Donât get me wrong, this is very interesting, but there is something very funny about the idea that âgive a chimpanzee stuff and see if they like itâ is academic research.
there is something very funny about the idea that âgive a chimpanzee stuff and see if they like itâ
This is the premise behind the "Ignobel prize" â awards for scientific research which at first-glance may appear to be an April Fool's prank, but genuinely advance the cause of scientific research.
"the extent to which a certain kind of lizard chooses to eat certain kinds of pizza"
"what a nursing baby experiences when the babyâs mother eats garlic"
"some real plants imitate the shapes of neighboring artificial plastic plants"
I love the ignoble prizes, receiving one is a bucket-list item for me! Iâll need to step up my game though and do more weird things, Iâm hoping I can put this off till the last 5-10 years of my career.
Sure seems stupid on first glance but most science seems pointless. Itâs only when several loosely interconnected ideas that prove something MIGHT be commercially viable do we find out that it was the first curious question that ⌠again seems stupid⌠was the seed of inivation
Some would say that science can be valuable even when it does not produce commercially viable results. Making money is not the pinnacle of human experience.
There are plenty of scientific results that make us lose money. Un-leading our paint and gasoline, climate change, even just eating fresh fruits and veg.
The main reason why the uninteresting results in science are always valuable is that negative knowledge is still knowledge. Every idea that gets kicked around and tested was something that would probably have been interesting, so knowing that it's most likely a dead end is worth knowing.
Long live the Ig Nobel Prize! I wish we had a Epic Fail prize equivalent where to honor genuinely nonsensical, failed science experiments because they're often still worth doing.
Rather than a singular "question" that seems stupid, consider prime numbers. People toyed with prime numbers for centuries, asking all sorts of questions, with little-to-no impact on the vast majority of humans. Fast forward to the age of telecommunications: suddenly massive innovations in cryptography are being built on knowledge of prime numbers that previously was a novelty.
Yeah, math has a lot of ideas that seemed like silly puzzles when first explored. The term "imaginary numbers" was originally an insult (from Descartes!) for math involving the square root of negative numbers.
A lot of early work into physics seemed like dumb questions at the time. When taken to the extreme âDo heavy objects fall faster?â tells you quite a bit about how the world works. And critically people intuited the wrong answers to many such questions before careful experimentation.
Obviously we have the benefit of hindsight, but âdo heavy objects fall fasterâ doesnât seem like a stupid question to me in the same way that âdo chimpanzees like crystalsâ does.
I think we can call them both stupid in they are malformed.
Let go of a feather and brick on the ISS gets a different result than doing so on top of Mount Everest. Similarly understanding chimpanzees behavior is a deeper question here noticing some chimps find some crystals interesting in some situations and moving on.
While that sounds like an interesting tidbit, it also doesnât appear remotely true based off of the history sections in the wiki pages for microwaves and microwave ovens.
> In 1945, the heating effect of a high-power microwave beam was independently and accidentally discovered by Percy Spencer
Sure, meanwhile using microwaves to heat stuff up dates back to the 1920âs. WWII soldiers would regularly stand in front microwave equipment to warm up. The resonant-cavity magnetron was a British invention that finally made microwaves far more efficient to produce.
The story about noticing a candy bar melting in his pocket is also kind of funny as thatâs what normally happens to candy bars in your pockets, further it means he didnât notice he himself warming up.
Imagine if monkeys could communicate using crystals.
That would be interesting - human - animal language!
Research could lead into shit like cows TELLING us when feeling sick or know something etc. Food production, pets, police animals - a lot of potential uses.
The same as literally chemistry and rocks gave us transistors.
Almost no study is crazy.
Playing with glass gave us telescopes and microscopes.
how are you still able to access archive.ph? do we need to put something in the hosts? All I've gotten there for the last month and a half is an nginx landing page.
NYTimes competing with NYTimesPitchBot for funnier headlines, I see. What a bizarre and awesome piece of science. I like crystals for the miracle of uncountable numbers of atoms transferring symmetry from the smallest scale to the visible scale.
