2001MEDICINE
Peter Barss of
McGill University, for his impactful medical report "
Injuries Due to Falling Coconuts." PUBLISHED IN:
The Journal of Trauma, vol. 24, no. 11, 1984, pp. 990-1.
PHYSICS
David Schmidt of the
University of Massachusetts for his partial solution to the question of why shower curtains billow inwards.
BIOLOGY
Buck Weimer of Pueblo,
Colorado for inventing
Under-Ease, airtight underwear with a replaceable charcoal filter that removes bad-smelling gases before they escape.
ECONOMICS
Joel Slemrod, of the
University of Michigan Business School, and
Wojciech Kopczuk, of
University of British Columbia and who has since moved to Columbia University, for their conclusion that people find a way to postpone their deaths if that that would qualify them for a lower rate on the inheritance tax. REFERENCE:"Dying to Save Taxes: Evidence from Estate Tax Returns on the Death Elasticity," National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper No. W8158, March 2001.
LITERATURE
John Richards of Boston,
England, founder of
The Apostrophe Protection Society, for his efforts to protect, promote, and defend the differences between plural and possessive.
PSYCHOLOGY
Lawrence W. Sherman of
Miami University, Ohio, for his influential research report "
An Ecological Study of Glee in Small Groups of Preschool Children."
PUBLISHED IN: Child Development, vol. 46, no. 1, March 1975, pp. 53-61.
ASTROPHYSICS
Dr. Jack and Rexella
Van Impe of
Jack Van Impe Ministries,
Rochester Hills, Michigan, for their discovery that black holes fulfill all the technical requirements to be the location of
Hell. REFERENCE: The March 31, 2001 television and Internet broadcast of the "
Jack Van Impe Presents" program. (at about the 12 minute mark).
PEACE
Viliumas Malinauskus of Grutas,
Lithuania, for creating the amusement park known as "
Stalin World."
TECHNOLOGY
Awarded jointly to
John Keogh of Hawthorn, Victoria, Australia, for patenting
the wheel in the year 2001, and to the Australian Patent Office for granting him Innovation Patent #2001100012.
PUBLIC HEALTH
Chittaranjan Andrade and
B.S. Srihari of the
National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences,
Bangalore,
India, for their probing medical discovery that nose picking is a common activity among adolescents. REFERENCE: "
A Preliminary Survey of Rhinotillexomania in an Adolescent Sample,"
Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, vol. 62, no. 6, June 2001, pp. 426-31.