go aussie!

that's right, australians have been exceeding themselves again, and this time in more cerebral activities. there was the widely publicised nobel prize winning western australians, but my favourites are the winners of the much more entertaining ig nobel prizes (first you laugh, then you think) - where australians won both the physics and biology prizes!

the prize for physics, from none other than the University of Queensland, was John Mainstone and the late Thomas Parnell, for patiently conducting an experiment that began in the year 1927 -- in which a glob of congealed black tar has been slowly, slowly dripping through a funnel, at a rate of approximately one drop every nine years. (i've even walked past this experiment myself!)

and biology went to a bunch of guys from the University of Adelaide, James Cook University, the University of South Australia and the Australian Wine Research Institute; for painstakingly smelling and cataloging the peculiar odors produced by 131 different species of frogs when the frogs were feeling stressed. that's the power of multidisciplinary research for you!

however, in my opinion, the best study won the fluid dynamics prize: "Pressures Produced When Penguins Pooh -- Calculations on Avian Defaecation." it's a pity they can't spell, but the first figure in their paper is fantastic. 40cm is really quite impressive for a penguin.