The markets are great and all, but they aren't what makes us human. When we reflect on our lives, we don't think about that one great trade or that time when a portfolio did especially well. No, we think about the people and experiences that delivered the full spectrum of emotions over our lives. This is what defines our species.

Art does this particularly well, which is why any effort to elevate the arts (in their many forms) must be applauded and celebrated. The Venice Biennale stands head and shoulders above the rest, with countries sending artists to represent them and tell their story. Yes, including South Africa!

In an incredibly powerful column this week, Dominique Olivier reports back from her trip to the event. With so much going on in the world right now, it's no surprise that pavilions of countries like Ukraine tell a story that stays with you for life.

The Biennale has always been about creative expression. It’s a showcase of diverse voices and perspectives, yet there are awards at the event. This is perplexing to say the least - how can one judge the worth of one idea or artistic expression over another? How do you measure the impact or significance of one experience against a completely different one?

The criteria remain a mystery - but one thing’s for sure, we’re grateful not to be sitting on that particular judging panel! After all, there are some very entertaining awards out there that seem more fun to judge.

For example, read on to learn about the Ig Nobel Prize - the Nobel Prize's ugly stepsister. Before we even get to that, how about the Foot in Mouth Award? This is presented each year by the Plain English Campaign for "a baffling comment by a public figure" - and our personal favourite is the Foot In Mouth award that was earned by FIFA president Gianni Infantino in 2022. In response to concerns over Qatar's humans rights record ahead of the 2022 FIFA World Cup, Infantino gave the world this gem:

“Today I have very strong feelings. Today, I feel Qatari. Today, I feel Arab. Today, I feel African. Today, I feel gay. Today, I feel disabled. Today, I feel a migrant worker. I feel all this because what I have been seeing and what I have been told, since I don't read, otherwise I will be depressed.”

Strong feelings indeed, but none probably as strong as the feeling of confusion that journalists at that press conference were left with.

Have a lovely day and enjoy what we've brought you!

The Finance Ghost (follow on X) | Dominique Olivier (connect on LinkedIn)

TL;DR: Every scientist dreams of winning the Nobel Prize one day… but what about the Ig Nobel Prize?

In case you’ve never heard of the less famous cousin of the Nobel, allow us to introduce you to the Ig Nobel Prize. Established in 1991, the Ig Nobel was designed to celebrate scientific research that is unusual, trivial or even eccentric. Its purpose is simple yet clever: to highlight research that initially makes people laugh, but upon reflection, makes them think.

Even the name is a bit of a joke: an homage to the prestigious Nobel Prize combined with the word "ignoble," which means dishonourable, unworthy or despicable.

The awards are organised by the Annals of Improbable Research (AIR), a magazine that specialises in scientific humour. Each year, the Ig Nobel Prizes are presented at a ceremony held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (and broadcast live on TV!), with actual Nobel laureates serving as the presenters. Ig Nobel Prize winners receive a monetary award, which consists of a single 100 trillion Zimbabwean dollar bill. Although this is as close to worthless as you can get, luckily it holds much greater value as a collector’s item.

The Ig Nobel Prizes sometimes carry an element of satire, especially when recognising controversial or pseudoscientific work. For example, the prize has been awarded to research in homoeopathy and to education boards that opposed the teaching of evolution. However, the majority of the prizes focus on research that is genuinely amusing or unexpected in nature.

Some notable examples include a study that discovered that ostriches become sexually aroused by the presence of humans (you're thinking about that last ostrich farm visit now, aren't you?) and another that investigated the idea that black holes fulfil all the technical requirements for being the location of hell.

While these awards often highlight the oddities of scientific inquiry, they sometimes bring attention to research with real-world applications. For example, in 2006, an Ig Nobel-winning study revealed that malaria-carrying mosquitoes are equally attracted to the smell of human feet and Limburger cheese. This insight led to the development of traps baited with the cheese, which have been used to combat malaria in parts of Africa.

In rare cases, Ig Nobel winners have gone on to receive actual Nobel Prizes. Sir Andre Geim, for example, was awarded an Ig Nobel in 2000 for his work on levitating live frogs with magnets. A decade later, he earned a (real) Nobel Prize in physics for his research on graphene (a material extracted from graphite). As of 2023, he remains the only individual to have won both an Ig Nobel and a Nobel Prize.

The Ig Nobel Prize ceremony always concludes with the standard farewell: "If you didn't win a prize - and especially if you did - better luck next year!"

Who said scientists didn’t have a sense of humour?

An assortment of facts that will take you only a minute to read.

• In 1993, French scientist Corentin Louis Kervran won the Ig Nobel Prize for his proposal that the calcium in chickens’ eggshells is created through cold fusion. In case you aren’t clear on the concept of cold fusion, it’s essentially a nuclear reaction at room temperature. So that… but inside a chicken.

• In 1995, physicist Robert A.J. Matthews earned the Ig Nobel for his paper “Tumbling toast, Murphy’s Law and the fundamental constants”. The paper sought to explain why toast tends to fall with the buttered side down.

• In 1999, Len Fisher of the University of Bristol nabbed the Ig Nobel for calculating the best possible way to dunk a biscuit in tea. We bet there was some very fun research involved in testing those ideas.

• In 2004, Ramesh Balasubramaniam from the University of Ottawa and Michael Turkey from the University of Connecticut shared the Ig Nobel Prize for their study on the physics of hula-hooping. Some might say it was revolutionary.

• In 2017, Marc-Antoine Fardin earned the Ig Nobel for a paper he wrote, which sought to use fluid dynamics to determine whether a cat can be both a solid and a liquid. As a passionate cat person, our resident Ghost supports that theory.