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9/17/24 - Ig Nobels, and What's Killing You But You Love It!

Tuesday 9/17/24


Celebrate:

Constitution Day and Citizenship Day

Get Ready Day

National Apple Dumpling Day

National IT Professionals Day

National Monte Cristo Day

National Professional House Cleaners Day

National Table Shuffleboard Day

National Voter Registration Day

Take a Love One to the Doctor Day

Time's Up Day

World Patient Safety Day

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There's a Reddit thread where people are talking about things that are "slowly killing you, but you really enjoy doing."

Not surprisingly, some of the most popular answers involve vices like tobacco, alcohol, and drugs.

Some of the other answers

1.  Binge eating.

2.  Procrastination.

3.  Not sleeping enough.

4.  Fast food.

5.  Not exercising.

6.  Sitting too much.

7.  Energy drinks.

8.  Social media.

9.  Sugar . . . and specifically, Ben and Jerry's.

10.  Eating ramen every night.

11.  Bacon-wrapped jalapeno poppers.

12.  Parenting.

13.  Welding.  The person said, "It is quite literally killing me.  Eyesight gotten worse.  Black soot and rust blown out my respiratory system on a nightly basis."  Someone responded, "You're supposed to wear a welding mask."

14.  Processed meat.

15.  Dating men. 

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This year's Ig Nobel Prize winners were announced the other day.  It's like the Nobel Prize for the weirdest and DUMBEST insights science offered us in 2024.  Here are this year's winners.


A team in Amsterdam did 350,000 coin flips and found it's not really 50/50.  Coins are slightly more likely to land on the same side they started on.


This year's Peace Prize went to a study that looked at whether you could put pigeons inside missiles to help guide them.


The Botany Prize went to a study that found some plants will imitate the shapes of fake, plastic plants if you put them next to each other.


The Anatomy Prize went to a study that looked at the direction your hair swirls in, and whether it's affected by the hemisphere you're born in.  Kind of like the myth that toilets flush in opposite directions. (which I was disappointed to hear isn't a thing)


The Prize for Medicine went to a study that found placebos work better if they cause a few painful side-effects.


The Physics Prize went to a study that looked at the swimming abilities of dead trout.


The Biology Prize went to an old study from 1941, where researchers popped brown paper bags while a cat stood on a cow's back.  They were apparently trying to see if they could scare cows into producing more milk. 


The Prize for Demographics went to a study that found places where people supposedly live the longest tend to have poor recordkeeping when it comes to when people were born.  

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Today's Useless Fact of the Day - When Anders Celsius invented his temperature scale in 1742, he had the boiling point of water at zero degrees and the freezing point at 100 degrees.  That was flipped around after he died.

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