OPINION

Ignoble Notables

Three Utah scientists honored with this year’s other peace prize.

The interlude between harvest and Hanukkah leaves me cold. How is it possible to appreciate a season that valorizes shopping, eating and electioneering? Only the occasional Indian summer day—with its gold-leaf aspens displayed under azure skies—offers respite. Otherwise, the best to be said of the tedious, autumnal months is that they serve as backdrop for winners getting their due.

City Weekly’s 32nd Best of Utah edition was published on Nov. 18, on the heels of the Booker Prize and the National Book Awards. And by then, the 2021 Nobel and Pulitzer prizes had come and gone like meteors. So, too, had the lesser-known Ig Nobels.

“The Ig Nobel awards are arguably the highlight of the scientific calendar,” wrote Helen Pilcher in Nature. “The prizes, which are the wayward son of the more righteous Nobels, are supposed to reward research that makes people laugh, then think.”

Now 31 years old, the Ig Nobels are sourced on the Harvard University campus. The annual award ceremony evokes the irreverent theatrics of such other Harvard satirists as the Lampoon and Hasty Pudding Club. Part of what redeems the Ig Nobels from low comedy, according to the awards’ press materials, is the participation of “genuine, genuinely bemused Nobel laureates.”

I’m a believer in the “laugh, then think” approach to life’s vicissitudes, and I have followed the annual Ig Nobels for a long time. Each year, without fail, some small detail strikes a responsive chord. This year brought a stunning surprise. Three Utah academics, all associated with the University of Utah, received the Ig Nobel Peace Prize!

Ethan Beseris, David Carrier and Steven Naleway shared the honor “for testing the hypothesis that humans evolved beards to protect themselves from punches to the face” just as manes protect the throats of male lions. I called Dr. Carrier to congratulate him. He was gracious.

The award was unexpected, he said, and he credited Beseris for doing most of the work over almost two years’ time. The research was predicated on Charles Darwin’s assertion that not only did beards attract females, facial hair provided protection when males fought over them with their fists.

The Utah team’s acceptance speeches were delivered in a virtual ceremony that reached around the world on Sept. 9. “These awards recognize the exploratory research we should be proud of as a species,” Carrier told me. “Progress depends on science.”

The other peace prize of the season—the one announced in Norway—cited two journalists, Maria Ressa from the Philippines and Dmitry Muratov from Russia. They received the Nobel for their “courageous fight for freedom of expression, which is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace.”

Nobel winners receive a gold medal, more than $1 million and lots of publicity. The Ig Nobel winners fare less well. Was the University of Utah planning any special recognitions for its three, newly minted laureates, I asked? Dr. Carrier demurred. That South Campus Drive could be re-named in their honor is speculative, the bearded biology professor told me. “We haven’t heard from President Randall yet.”

American researchers took another prize in this year’s 10 Ig Nobel awards. They won the entomology prize for groundbreaking work on “a new method of cockroach control on submarines.” Pedestrian collision research was the basis of two separate prizes. The prize in physics went to five scientists “for conducting experiments to learn why pedestrians do not constantly collide with other pedestrians.” A different collaboration of researchers from Japan, Switzerland and Italy won the kinetics prize for their experiments “to learn why pedestrians do sometimes collide with other pedestrians.” The opposite, dueling research made me smile.

The subject of sex is under constant scientific scrutiny. Not a year goes by without vagaries of sex research making headlines. Among this year’s Ig Nobel Prizes was good news for allergy sufferers with libidos intact. “For demonstrating that orgasms can be as effective as decongestant medicines at improving nasal breathing,” researchers from Germany, Turkey and Britain shared the Ig Nobel Prize in medicine.

Sex was also a factor in the foundational research of the Ig Nobel chemistry prize. Data-mining scientists “chemically analyzed the air inside movie theaters to test whether the odors produced by an audience reliably indicated the levels of violence, sex, antisocial behavior, drug use and bad language in the movie the audience was watching.” It made me think of the Feelies in Aldous Huxley’s novel Brave New World. The Feelies went beyond sound and sight of the big screen by engaging the audience’s sense of touch.

Three Swedes claimed the Ig Nobel biology prize “for analyzing variations in purring, chirping, chattering, trilling, tweedling, murmuring, meowing, moaning, squeaking, hissing, yowling, howling, growling and other modes of cat-human communication.” One of their publications was titled “A Phonetic Pilot Study of Chirp, Chatter, Tweet and Tweedle in Three Domestic Cats.” Discarded chewing gum was the object of Spanish and Iranian researchers. Their work was honored with the Ig Nobel Prize in ecology. They were cited for the work of “using genetic analysis to identify the different species of bacteria that reside in wads of chewing gum stuck on pavements in various countries.”

The transportation prize was based on experiments moving black rhinos with helicopters in Africa. The presentation of the prize called attention to the finding that “it is safer to transport an airborne rhinoceros upsidedown rather than sideways.”

