But have you heard of the Ig Nobel Prizes? Sponsored by the magazine “Annals of Improbable Research” and MIT, the awards are given for research “that first make people laugh, and then make them think.”

(The Ig Nobels are awarded every year in early October, around the time that the Nobel Prizes are handed out. Check out a video of the 2006 ceremony here.)

The 2008 winners were just announced. Here’s a list copied directly from Wikipedia:

* Archaeology: Astolfo Gomes de Mello Araujo and Jose Carlos Marcelino, for showing that armadillos can mix up the contents of an archaeological site.[28][29]

* Biology: Marie-Christine Cadiergues, Christel Joubert, and Michel Franc, for discovering that fleas that live on dogs jump higher than fleas that live on cats.[30]

* Chemistry: Sheree Umpierre, Joseph Hill, and Deborah Anderson, for discovering that Coca-Cola is an effective spermicide,[31] and C.Y. Hong, C.C. Shieh, P. Wu, and B.N. Chiang for proving it is not.[32][33]

* Cognitive science: Toshiyuki Nakagaki, Hiroyasu Yamada, Ryo Kobayashi, Atsushi Tero, Akio Ishiguro, and Ágota Tóth, for discovering that slime molds can solve puzzles.[34][35]

* Economics: Geoffrey Miller, Joshua Tyber, and Brent Jordan, for discovering that exotic dancers earn more when at peak fertility.[36]

* Literature: David Sims, for his study “You Bastard: A Narrative Exploration of the Experience of Indignation within Organizations”.[37][38]

* Medicine: Dan Ariely for demonstrating that expensive placebos are more effective than inexpensive placebos.[39][40]

* Nutrition: Massimiliano Zampini and Charles Spence, for demonstrating that food tastes better when it sounds more appealing.[41][42]

* Peace: The Swiss Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology and the citizens of Switzerland, for adopting the legal principle that plants have dignity.[43]

* Physics: Dorian Raymer and Douglas Smith, for proving that heaps of string or hair will inevitably tangle.[44]

(For a list including links to the researchers’ prize-winning paper, go here.)

I just think it’s very cool that the scientific community is willing to poke fun at itself once in a while. Science is important, and it’s often presented in a very serious, sober manner. But science is also fun and weird and sometimes hilarious. The Ig Nobel awards are a great way to show people another side of the science community.

But we got the 2009 edition anyway. And I must admit that the Guinness Book has come a long way. Sure, it’s still consists mainly of semi-interesting but mainly useless trivia. (Did you know that the record for longest wheelie on a skateboard is currently held by Stefan Akesson of Sweden, who traveled 224 feet, 10 inches on the back wheels of his board in a shopping mall. Do you care?) But there’s also a good deal of science in there. For example, the “Being Human” section is prefaced by an anatomical rendering of the human body annotated with interesting information about various bones and muscles. I learned, for example, that the body’s most active muscles are those surrounding the eye, which move around 100,000 times every day. That’s interesting. There’s also lots of valid science information in the “Living Planet” and “Space” sections.

I’m not saying that the “Guinness Book of Records” is a great educational resource for science or anything else. But it is possible to learn something about science while slogging through the rest of the stuff.

Anyhow, this made me curious about water bears, and so I did a little research. Here’s what I learned:

–First, water bears are cute. Up close (as in through a microscope), the creatures do sort of resemble tiny bears. They have four legs and two arm-like appendages with what look like little claws. And when they move, water bears lumber around a bit like grizzly bears. (You can watch a movie of water bears in action here. (Apparently, according to this website, water bears were first named as such in 1773 by John August Ephraim Goeze, a German pastor.)

–There are at least 700 species of water bear, most of which are about half a millimeter long.

–The coolest thing about the water bear is that it’s able to survive extreme conditions by going into a state of suspended animation. Essentially, water bears can dry up and survive for years without water and be carried around on the wind. When they do come into contact with water, water bears revive and get on with their lives as though nothing happened.

The discovery that water bears can survive in space has been taken by some scientists as evidence that life arrived on Earth from space. This article, in the Sri Lanka “Daily News,” paraphrases one Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe to the effect that insects may have originated in space and been brought to earth by comets.

Whether or not that’s the case, water bears are an intriguing example of just how resilient life can be.

But mosquitoes do have one thing going for them–the ability to inflict a painless bite. Normally you don’t know you’ve been molested by a mosquito until after the fact, right? The actual bite–which is actually more like a sting–is totally painless.

Now this is interesting, and as reported in this week’s Science News, it’s given a team of researchers at North Carolina State University an idea: let’s create a painless needle modeled on a mosquitoes fascicle–the needle-like appendage mosquitoes use to drain our blood.

First, the researchers had to solve a puzzle–given that the fascicle is so thin (only 20 micrometers across and not overly rigid), how is it able to penetrate our skin? Using high speed cameras, they filmed mosquitoes in action and saw what they believe to be the answer. A mosquito’s stinger is wrapped in a sheath called the labium that apparently helps it puncture the skin. As the fascicle enters the skin, the labium retracts.

Based on this discovery, the researchers hope to invent “microneedles” with retractable sheaths that, like a mosquito, can penetrate the skin without being felt.

