Banana boffins win Ig Nobel

[yuiyoshida]

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (Jiji Press) — A team of Japanese researchers won this year’s Ig Nobel Physics Prize on Thursday for scientifically demonstrating why banana skins become slippery when people step on them, as is often depicted in cartoons.

The team, led by Kitasato University Prof. Kiyoshi Mabuchi, received the award at a ceremony held at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, marking the eighth straight year of Japanese representatives receiving the spoof version of the Nobel Prize.

In an experimental study, the team found that numerous microscopic, capsule-like tissues on the inner side of a banana skin that contain gelled substances are easily crushed when the skin is stepped on with a shoe. Lubricating fluid oozes out of the tissues and as a result makes the skin slippery, according to the study.

Mabuchi, a professor of biomedical engineering, looked into the slippery properties of banana skins as part of his research into artificial joint lubrication, in the belief that human articular cartilage and banana skins have in common a mechanism to reduce friction.


http://the-japan-news.com/news/article/0001580596

[Bosonic]

1. Other notable research includes...

UK researchers reveal people who habitually stay up late are, on average, more self-admiring, manipulative and psychopathic

Bacon-related medical breakthrough wins Ig Nobel prize

[longship]

2. This post is useless without Miss Sweetie Poo.

(Acceptance speeches at the Iggies are extremely time limited. Whenever a winner goes overtime Miss Sweetie Poo intervenes, often with hilarious results.)

[mahatmakanejeeves]

3. Adding a link

Japan Team Wins Ig Nobel Prize for Proving Banana Peels Are Slippery

1:55 pm JST
Sep 19, 2014

By Jun Hongo

....
Other winners of this year’s Ig Nobel prize include a study on how people who stay up late are more manipulative and self-admiring, and mental hazards caused by owning a cat. A team of Chinese and Canadian researchers won the neuroscience prize for studying the brain functions of people who see the face of Jesus in a piece of toast.