Research that examined why banana peels are slippery when stepped on won one of this year’s Ig Nobel prize.
Ig Nobel is of course alluding to the real Nobel Prize. The idea of the Ig Nobel is to first make us laugh, then think. The award, handed out by real Nobel Laureates at Harvard University, was this year awarded for the 24th time. The prize was established by the scientific humor magazine Annals of Improbable Research.
The research on slippery banana peel is performed by a Japanese research group led by Kiyoshi Mabuchi. The group has measured the friction of banana peel in a laboratory, and shown why peel from apple or orange is not as dangerous to walk on. The research gave them the Ig Nobel Prize in physics.
But this banana research has a deeper dimension. The study is a step towards a new type of joint prosthesis. The polysaccharide lubricant that gives banana peel its slippery characteristic can also be found in the membranes of skeletal joints.
Ig Nobel is given in ten categories: physics, neuroscience, psychology, public health, biology, art, economics, medicine, arctic science and nutrition. Here you can read about the other Ig Nobel winners: www.improbable.com/ig/winners/