Notices by Marc Abrahams (marcabrahams@mstdn.science)

Here are the 2025 Ig Nobel Prize winners https://improbable.com/2025/09/18/here-are-the-2025-ig-nobel-prize-winners/

It's that time of year. Come to the Ig Nobel Prize ceremony, or watch online. Thursday, Sept 18, 2025, 6 pm (US eastern time). 10 new winners, 6 Nobel laureates handing out the prizes, 1 new opera (this year’s is about gastroenterologists), 1 tribute to Tom Lehrer. And other stuff. Two livestreams, one in English, one in Japanese. https://improbable.com/the-35th-first-annual-ig-nobel-prize-ceremony/

"The last time I spoke with him was in 2000 when I attended Harvard’s notorious Ig-Nobel Prize event, of which he had been an initiator and remained very much involved despite having given up writing satire (How can you write satire when real life is even more absurd?) and reverted to academia. My task was to accept the ‘honour’ on behalf of an Australian woman whose book claimed people could exist on air instead of food.” https://www.spectator.com.au/2025/08/to-sum-up-tom-lehrer-and-john-stone/

The 2025 Ig Nobel Prizes will be awarded at the 35th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony, on Thursday evening, September 18, 2025. Ten new winners will be honored for doing things that make people LAUGH, then THINK. TICKETS to attend the ceremony will go on sale in late July, via the ceremony web page. https://improbable.com/the-35th-first-annual-ig-nobel-prize-ceremony/

That wording is the same kind of mumbling stuff you'd hear — any year, anywhere, in any crummy bar — from a down-and-out guy who's nursing his fifth beer and muttering about why everyone else in the bar is staying at least ten feet away from him.

In the US medical insurance business, the notion of #woke is getting a whole new meaning: "Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield Won’t Pay for the Complete Duration of Anesthesia for Patients’ Surgical Procedures" https://www.asahq.org/about-asa/newsroom/news-releases/2024/11/anthem-blue-cross-blue-shield-will-not-pay-complete-duration-of-anesthesia-for-surgical-procedures

"Okinawa in Japan is one of these zones. There was a Japanese government review in 2010, which found that 82% of the people aged over 100 in Japan turned out to be dead. The secret to living to 110 was, don’t register your death." https://theconversation.com/the-data-on-extreme-human-ageing-is-rotten-from-the-inside-out-ig-nobel-winner-saul-justin-newman-239023

Tomorrow: the Ig Nobel Prizes... https://improbable.com/2024/09/11/one-day-until-the-ig-nobel/

TICKETS to attend the 34th First annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony in person WILL GO ON SALE FRIDAY, AUGUST 2, 2024, at noon US eastern time. https://improbable.com/ig/archive/2024-ceremony/

"College presidents and school deans have two jobs: 1) raise money; and 2) find ways to appease students, faculty, administrators, alumni, donors, and the state. The one trait all these interest groups share is a powerful sense of entitlement in telling university presidents and college deans exactly how to do their jobs. None of this is to say that these groups are always wrong in their critiques." https://danieldrezner.substack.com/p/you-could-not-pay-me-enough-to-be