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Magazine nominates its own candidates for 'Ig Noble' awards

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Now in their 23rd year, the Ig Noble awards accord worldwide recognition to the efforts of mad scientists and wacky research projects that "First make people laugh, and then make them think." Japanese winners have been represented from early on, and each year's awards ceremony, held at Sanders Theater at Harvard University, is well covered in the Japanese media.

In 2013, Japanese were picked for the Medicine prize, for work in "assessing the effect of listening to opera, on heart transplant patients who are mice." And for the Chemistry prize, for a paper discovering that "the biochemical process by which onions make people cry is even more complicated than scientists previously realized."

This year -- and we are not making this up -- four researchers from Kitasato University in Kanagawa Prefecture were awarded for their study of the slipperiness of banana peels.

The "Igs," as they have been fondly nicknamed by legion fans, parody the more famous Nobel Prizes awarded each year in Stockholm. The name is also a play on the word "ignoble," meaning "characterized by baseness, lowness, or meanness."

Keeping to the spirit of wackiness and fun, Shukan Asahi (Oct 24) thinks it's come up with a completely new use for Ig Noble prizes: to accord recognition of people who find themselves entangled in bizarre situations, partly of their own doing. Not too different, in other words, from the so-called "Darwin Awards," except perhaps that the nominee's death is not a prerequisite.

The first candidate is Nagoya Mayor Takashi Kawamura, who has been trying to undo what he insists is a miscarriage of justice in the convictions of a guard and his supervisor, who were found guilty of causing the death of a 43-year-old convict at Nagoya Prison in December 2001. The two men were arrested in February 2003, charged with having forced the deceased to lie face down and then thrusting a high-pressure fire hose into his anus and turning on the water, causing internal injuries that proved fatal.

The two pleaded innocent, but after an extended trial -- during which Kawamura, at that time a Diet member, accused the prosecutor of falsifying evidence -- were found guilty in June 2011. Their appeal for a retrial was turned down in March of this year, and their attorneys have issued an objection.

To provide testimony that the high-pressure fire hose could damage the intestine to the degree that could result in death, the prosecutors utilized a demonstration, insisting that a pressure of 60 kilopascals would be capable of causing a fatal injury. A fire department official was brought in to provide testimony, but Mayor Kawamura continues to imply that the evidence in the guards' trial was "suspicious." The prosecutor was unwilling to comment on an ongoing case.

The second nominee is the 26-year-old Hokkaido University student who was on the verge of joining Islamic State in Syria after seeing a recruitment flyer stuck on the window of a small bookshop in Akihabara. The bookstore operator turned out to be Koh Nakata, a graduate of Islamic Studies from the University of Tokyo, who had lectured on theology at Kyoto's Doshisha University from 2003 to 2011. The ex-academic introduced the student to journalist Kosuke Tsuneoka, who planned to "help" the student get to Syria with the aim of writing up his story.

Public security authorities were able to prevent the student from leaving Japan, and then raided Tsuneoka's home in search of evidence, confiscating his computer, camera and other materials. Tsuneoka claimed this was "interference" in his work as a reporter and insisted Japan had no jurisdiction over "preparatory activities or conspiracies" involving acts to be committed on foreign soil. The way the current law stands, says Professor Akira Maeda of Tokyo Zokei University, Tsuneoka is probably right.

"If the student were to kill people in combat, it's homicide," he said. "But I would expect it would be difficult for Japan to try him for it."

Another nomination for an Ig Noble award went to "Victorian Queen," a "host club" in Osaka's Minami district. When it opened four years ago the club tried a new tack, replacing male hosts with females dressed to appear like sexy young hunks. In general business at host clubs has been way down, and this creative differentiation appears to have tapped into strong latent demand. The club's website reportedly receives 10,000 unique visits per day.

© Japan Today

©2024 GPlusMedia Inc.

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How about nominating Abe for "fixing the Japanese economy?"

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