Myth Happens

Tonight in Dramatic Readings from the Ig Nobel Prizes, I performed selections from Tsuyoshi Shumura, Shosei Ohashi, and Takashi Yoshimura's "The highest-ranking rooster has priority to announce the break of dawn" (Scientific Reports, 2015).

In summary, in this study, we demonstrated that the highest-ranking rooster has priority to anounce the break of dawn, based on his own circadian clock, and that subordinate roosters compromise their clocks for social reasons and wait for the top-ranking roosters' first crow every morning.

Other papers pertained to dance addiction, the tangle frequency of curly vs. straight hair, mirror-scratching itches, the body language of dishonesty, and necrophilia in frogs. a_reasonable_man itemized—very deadpan—the various kinds of garbage that dogs can be scientifically shown to prefer. I heard a man accompany himself on the theme song to Red Dwarf on a ukulele.

I am feverish and my throat hurts and tomorrow is going to be exhausting; today already was. But this is not a bad start to a con.