As someone who’s always been fearful of shots at the doctors office (as a youth I was notorious for mule kicking any nurse who tried to prick my finger to get a blood sample), this sounds very cool. My kids certainly wouldn’t mind a painless needle, either.

But there are two potential problems. First, it’s not a certainty that the labium sheath is actually the key to a mosquito’s painless penetration. There may be other mechanisms at work that require further research to uncover. And second, this wouldn’t be the first time scientists have tried to invent and market a painless needle. Check out this article about two Japanese companies that created the “Microtaper Needle” in 2005 for insulin injections. Here’s another article about using “micro-jets” to deliver vaccines and drugs without needles.

So I wonder if the “painless needle” thing has already been tried and for some reason not worked out. Last time I needed a injection, the doctor whipped out an old-fashioned, sharp-tipped needle. It hurt.

I’ve looked at as much of Hosler’s comics as I could online (check out “The Diabolical Dr. NoNoNo“) and they seem really smart and fun. Hosler’s comics look like graphic novels, using the familiar convention of action and dialogue developing over several panels to tell a story. In an article on the AAAS website, Hosler is quoted as saying that science comics are a great way to “reach students who are nervous and not confident in the science classroom.”

In an interview on NPR a few years ago, Hosler said that he began writing science comics after reading an anti-evolution comic published by Jack Chick, a Christian fundamentalist who runs “Chick Publications” and claims to have sold over 700 million “tracts” worldwide. Check out one of Chick’s anti-evolution comics here.

This sort of propaganda is troubling, to say the least, and not just because it’s based on false information. It’s also appealing to kids, especially compared to the dry, boring science text books I remember from high school and even college. Even though Chick’s comic lacks the flair and artistry of professional comics, it’s still probably very effective at disseminating its anti-evolution message.

So I’m grateful for Jay Hosler’s effort to speak to students and teach science in an unorthodox way. <a

The game is called Spore, and it’s about evolution. Sort of. The idea is that you begin playing as a single-celled organism flailing around in the ocean. By directing your avatar to eat and thereby grow, you gain “DNA” points that allow you to “evolve” your creature into an increasingly complex life form. Gain enough points and you can move from water to land, where you keep evolving your creature by breeding and forming alliances with other creatures.

Based on what I saw in the promo, the scope of the game is incredible. You can evolve to the point of creating entire civilizations complete with buildings, vehicles and even spaceships that allow you to explore the universe and colonize other planets. In short, it’s a game that’s meant to encompass everything–life in all its complexity.

The game is set to launch Sept. 7, so I haven’t had a chance to play it. But one thing about it gives me pause: how well does it simulate the real process of evolution? According to a detailed review of the game in the NY Times, the game is a mixed bag on that score. In some ways Spore gets it right, insofar as creatures develop in stages and evolve from simple to more complex organisms over time. And survival depends not only on the ability to out-compete other creatures but also on forming alliances and learning to co-exist. But in other ways the game is entirely misleading as a gaming simulation of evolution. Evolution happens over millions of years–in the game it happens moment by moment. Evolution is driven largely by random genetic mutations. In Spore, you control your creature, adding parts as you go along.

To be clear, the game doesn’t claim to be about evolution, at least not from what I saw on the Spore website. But it certainly has evolutionary overtones. Or undertones. But weirdly, the underlying thrust is sorta creationist. As it says at the end of the promo, the creatures in Spore go about their lives, eating and reproducing and building and evolving without knowledge of the fact that everything they do, everything they are, derives from one source … you. Sounds like creationism to me.

Make of that what you will. In any case, Spore seems like an incredibly fun and cool game. And I suppose it’s useful to remember that Spore is only a game whose primary objective is to entertain, not promote an agenda. (Although in an interview on NPR, the game’s creator, Will Wright–who created the wildly popular “Sims” games–talks about how the game is, in fact, based on an evolutionary model.) The only fair thing is to buy the game and see what it’s actually like to play.

Meanwhile, I downloaded a free trial version “Creature Creator” application that lets you build your own creatures. I highly recommend it as a way to kill an hour or two. You can even publish your creature and it may end up in the Spore gaming universe. Check out some Spore creatures here.

I spent about an hour on the site and watched maybe ten videos, starting at the upper-left hand corner, with hydrogen, then watching a few more in order. But before long I was having fun just sort of browsing around, clicking randomly on elements like xenon and Einsteinium and Roentgenium. The videos are very nicely done, with decent production values. But what really makes them work are the people in them. The main host is Martyn Poliakoff, a chemistry professor with a wild corona of white hair and a calm, pleasant manner complimented by a wry sense of humor.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve always found the periodic table to be confusing and a little off-putting. All those numbers and symbols–very unscientific of me, I know, but I’m just not a numbers and symbols guy. I’m a story guy, and the Periodic Table of Videos does a wonderful job of putting the elements into context and using video storytelling as a way to make the periodic table come alive.

So my question is … why? First, why do people continue to perpetrate these Bigfoot scams? And even more puzzling, why do so many people believe in the possibility that Bigfoot actually exists? You could ask the same thing about people who believe in UFOs, the Loch Ness monster, sasquatch/yeti, etc. Why? What’s the appeal in believing in these fairy tales?

