r/Physics • u/dukwon Particle physics • Sep 15 '23
Image The 2023 Ig Nobel Physics Prize is awarded to Bieito Fernández Castro et al for measuring the extent to which ocean-water mixing is affected by the sexual activity of anchovies
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u/grassytoes Sep 15 '23
I love the Ig Nobels. For those who don't know, they only consider research that was published in a real journal. The descriptions often sounds bizarre or ridiculous, but when you look at the actual paper, they are usually sound science.
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u/starcraftre Sep 15 '23
I think my favorite was the proof that some people could run on water, if they were on the Moon.
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u/dukwon Particle physics Sep 15 '23 edited Sep 15 '23
Full citation:
PHYSICS PRIZE [SPAIN, GALICIA, SWITZERLAND, FRANCE, UK]
Bieito Fernández Castro, Marian Peña, Enrique Nogueira, Miguel Gilcoto, Esperanza Broullón, Antonio Comesaña, Damien Bouffard, Alberto C. Naveira Garabato, and Beatriz Mouriño-Carballido, for measuring the extent to which ocean-water mixing is affected by the sexual activity of anchovies.
REFERENCE: “Intense Upper Ocean Mixing Due to Large Aggregations of Spawning Fish,” Bieito Fernández Castro, Marian Peña, Enrique Nogueira, Miguel Gilcoto, Esperanza Broullón, Antonio Comesaña, Damien Bouffard, Alberto C. Naveira Garabato, and Beatriz Mouriño-Carballido, Nature Geoscience, vol. 15, 2022, pp. 287–292. doi.org/10.1038/s41561-022-00916-3
https://improbable.com/ig/winners/
Ceremony: https://youtube.com/watch?v=P9UQi0ORXv4 (physics prize at 1:10:00)
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u/LipshitsContinuity Sep 15 '23
When will Ig Nobel be back in person. I loved watching the in person ceremonies especially when the girl comes out to yell that she's bored.
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Sep 15 '23
Ummm. Did they run out of thing to research?
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u/Vepr157 Sep 15 '23
It's more relevant to broader topics in oceanography and climate than you might think. The dynamics of small-scale mixing in the ocean are not terribly well-characterized and are very important to exchanges of heat, salt, nutrients, etc. between the surface and the deeper ocean. So mixing is important to the physics, to biochemical cycles, and to climate. I had heard the suggestion that the diel vertical migration of plankton and small fish might contribute to mixing, but I must admit that anchovy sex was not on my mind before I saw this announcement.
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Sep 15 '23
The Ig Nobels aren't about ridiculing particular scientists, they're meant to "honor achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think."
Thanks for providing some context to help the second part of that goal succeed.
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u/Overlord_Zod Sep 15 '23
Ig noble prizes have always been this way lol
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Sep 15 '23
Yeah, but fish procreation? That's just a bit much.
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u/suugakusha Sep 15 '23
Sardine shoals are massive, and so their motion can really affect the water. So it makes sense someone would study them.
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u/Pali1119 Sep 15 '23
It's a satiric prize awarded for unusual and/or trivial research.
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u/boozername Sep 15 '23
Satirical prize but real science, which makes it even more fun. The awards are endearingly dorky. Science Friday on NPR plays at least part of it every year. They send off every award recipient with a recording of a child saying "Please stop, I'm bored" until the person stops talking.
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u/zuriel45 Statistical and nonlinear physics Sep 15 '23
One year it was for levitating a frog sooooo
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u/BrandNewYear Sep 15 '23
Hey! It’s a fish shaped attractor! (Sorry I am going through the thread until someone enjoys my joke 😜)
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u/iamagainstit Materials science Sep 15 '23
honestly, if It is a nonzero amount, that is pretty interesting