The most ridiculous studies have been published

British scientists are crying

Alfiya Yenikeeva, RIA Novosti

On Thursday, September 13, the Annals of Improbable Research magazine will announce the winners of the Ig Nobel Prize for the 28th time. It is awarded to scientists whose work "makes you laugh first and then think." Last year, among the winners were researchers who found out how fast the ears of older people grow and how crocodiles affect success in gambling. RIA Novosti has selected several controversial scientific articles whose authors may well qualify for the 2018 Nobel Prize.

Orientation – north

Last fall , researchers from Cornell University (USA) for a month carefully watched six dozen dogs of different breeds and sizes to understand whether small dogs during urination are trying to direct the jet higher than their larger relatives. The analysis of the obtained data confirmed that, unlike large animals, small ones lift their hind legs at a large angle, and, accordingly, the odorous mark by which the dogs identify each other turns out to be slightly higher.

Scientists have proposed three possible explanations for such agility of small dogs. Firstly, the desire to deceive relatives by exaggerating their size, and thus avoid conflicts. Secondly, the innate desire of males to dominate and try to block the marks of larger individuals. Or it's a matter of banal anatomy – big dogs are less flexible than small ones, so they will not be able to raise their paws high, even if they want to.

However, German and Czech researchers can seriously compete with American zoologists, who found out that dogs usually defecate in the direction from north to south and never from east to west. Scientists do not know why this happens, but they hope that their work will help "open new horizons in the field of biomagnetic research." By the way, to come to such conclusions, zoologists had to document 1893 defecations and 5582 urination in dogs.

Barrels instead of zebras

Last year, a team of Swedish and Hungarian scientists covered metal barrels with water with zebra and horse skins of different colors for four months, and then exposed them to the sun. Periodically measuring the temperature of the water, biologists found out that the black barrel was heated the most, and the white one was always the coldest (and this fully complies with the laws of physics). The temperature of the liquid in containers covered with zebra skins and gray horse skins with the same average whiteness, as a rule, was the same.

Based on the data obtained, the researchers concluded that the black-and-white color does not cool zebras, as previously thought. Interestingly, eight years ago, the same research team explained that horseflies bite white horses less often, because their skin reflects so much light that it becomes almost invisible to insects. In 2016, biologists received the Nobel Prize in Physics for this work. Now they have every chance to become twice winners of the most prestigious comic award.

How long does it take to roll up toilet paper

Epidemiologist Rikard Ljung from the Karolinska Institute (Sweden) can also count on the Nobel Prize, who calculated how much time hotel employees spend annually to beautifully bend the edges of toilet paper intended for guests.

Together with two assistants, the scientist bent the ends of toilet paper more than 60 times and found out that one bend takes an average of 5.73 seconds. During the experiment, the researchers were without gloves and did not take into account the preliminary preparation, which, in their opinion, precedes the bending process. Therefore, they assumed that it actually takes ten seconds for one bend of toilet paper. In a year, seconds add up to ten million working hours, which corresponds to five thousand man-years of continuous work.

"If you remove unnecessary responsibilities, it will improve the health and well-being of hotel staff, as well as save time that can be spent on various noble goals. But in that case, who would agree to bend toilet paper?" – writes Leung in his work published in the Journal of Occupational Medicine and Toxicology.

Russian question

Researchers from the St. Petersburg, who discovered that if rabbits who are under stress are given a sedative, they will not have intestinal flatulence.

Among the Russian "nobelists" of the past years – physicist Yuri Struchkov – for literary fecundity (according to the calculations of the organizers of the award, he wrote 3.9 scientific articles a day), the Ural company SKN – for creating diamonds from explosives, Yuri Ivanenko – for proving the possibility of walking on water on the Moon.

Former Soviet physicist Andrey Geim forced a frog to levitate in a magnetic field, for which he received a Nobel Prize in 2000. Ten years later, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for graphene research.

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