It's mentioned in the article that the chimpanzees only relinquished the crystals in exchange for many bananas, so it seems they're more into crystals...
You have a question, a hypothesis and designed an experiment to test it.
The study had a harder question: "What properties of crystalline stones attracted them?". The abstract has this answer: "We found that transparency and geometric shape were the two attractors guiding chimpanzees."
Maybe this is scientific proof for the diamond industry.
Well.. Some rocks are definitely shiney. It would be interesting to see if monkeys have any affinity for well polished rocks with pretty colors. Humans do like them, maybe not as much as crystals but they're nice nonetheless.
Donât get me wrong, this is very interesting, but there is something very funny about the idea that âgive a chimpanzee stuff and see if they like itâ is academic research.
This could absolutely be a headline on The Onion.
https://improbable.com/ig/winners/
I love the ignoble prizes, receiving one is a bucket-list item for me! Iâll need to step up my game though and do more weird things, Iâm hoping I can put this off till the last 5-10 years of my career.
Sure seems stupid on first glance but most science seems pointless. Itâs only when several loosely interconnected ideas that prove something MIGHT be commercially viable do we find out that it was the first curious question that ⌠again seems stupid⌠was the seed of inivation
Some would say that science can be valuable even when it does not produce commercially viable results. Making money is not the pinnacle of human experience.
There are plenty of scientific results that make us lose money. Un-leading our paint and gasoline, climate change, even just eating fresh fruits and veg.
The main reason why the uninteresting results in science are always valuable is that negative knowledge is still knowledge. Every idea that gets kicked around and tested was something that would probably have been interesting, so knowing that it's most likely a dead end is worth knowing.
Long live the Ig Nobel Prize! I wish we had a Epic Fail prize equivalent where to honor genuinely nonsensical, failed science experiments because they're often still worth doing.
What are some examples of questions that at first seemed stupid yet became brilliant when connected with other seemingly stupid ideas?
Rather than a singular "question" that seems stupid, consider prime numbers. People toyed with prime numbers for centuries, asking all sorts of questions, with little-to-no impact on the vast majority of humans. Fast forward to the age of telecommunications: suddenly massive innovations in cryptography are being built on knowledge of prime numbers that previously was a novelty.
Yeah, math has a lot of ideas that seemed like silly puzzles when first explored. The term "imaginary numbers" was originally an insult (from Descartes!) for math involving the square root of negative numbers.
My understanding is that much of discrete mathematics was considered to be purely academic until computers were invented.
A lot of early work into physics seemed like dumb questions at the time. When taken to the extreme âDo heavy objects fall faster?â tells you quite a bit about how the world works. And critically people intuited the wrong answers to many such questions before careful experimentation.
Obviously we have the benefit of hindsight, but âdo heavy objects fall fasterâ doesnât seem like a stupid question to me in the same way that âdo chimpanzees like crystalsâ does.
I think we can call them both stupid in they are malformed.
Let go of a feather and brick on the ISS gets a different result than doing so on top of Mount Everest. Similarly understanding chimpanzees behavior is a deeper question here noticing some chimps find some crystals interesting in some situations and moving on.
Microwaves were invented as hamster defrost machines. Seriously!
And it worked, but unfortunately humans are too big for it to work on us.
They were able to freeze hamsters entirely then reanimate them with a microwave.
While that sounds like an interesting tidbit, it also doesnât appear remotely true based off of the history sections in the wiki pages for microwaves and microwave ovens.
That article is somewhat revisionist.
> In 1945, the heating effect of a high-power microwave beam was independently and accidentally discovered by Percy Spencer
Sure, meanwhile using microwaves to heat stuff up dates back to the 1920âs. WWII soldiers would regularly stand in front microwave equipment to warm up. The resonant-cavity magnetron was a British invention that finally made microwaves far more efficient to produce.
The story about noticing a candy bar melting in his pocket is also kind of funny as thatâs what normally happens to candy bars in your pockets, further it means he didnât notice he himself warming up.
Great comment. It's bananas. Chimps like bananas too, right?
I thought it was fruit flies.
