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Japan Times - Panda-poop prof scoops Ig Nobel honor Japanese munching microbes acclaimed, but officialdom renders them a waste of time
Japan Times - Bacteria extracted from the feces of giant pandas can be used to reduce food waste to less than 10 percent of its original mass. For making this stunning - and potentially invaluable - scientific discovery, Fumiaki Taguchi, Professor Emeritus of Kitasato University in Kanagawa Prefecture, was awarded a 2009 Ig Nobel Prize for biology in a ceremony at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Ig Nobel Prizes honor achievements that "first make people laugh and then make them think," according to U.S.-based Improbable Research, a grouping of scientists, journalists and other luminaries from around the world that bestowed these honors for work in many fields since 1991. . .
The 72-year-old professor actually started his oration saying, "Firstly, let me tell you that I owe my being here today to two important buddies in my career. They are the giant panda and its feces. Stems or leaves of the pandas' main diet of bamboo are excreted almost undigested. I was lucky because the feces had no stinking smell, which is good for experiment material and makes it easy to handle."
But then, just as he got to the last paragraph of his prepared manuscript, his 60 seconds of allotted time ran out. "At that moment a little girl appeared on the stage and told me, 'Stop talking!' " Taguchi said. Although he asked her to wait, she repeated the phrase in a high-pitched voice, he recalled rather ruefully.
"I told her, 'I will give you this panda (I'm holding), so please wait for a few seconds.' She was excited to have the panda and left the stage," he said. . .
It's a tradition at the ceremony for members of the audience to make paper airplanes and throw them toward the stage when someone up there says something funny. At this year's ceremony, Taguchi explained, the role of stage sweeper was filled by Roy Glauber, 2005's Nobel laureate in physics, who is a Harvard professor. Apparently, he rose well to the challenge as his broom briskly cleared away squadron after squadron of planes
Japan Times - Bacteria extracted from the feces of giant pandas can be used to reduce food waste to less than 10 percent of its original mass. For making this stunning - and potentially invaluable - scientific discovery, Fumiaki Taguchi, Professor Emeritus of Kitasato University in Kanagawa Prefecture, was awarded a 2009 Ig Nobel Prize for biology in a ceremony at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Ig Nobel Prizes honor achievements that "first make people laugh and then make them think," according to U.S.-based Improbable Research, a grouping of scientists, journalists and other luminaries from around the world that bestowed these honors for work in many fields since 1991. . .
The 72-year-old professor actually started his oration saying, "Firstly, let me tell you that I owe my being here today to two important buddies in my career. They are the giant panda and its feces. Stems or leaves of the pandas' main diet of bamboo are excreted almost undigested. I was lucky because the feces had no stinking smell, which is good for experiment material and makes it easy to handle."
But then, just as he got to the last paragraph of his prepared manuscript, his 60 seconds of allotted time ran out. "At that moment a little girl appeared on the stage and told me, 'Stop talking!' " Taguchi said. Although he asked her to wait, she repeated the phrase in a high-pitched voice, he recalled rather ruefully.
"I told her, 'I will give you this panda (I'm holding), so please wait for a few seconds.' She was excited to have the panda and left the stage," he said. . .
It's a tradition at the ceremony for members of the audience to make paper airplanes and throw them toward the stage when someone up there says something funny. At this year's ceremony, Taguchi explained, the role of stage sweeper was filled by Roy Glauber, 2005's Nobel laureate in physics, who is a Harvard professor. Apparently, he rose well to the challenge as his broom briskly cleared away squadron after squadron of planes
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