2008 Ig Nobel Prizes

The 2008 Ig Nobel prizes were recently announced.

The Nobel Prizes thus far haven't been overly interesting this year (though I suppose I have a bit of partiality towards physics nobel in honor of spontaneous symmetry-breaking that went to Nambu and two others), but thankfully I can proudly announce that Charles Spence, one of my Somerville College colleagues, is one of this year's Ig Nobel laureates! (One of last year's was L. Mahadevan, an applied mathematician who visits Oxford's applied math group a lot.) Here is the citation for his Ig Nobel prize in Nutrition:

NUTRITION PRIZE. Massimiliano Zampini of the University of Trento, Italy and Charles Spence of Oxford University, UK, for electronically modifying the sound of a potato chip to make the person chewing the chip believe it to be crisper and fresher than it really is.
REFERENCE: "The Role of Auditory Cues in Modulating the Perceived Crispness and Staleness of Potato Chips," Massimiliano Zampini and Charles Spence, Journal of Sensory Studies, vol. 19, October 2004, pp. 347-63.

Congratulations!