Dovi’s Digest Volume 78
A weekly newsletter for all your intellectual, spiritual, and physical needs
Well, look who’s back! Welcome to Volume 78 of Dovi’s Digest.
Each year in October, academics around the world excitedly wait for the winners of the Nobel prizes to be announced. It is the crowning achievement for most people in the fields of physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature, peace, and economics. The list of previous winners read like a who’s who of the most influential people of the last hundred years. A special mention should go to the Curie family, seeing as they’re the most decorated family in history. Marie is the only person to have won two prizes in two different sciences (one of which she shared with her husband), their daughter won the chemistry prize along with her husband, and their other son-in-law received the prize on behalf of UNICEF, of which he was the director. Spare a thought for their younger daughter, Ève, who only won the National Book Award and the French Légion de’Honneur. Shame.
However, for me the Ig Nobel prizes are much more fun, and frankly, often more interesting. The stated aim of the Ig Nobels is to honour achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think. The prize itself changes year to year, and has included a rubber chicken, a coffee cup and cigarette, as well as a set of novelty teeth on a stick.
The winners of the this year’s Ig Nobels included researchers who figured out how to better control cockroaches on U.S. Navy submarines; animal scientists who looked at whether it’s safer to transport an airborne rhinoceros upside-down; and a team that figured out just how disgusting that discarded gum stuck to your shoe is.
For the second year in a row, the ceremony was a pre-recorded digital event because of Covid. While disappointing in many ways because half the fun of a live ceremony is the rowdy audience participation, the ceremony retained many in-person traditions. These include (and I’m not making this up) real Nobel laureates announcing the prizes, a little girl who shouts “please stop! I’m bored” when a speaker goes on too long, throwing paper planes onto the stage (for many years, Roy Glauber was “Keeper of the Broom” and was tasked with sweeping the stage clean of the planes. In 2005 he was unable to attend as he was on his way to Stockholm to receive an actual Nobel prize in Physics), and is traditionally closed with the words “If you didn’t win a prize – and especially if you did – better luck next year!” This year also had the world premiere of a mini opera called “A Bridge Between People,” about children who literally build tiny suspension bridges to join two angry adults.
Needless to say, this week’s headline article is about this year’s winners.
Seeing as yesterday was Armistice Day, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention WW1. Although for many people WW2 was the defining war of the 20th century, it wouldn’t have happened without WW1. The first world war didn’t only bring us trench warfare, but also tanks, real machine guns, and air forces. Aside from the military impact, the world was also irrevocably changed politically. It destroyed empires, created numerous new nation states (the fallout of which we’re still dealing with), and led directly to Soviet communism and the rise of Hitler. Finally, the economic impact was also huge. It left European countries deep in debt and forced the U.S. to become the leading industrial power and creditor to the world, thereby becoming a superpower.
There were FIVE correct answers to last week’s brainteaser. Well done to Dr Stanley Wolberg, Kevin Levy, Hazel Levine, Cheryl Geliebter, and Ori Tobias!! The answer and this week’s riddle are below.
In addition to long intros about novelty awards, there are articles about refugee distance runners, dogs, electric cars, and their pitfalls (or not), the ups and downs of being a game show contestant, and the rise of my favourite comic actors. Enjoy!
Keep those articles (and everything else) coming,
Have a great week,
Dovi
And now, the articles:
The 2021 Ig Nobel Prizes: The Lighter Side of Science
Beards, flying rhinos, symptom-relieving orgasms, talking cats and colliding commuters: the 2021 Ig Nobel Prizes are here!
The Posthuman Dog
If humans were to disappear from the face of the Earth, what might dogs become? And would they be better off without us?
No Man’s Land, Part I: The Trench Stalemate
Or: is over the top over the top?
(Courtesy of Yisroel Greenberg)
Cars Are Going Electric. What Happens to the Used Batteries?
Used electric vehicle batteries could be the Achilles' heel of the transportation revolution—or the gold mine that makes it real.
One Contestant’s Winding, Emotional Journey to the Jeopardy! Stage During the Pandemic
On game shows, unexpected twists, and enduring in the face of loss.
Zaid Ait Malek: The Stowaway Who Became a Spanish Ultra Running Star
As midnight approached on 31 December 2006, most of Spain was preparing to celebrate the new year. Zaid Ait Malek spent the night evading police.
How Kumail Nanjiani Got Huge
It all seemed simple enough: Book a Marvel movie, get ripped, feel incredible. But, as the Eternals star learned, growing into his new body required recalibrating his whole mindset.
Quote of the Week:
“Compete with yourself and root for everyone else.”— Candice Millard
Facts of the Week:
During the American Civil war, Ulysses S Grant got so drunk that he vomited into his horse’s mane.
In 1873, the Spanish city of Cartagena, wrote to President Ulysses S Grant to ask to join the US.
The World’s shortest international bridge connects Spain to Portugal and is 3.2 metres long.
To travel between the Portuguese towns of Funchal and Monte you can rent a toboggan.
Superionic ice is both solid and liquid at the same time.
The world's hottest ice cream, which contains Peppers 100 times hotter than a jalapeno, is called Devil's Breath and is made in Glasgow.
The Scottish Mountain Bod an Deamhain, “penis of the dragon”, is usually translated into English as The Devil’s Point.
Titivillus was a demon blamed by medieval monks for spelling misatkes.
Cartoon of the Week:
Via smbc-comics.com
Tweet of the Week:
Headline of the Week:
Brainteaser of the Week:
What two words, formed from different arrangements of the same 6 letters, can be used to complete the sentence below?
The title of the appealing little magazine defines the colourful drawings as amusing but comprehensive, in short, blank, ______ ______.
Last Week’s Brainteaser and Answer:
In a bar, the bottle between the gin and the whisky is port.
The gin is next to the brandy and the rum is next to the vermouth.
The whisky is in the centre of the seven bottles.
The sherry bottle, which is next to the rum, is at the far end of the row of bottles.
What is the order of the seven bottles?
Answer:
It seems to work in two directions. Thanks to Kevin Levy, for pointing this out.
They are: Sherry, rum, vermouth, whisky, port, gin, brandy.
Or: Brandy, gin, port, whisky, vermouth, rum, sherry.