Finally, the Ig Nobel Prize in economics honored researchers from six countries “for discovering that the obesity of a country’s politicians may be a good indicator of that country’s corruption.” I didn’t laugh, and I didn’t have to think. Recalling the presidencies of a skinny intellectual named Obama and a hefty demagogue named Trump made me think ignoble thoughts, then weep. CW

Send comments to editor@cityweekly.net

HIT: Rent Help for Seniors

If you think it’s hard to buy a home, try renting one. Demand is high, population is increasing and there just isn’t enough affordable-housing stock. Now imagine you’re trying to rent, and you’re over 66 years old, maybe you’re single now and your household income is less than $34,666. Did you know there are rebates to help you out? Probably not. “Trying to prompt late-year notice about the program, we have found out many seniors who should be getting word about the program don’t,” Tim Funk, of Crossroads Urban Center, tells City Weekly. And many lack computer access or the expertise to navigate the state Tax Commission website. Depending on your annual income, you could get help from $126 to $11,785, and that’s not nothing. Part of the problem is a disconnect between the Tax Commission and local county tax commissions. File an application before Dec. 31, check it out online at https://bit.ly/30N3a3u, visit your nearest Tax Commission office or local county Aging Services agency, or call the Tax Commission at 801-297-6254 and ask for a Renter Refund processing agent.

MISS: Read No Evil

Lolita? Really? Would this be the first book your teenager would pick up from the library? Look, it was written in 1955 and, sure, it’s about the dirty truth of sex abuse, but it’s not exactly Penthouse magazine. It is the story of a young girl being sexually abused by an older predator. Hmm, maybe this could be about the missing Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai. A real-life predator story happened in 1948 to 11-year-old Sally Horner, and didn’t end as hopefully as Lolita, according to a Medium article. And yet parents are shocked and appalled that their little ones might learn, or worse, want to learn, about anything sexual. KSL and other news outlets let us know that these racy books are being pulled from the shelves. Cover your eyes and plug your ears, little ones, and if anything happens like Lolita or Peng Shuai, just stay quiet.

MISS: Shot Clocks

We’re losing count, but Sen. Mike Lee is not. The wise and gifted senator has been bombarding constituents with his Vaccine Mandate Countdown, which before publication was on Day 17 because, as he sees it, the mandate is “an act of barbarism.” Oh, and if anyone remembers President Harry Truman, Lee says that Biden’s federal mandate is just like the “attempt to seize U.S. steel mills for the Korean War effort,” the Deseret News reported. Oh yeah, and because there is nothing more pressing than this, Lee has proposed no less than 12 bills to stop the mandate. Even Scientific American says the mandates are lawful, effective and based on good science. But sadly, most Utahns side with the bombastic senator because no one remembers smallpox.

What Do You Think?

Remember 2016? Remember how the polls kept telling us that Hillary Clinton was cruising toward a win? Well, that didn’t happen. Enter the era of distrust in everything electoral, and of course, enter the era of Trumpism. Maybe you think that what Utahns want makes a difference nationally? Think again. U.S. presidential elections are decided by only a few key “battleground” states, and no one really thinks Utah makes a difference. At Strength in Numbers: How Polls Work and Why We Need Them, you’ll hear about why polls still matter—especially those that measure local issues. “G. Elliott Morris is a data-driven journalist and author who writes about American politics, public opinion polling, demographics and elections. Morris will discuss how polls work, why they are important, and the magic and science behind forecasting elections,” organizers say. Hinckley Institute of Politics,

260 S. Central Campus Drive, Gardner Commons: Room 2018, Thursday, Dec. 2, noon, free. https://bit.ly/3qKjYCO Vaccine Politics

If you’re wondering why the anti-vaxxers have such pull, take a look at history. While QAnon may be a relatively new phenomenon, vaccine hesitancy is not. “A Dialogue

on the History of Vaccine Politics and

Policy will put the current moment of vaccine hesitancy around COVID-19 in dialogue with what we know more broadly about vaccine hesitancy in the U.S. and around the world,” organizers say. You’ll find out: 1. Why are people sometimes hesitant to get vaccinated? 2. How unique is COVID-19 where vaccine hesitancy is concerned? 3. What can or should be done to try to alleviate public hesitancy around vaccination? There may be something you can do to change the narrative. There are economic implications that could persuade. Hinckley Institute of Poli-

tics, 260 S. Central Campus Drive, Gardner Commons: Room 2018, Wednesday, Dec. 1, noon., free. https://bit.ly/3qNfRpx Need a Home?

The Utah Foundation just came out with a study on affordable housing—something that isn’t a thing in Utah. They call attention to the “Missing Middle” because multi-unit housing, walkability and income diversity are lacking. At Solving for Housing in the Economic Inclusion Equation, you’ll “learn from Utah and Idaho’s leading experts on affordable housing while examining the impact housing has on the most vulnerable populations in our communities.” Both Utah and Idaho housing markets are described as “hot” and “unhealthy,” so much so that residents can’t buy in their home states. Find out how to address this severely imbalanced problem with panelists from Zions Bank, NeighborWorks and the Utah Department of Indian Affairs. Virtual, Tuesday, Nov. 30,

noon, free. https://bit.ly/3cfJ1VY Meals for the Homeless

It’s almost Thanksgiving, and volunteers (age 16 and over) can help to Make & Serve Meals

at the VOA Youth Homeless Resource

Center. Wear closed-toe shoes, a mask and comfortable clothing. Food is purchased by Love Lake City, so all they need is you. VOA

Homeless Youth Resource Center, 888 S. 400 West, Thursday, Nov. 25, 5 p.m. Free/ register at https://bit.ly/30rgha9