Japan team wins Ig Nobel award for measuring children's saliva

Kudos on them for apparently taking it seriously.

why is the prize on Chemistry and not Biology or Medicine instead?

There is something quite wonderful about the Ig Nobel awards. They are awarded for research "that first makes people laugh, and then makes them think".

This year also included an award for researching whether men's testicles are both the same temperature. That's got me thinking, and scratching my ... head.

So umm ... what good does it do to know this ?

Maybe next they should look into the ammount of snot produced and so on ?

Would be interesting if they find any kind of relevance for this information at all.

When I read ‘measuring children’s saliva’ it reminded me of the scene from Big Daddy when the kid was spitting it out and sucking it back in.

I'm sure this information is useful for pediatricians.

Good for Japan.

It would be interesting to research, not only saliva, but its effect on tartar build up and tooth decay in children and young adults.

So what is the point of this research? Does it do good to humanity?

Does it say something about me that my goal in life is to be the silver guy holding the flashlight for the Ig Nobel Awards?

So umm ... what good does it do to know this ?

All knowledge is beneficial, professionals working on drug delivery, neurological balance of sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system, endocrinologists and many others have an interested on the amount of saliva produced and right now have to do with very inexact calculations that may not have much to do with reality.

So what is the point of this research? Does it do good to humanity?

Yes, knowing things and putting numbers on physiological functions is extremely beneficial. Now that the knowledge is there it is open to be used for any purpose including some that we have not even imagined yet. Gene editing had a huge breakout when someone got interested in how bacteria destroyed the genome of the viruses that infected it, on the first report it was just a description about something interesting but without any practical use, right now is a business of billions and likely to bring a new era on genetic treatments.

JonathanJoSep. 13  05:19 pm JST

Kudos on them for apparently taking it seriously.

they didn't, sounds like you do

A team of five Japanese won the SPOOF Ig Nobel chemistry prize on Thursday for their study estimating the daily saliva volume produced by a five-year-old child.

l assume the word "spoof" still means what it used to mean.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ig_Nobel_Prize

ignoble (get it?)

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/ignoble