If you think that being hit in the face with a super-spicy wasabi mist is necessarily a bad thing, think again. A team of researchers from Japan’s Shiga University of Medical Science has invented a smoke alarm designed to wake up the hard of hearing in case of fire by pumping the mist into the air.
In testing, the device woke 13 out of 14 subjects within two minutes. And now it’s been recognized for the stroke of unusual genius that is, with the 2011 Ig Nobel Prize in Chemistry. The Ig Nobels are awarded annually to achievements “that first make people laugh, and then make them think,” in the same categories as their more serious namesake, the Nobel Prizes.
So who won the Ig Nobel Peace Prize? The mayor of Vilnius, Lithuania, who used a tank to crush cars illegally parked in his city’s bike lanes.
This video from the BBC explains how the wasabi alarm works:
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Photo: Steve Snodgrass under a Creative Commons license.
Tags: Japanese Food, Latest Cool Gadgets, Nobel Prize, Science and Technology, Spices
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