I found an article on the Fox News website that asks the same question and offers some answers. Basically, the explanation is people believe because they want to believe. One expert is quoted to the effect that the human brain is wired to find causes for natural effects. When ancient people encountered something they didn’t understand or couldn’t explain, they resorted to belief in the supernatural. So a solar eclipse was a sign of the wrath of God and so forth. And we moderns are no different. Despite (or maybe in part because of) unparalleled advances in technology and scientific knowledge in the past 50 years, many, many people continue to believe in angels, monsters, ghosts, reincarnation and other tales from the paranormal. So maybe our brains are in still in a primitive enough state that we haven’t shaken the tendency to put faith in the fantastic.

The Fox News article also makes the good point that between cable TV and the internet, it’s simple to find “evidence” for just about anything. There are hundreds (thousands?) of Bigfoot websites–like this one–catering to believers. Ditto for UFO enthusiasts. Even legitimate media outlets still perk up when someone claims to have seen or found Bigfoot or seen a UFO.

I suppose it’s harmless. After all, there’s something appealing about the idea that mystery still exists in the world, that there are things and creatures we haven’t already discovered, places we haven’t already gone and exploited. And of course mysteries of the natural world do remain. For example, we still know relatively little about life in the deep ocean. Scientists are just beginning to crack the puzzle that’s the human brain. And for all we know about the physics of the Big Bang, we have absolutely no clue what happened before the universe came into existence.

So is it really so crazy to believe that an 8-foot-tall, ape-like creature roams the woods of Georgia or Colorado or wherever? Probably. But somehow, we like to believe it’s still possible.

Why? Because chewing gum may help the digestive system release hormones and generate more saliva and digestive juices. This is helpful because colon surgery patients can have trouble having a bowel movement, which causes swelling and nausea and vomiting and other pretty bad symptoms. Chew a few sticks of gum, though, and apparently things go much smoother.

You can read more about studies done on gum and colon surgery here.

Learning about this made me wonder if chewing gum has other health benefits. The other day my dentist mentioned that some recent studies have found that chewing sugarless gum actually reduces the incidence of tooth decay. I couldn’t find news of those studies online and my dentist didn’t know why gum turns out to be a good cavity fighter, so I’ll have to take his word for it.

I did find, however, this article about a German chemical company that planned to market chewing gum laced with cavity-preventing bacteria. I don’t think this gum ever made it onto supermarket shelves, as least not in the United States.

In any case, people have been chewing gum of one kind or another since the time of the ancient Greeks, so there must be a reason why we’ve kept up this bovine habit for so long. Maybe there are some hidden health benefits … or maybe it just feels good. Or maybe it’s fun.

For your own fun, check out a timeline on the history of gum. There you’ll learn, for example, that the first bubble gum was called Blibber-Blubber.

I learned this while listening to Radio Lab–a science radio series produced by WNYC in New York. (By the way, in my humble opinion it’s one of the best programs on radio, period, and certainly the best science radio series I’ve ever heard. Well worth checking out online or via podcast.) The episode I heard featured one of the hosts, Robert Kurlwich, was giving a commencement address at the California Institute of Technology. His topic was the importance of telling stories about science, the point being that storytelling is the best way to spread ideas. Without stories, science remains the province of the few scientists able to grasp the intricacies of hard data. Science storytelling, though (like what we do here at EarthSky) brings sciences to the masses, so to speak.

And this is important because there are all sorts of competing stories out there purporting to explain how things work and why things are the way they are and how the world came to be. As you know, and as I’ve written about before in this space, creationism/intelligent design is one of the most prominent narratives directly challenging the modern scientific world view, in particular evolution via natural selection, i.e. Darwinism.

Now, back to my original point … the creationist narrative is wildly popular and very successful, in no place more so than in Turkey, where, according to an article last year in the Washington Post, 2 out of 3 Turks reject evolution by natural selection. 50% of science teachers question or reject Darwinism.

The main voice of Turkish and Muslim creationism is a man named Adnan Oktar, also known as Harun Yahya. He founded the Turkey-based Science Research Foundation (SRF), published a popular book called “The Evolution Deceit” and has written many other books arguing against Darwinism, including the recent “The Atlas of Creation,” which has been sent to schools and scientists throughout Europe and the US.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with any of this, of course. (Although Oktar was caught up in multiple sex scandals in the late 1990s and has written Holocaust denial and anti-Semitic/anti-Zionist propaganda–activities that, at least for me, call into question pretty much everything else this guy does.) My point is that creation narratives are out there in full force. Oktar’s creationist propaganda is hugely influential in the Muslim world. So I wonder if we–that is, scientists and science writers–do a good enough job of telling stories about evolution by natural selection. There’s so much misinformation out there, so much propaganda and half-truths and outright falsehoods that the science can easily get lost in the mire. Darwin’s ideas have been backed up by reams and reams of evidence and observation. But the evidence doesn’t speak for itself. These ideas must be explained and promoted and explained again. That’s an absolute necessity at a moment when Darwinism is under attack around the globe.