientists are always sure about that well no that's not that's never what this and scientists did so what's really happened i think is scientists are now becoming real rather than fictional characters for people and real characters have some confusion and they work to try to but cancel asking what that is when they like the humor question comes in because like a lot of the explanations that they're giving right now to see mind boggling and you know we can relate i have no other choice than to trust in them because they're like god like creatures at this point because they're the only ones who have the answers to what we need not politicians not business yaz turning out the gods are not quite so perfect in delivering the confusion laughing about is the right time right now or it did you know what i mean yeah. very simply laugh every great tragedy and every great piece of literature every movie and during the scariest

times as you just explained that's when you start telling jokes to each other because you have to get through it keeps you calm enough that you can and you will get through it but if you just give in to the fear and you don't laugh about things ever will you you just you know do anything you just shrivel up. helps to laugh now and i mean i remember in a safe i don't remember but like i watched movies a lot and i read the books in the fifty's and sixty's everyone was sort of in love with a white lab coat and glasses and believed in scientific progress and now people get information from huge impacts and don't really trust this idea anymore i think you're exactly right people were in love with the white coat and the glasses not with the person who was wearing the white coat and the glasses the person who the scientist who was wearing the white coat and glasses was pretty confused and was working very hard just like them but the stereotype of immersion in the movies

those aren't people those are those are like superman you know those who superheroes are gods or something and they don't exist but the ignoble prizes are usually handed out by actual noble our aunts when you invite them to take part in the ceremony how do this honor scientists react. some of them are really happy and say yes and some of them say no thank you we had one line we've been gracious here on time doing this for 30 years now and things have started to change 2 years ago i got a message one afternoon from a radio producer in america there's a big radio show called science friday and he said we have one of the new nobel prize winners aunt frances arnold who was just announced 2 days ago that she's winning a nobel prize so they they had the 1st interview and in the interview they asked her now you've won a nobel prize what are you going to do to take advantage of that what are you going

to do now that you're a nobel prize winner that you could never do before and her answer was i want to be part of the ig nobel ceremony folau that's so cool so she ends in so they said you should get in touch so i did and we've been talking and 3 months ago during this year's eve nobel ceremony francis arnold was a big part of it handing out the prizes. you can see from the look on her face she was having a very good time and make it so what did what do ratio like if you compare those to say yes and those who say no. i don't know i've never really thought about that i would say may be one out of 5 says yes something like ok let's get enough yeah ok let me tell you about something that involved the nobel laureates on the lower it would this year because of the pandemic we could not have our usual ceremony in a big theater over here at harvard university in the us you know with 1100 people in the audience throwing paper airplanes and winners coming from around the world

and nobel prize winners from around the world we couldn't do that so we had it over the internet we had to do it secretly and then to record the parts and put them together and the most secret parts were we have 10 new prizes every year 10 winners different parts of the world well normally the best part of it is the 10 times during the night when i announce the winner of the biology prizes or whatever prize and then the winner steps out and nobel prize winner steps out and hands them a prize and shakes their hand we couldn't do that but we wanted to do it so how do you here's the here's the here's the problem we had and we solved it the problem is when you have a nobel prize winner on one continent and you have an egg nobel prize winner on a whole different continent how can you arrange it that the one person can physically hand a prize to the other humans to basically hand or or physically usually it looks

like a sickly physically and here's how we solved it the prize is always different every year it's a physical prize there are some of them in back of me you know up on the top of the shelf there maybe you can see some of them and the design is a little different every year they're always made for very cheap materials which makes them more fun. and this year the prize was on the theme of bugs because we have a theme effort here. so this year we made the prize in the form of something that we were was a document a p.d.f. document that we could send through the internet to everybody to the winners and to the nobel prize winners and they printed it out and then they would fold it and attach the pieces and have their prize and here is what a clear is it's a box of little wow picture of different kind of bugs on every side you know cockroach a fully votes wagon bug

a computer bug and then on the 6th side there are 1 instructions about how to build this prize for yourself on this so we e-mailed these around the world that isn't really the secret meetings. i would introduce you know the winner of the physics prizes and you know and you know they're in australia and and the nobel laureate is where in america i think and for that prize and the other the nobel laureate would say congratulations and i'm going to give you the prize and it can would hold up the prize and then would hand it off the side of the screen like that and then you would see in this new meeting going to see the winners you reach out and pull in one prize that is pretty cool i got to give it to you. and what we see even better about it was sometimes we give a prize to a team so there may be 7 people there an hour maybe pulling out the answer you see

on the screen the nobel laureate can sit in the 7 people well if you have 7 people . you know maybe 5 of them will reach out that side but the other 2 might reach out to that side. so they're all looking kind of confused and enjoying it and proud at the same moment i think it's really really and weighty and this is exactly what we needed this year because we needed some cheering up. and i think you're doing a great think making people laugh and making people wait a year and developing sense of self irony and keep up the good work and they're all really frank some really good i mean we let me invite you and everybody who's watching. if you know about somebody who should win an ignoble prize they've done something that makes you laugh and think and you're pretty sure anybody in the world would have that same reaction let us know just send us

a message over the internet or whatever that's how we learn about most of these people around the world because somewhere one person knew about this and they told us and then we looked into it see everybody heard that ever heard mark if you know someone who has invented something that makes you laugh make sure that we know it so we give the information to mark maybe he's the next ignoble prize winner thank you so much marc it was great talking to you thanks so so this is a quite unusual fast of citizens when needed to adapt our. christmas plans to a new norms new realities but i think one thing stayed the same christmas is about love forgiveness and being together with the ones that we care for if we can to be with them so. i still wish you a very very merry christmas surrounded with love and happiness please take care of yourself be safe and stay healthy.

so what we've got to do is identify the threats that we have it's crazy confrontation let it be an arms race move this on off and spearing dramatic development only personally i'm going to resist i don't see how that strategy will be successful it's very critical time to sit down and talk.

and she should move related to those who are doing just that in japanese and i think that you don't mind. sharing most all. the time you can look to my face you know along to name a country not in the established at the map. and you. know about the economy to have more than a last step is that. moment might be. the month to get an up close look i mean that i'm still going to call the number on the music on my list that i don't know whether i want to use the term obama didn't know i'm going to go. look at what's called the minimum oh my god i'm going to my homeland going to come up thinking i come up each time she comes home to go tell me it's a guy who's going to go give up we have to get out what am i doing going to. victory

or a defeat while the u.k.'s leadership celebrates a historic brick said deal book cross thing a straddle the european union chief negotiator describes it as a loss for both sides. but not so very christmas countries in europe. cases and just people are placed on a strict measures sure in the place this period. and the water waste of money. claims the government's thrown away more than 50000000000 dollars this year alone worthless projects including joking with sheets for lizards. crosstalk examines the media influence on the u.s. presidential election up next. hour to bring you up to speed on the morning news headlines join us again that.