Ig Noble Prize for research using intoxicated worms

Vibrating a slightly intoxicated earthworm on a sub-woofer speaker in a rural Victorian backyard shed – where experiments were conducted because of the COVID situation – has earned ARC Future Fellow, Dr Ivan Maksymov, and Dr Andrey Pototsky, both from the Swinburne University of Technology, the Ig Nobel award in Physics.

Dr Maksymov is a physicist and an associate investigator with the ARC Centre of Excellence for Nanoscale BioPhotonics (CNBP), while Dr Pototsky is a Senior Lecturer in Applied Mathematics. Their esoteric experiment was recognised with the award of an ‘Ig Nobel’ prize, one of just ten presented internationally in 2020 to researchers that showcase creative and different approaches to solving serious and complicated problems.

Their work was designed to investigate a hypothesis that the brain not only functions using nerve-based electric pulses, but also through acousto-mechanical signals (sound waves). Earthworms are ideal for such experiments because they are inexpensive, their axons (nerve fibres) are somewhat similar to human nerve fibres, and using worms does not require special ethics approval. Also, Dr Maksymov says: ‘One can easily anaesthetise a worm using vodka.’

‘We used a laser to illuminate the worm and a photodetector to collect the reflected light. The intensity of the reflected light was periodically changed due to the ripples on the surface of the worm, which allowed us to investigate their frequency, amplitude and other parameters that physicists usually want to know.’

As a result of the vibrating worm experiment in the backyard shed, the researchers say that exciting new developments in soft-bodied robotics and mechatronics could be explored.

‘Significantly,’ adds Dr Maksymov, ‘the earthworms recovered after our experiments and were released into a worm farm.

	The worldwide ig nobel awards (for improbable research) showcase creative and different approaches to solving serious and complicated problems. The name of the award is a pun on the nobel prize, which it parodies, and the word ‘ignoble’. They have been run by harvard university since 1991 to ‘first make people laugh, and then make them think’.