Physiology Prize: Anna Wilkinson, from the University of Lincoln, and colleagues for their study in the journal Current Zoology titled "No Evidence of Contagious Yawning in the Red-Footed Tortoise".
Chemistry Prize: A team led from Shiga University, Japan, that determined the ideal density of airborne wasabi to awaken sleeping people in case of a fire or other emergency, and for applying this knowledge to invent the wasabi alarm. Patent pending.
Medicine Prize: Shared by two teams whose independent research jointly established that people make better decisions about some kinds of things, but worse decisions about other kinds of things‚ when they have a strong urge to urinate.
Psychology Prize: Karl Halvor Teigen of the University of Oslo, Norway, for trying to understand why, in everyday life, people sigh.
Literature Prize: John Perry of Stanford University, US, for his Theory of Structured Procrastination, which says: To be a high achiever, always work on something important, using it as a way to avoid doing something that's even more important.
Biology Prize: Darryl Gwynne and David Rentz for discovering that a certain kind of beetle mates with a certain kind of Australian beer bottle. The pair have published two papers on the topic.
Physics Prize: Philippe Perrin and colleagues for determining why discus throwers become dizzy, and why hammer throwers don't.
Peace Prize: Arturas Zuokas, the mayor of Vilnius, Lithuania, for demonstrating that the problem of illegally parked luxury cars can be solved by running them over with an armoured tank.
Public Safety Prize: John Senders of the University of Toronto, Canada, for conducting a series of safety experiments in which a person drives an automobile on a major highway while a visor repeatedly flaps down over his face, blinding him.
Mathematics Prize: Shared by a group of doom-mongers for teaching the world to be careful when making mathematical assumptions and calculations -
- Dorothy Martin of the US who predicted the world would end in 1954
- Pat Robertson of the US who predicted the world would end in 1982
- Elizabeth Clare Prophet of the US who predicted the world would end in 1990
- Lee Jang Rim of Korea who predicted the world would end in 1992
- Credonia Mwerinde of Uganda who predicted the world would end in 1999
- Harold Camping of the US who predicted the world would end in 1994 and then later in 2011
On this particular day, a man wearing a white button down shirt and khaki pants that were hiked in the traditional old-man fashion to his mid torso sat down next to me, spread his arms wide alongside the back of the bench, and said, "So, who are you?"
Watching his lips move, followed by a very intent stare, I took my earbuds out of my ears and asked cautiously if he was talking to me.
"Yes, who are you?"
A fair question, a question we all ask ourselves on a good day, I responded, "Ah, well, I'm Gabriella. Who are you?"
"Fernando."
Nodding, he smiled slightly, took the toothpick out of his mouth and said, "So, you seem fit. You take care of yourself?"
"I do my best."
"My wife doesn't", he responded while brushing the sand off his finely polished leather shoes.
"Do you know she eats an entire baguette a day. An entire baguette! Don't you think that's a lot?"
"Well", I responded, "It depends on the person, now doesn't it? It depends on your metabolism, if you're active, what the rest of your diet is like. I suppose there is no one simple answer. Everyone is different."
Scratching the side of his head, he took a deep breathe and continued, "What if she's fat? What if she doesn't do any activity and just sits infront of the TV everyday? Should she eat that whole baguette?"
"Maybe not."
A few minutes passed in silence. He stared at the children in the sandbox, while I listened to the rhythmic bounce of the pingpong ball going back and forth on the table, click, click, click...
Finally, as if inspiration hit him like a bolt of lightening, he inquired, "If you were me, what would you say to her?"
Looking back, I'm surprised I didn't take more time to answer. Like I'm wont to do, I spoke from the heart hoping that my words wouldn't offend him either personally or culturally. "Honestly, I would ask her if she's comfortable in her body." Gaging if he was following me ,or whether he just tuned me out, I continued, "If the answer is no, then maybe you can work on a plan to help her lose some weight and rediscover herself. If the answer is yes, then it's not about her, it's about you." Rubbing his hands together, he placed them on his lap and looked back up at me. "Can you accept her for who she is?" I inquired. "If you can't, then you must find a path to happiness for you. No one can do that but you."
Shifting his right leg over his left, and crossing his arms, he remained quiet while staring at the shifting branches overhead. Seconds spanned into minutes and I suddenly became restless. I didn't really want to stay and debate the nuances of his relationship, but at the same time, since I offered my advice, I would have felt cold and callous to leave him hanging.
Twirling my earbuds back and forth over my hand, allowing them to occasionally hit my thigh and switch direction, he finally responded with 6 words, "Ok, I'm going to tell her", and left. No "goodbye", no "good conversation", nada, he stood up, rearranged his pants, and walked across the grass to a set of nondescript apartment buildings.
I've always wondered how that conversation really went when he opened his front door. Was she a badass and hit him over the head with a baguette when he confronted her, brightly colored curlers going every which direction, or did she allow herself to be vulnerable and have a sweet loving conversation about her deep affection for the baguette?
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