> But heâs also very interested in âthe impact of crystals on the history of art and the history of mind,â
This made my eyes roll a bit.
"Breaking: Animals Have Preferences"
Imagine if monkeys could communicate using crystals. That would be interesting - human - animal language!
Research could lead into shit like cows TELLING us when feeling sick or know something etc. Food production, pets, police animals - a lot of potential uses.
The same as literally chemistry and rocks gave us transistors.
Almost no study is crazy.
Playing with glass gave us telescopes and microscopes.
Full article share link: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/04/science/chimpanzees-cryst...
Share links need accounts anyway? Is this new?
"You have free access to this story. Continue reading with a Times account"
unsurprising, since they're also into Monoliths
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHWs3c3YNs4
wait until they hear about microservices
https://archive.ph/EHCxx
how are you still able to access archive.ph? do we need to put something in the hosts? All I've gotten there for the last month and a half is an nginx landing page.
Avoid these sites, they use visitor browsers as a DDoS attack platform.
archive.ph isnât working for me, but .is works
https://archive.is/EHCxx
You're talking ** Karl, PLAY A RECORD
âWhile the attraction is clear, the underlying motivation is not,â he said.
Nobody involved in the study or the article has ever done even a small dose of psilocybin and interacted with crystals.
Not even the chimps.
NYTimes competing with NYTimesPitchBot for funnier headlines, I see. What a bizarre and awesome piece of science. I like crystals for the miracle of uncountable numbers of atoms transferring symmetry from the smallest scale to the visible scale.
I'd gladly trade you a banana tomorrow for a crystal today.
They're also into bananas
so are people! we overthrew multiple countries for banan
"Bananoi", please. They aren't Latin.
It's mentioned in the article that the chimpanzees only relinquished the crystals in exchange for many bananas, so it seems they're more into crystals...
I've often joked about inflation and that while TVs may have become inexpensive, food has not.
Are you saying that I might be able to harvest the crystals in them and pay for bananas?
What's wrong with bananas?
They're a nightmare for atheists!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfv-Qn1M58I
I thought this was going to be the amazing atheist banana clip, was pleasantly surprised to be reminded of this instead
This is clearly a parody. right? right? please say yes.
The intelligent design controversy during the mid 2000's were a fun time. I still have some Flying Spaghetti Monster merch.
Watch the last few seconds.
A sizable percentage of the human population is deathly allergic to bananas.
I'm mildly allergic to bananas, but I don't think the number of people allergic to bananas is "sizable."
My son is not, and he will let you know how not allergic he is to Bananas if he sees any that he is not eating.
And this is relevant how?
Me too.
here is a random wierd thing about chimps that makes the whole crystal thing worth a go. I give you ,stick in ear
and worse
https://www.livescience.com/animals/land-mammals/chimps-deve...
Damn now I want to buy a large crystal for my desk.
now give them The Orb
What if you place a whole bunch of similar crystals in a pile, with only 1 or 2 smooth rocks?
Iâm willing to bet they will go after the smooth rocks and itâs about rarity, not crystals.
If you read the original paper (https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10....) then they go into more detail on the piles of pebbles and what got taken; the graphs in figure 4 (https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10....) make it very obvious that the chimps loved the crystals.
(an "euhedral" crystal is one with lots of obvious facets, an "anhedral" one is one that's been rounded down into a more pebble shape.)
You have a question, a hypothesis and designed an experiment to test it.
The study had a harder question: "What properties of crystalline stones attracted them?". The abstract has this answer: "We found that transparency and geometric shape were the two attractors guiding chimpanzees."
Maybe this is scientific proof for the diamond industry.
> Iâm willing to bet they will go after the smooth rocks and itâs about rarity, not crystals.
Why? Crystals are pretty, rocks are not. We clearly prefer shiny colorful things to dull beige things, even if shiny things are abundant.
Well.. Some rocks are definitely shiney. It would be interesting to see if monkeys have any affinity for well polished rocks with pretty colors. Humans do like them, maybe not as much as crystals but they're nice nonetheless.