
IgNobel Prize in Neuroscience: The dead salmon study (2012) - dhuramas
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/scicurious-brain/ignobel-prize-in-neuroscience-the-dead-salmon-study/
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prefrontal
I am the first author of the salmon poster/paper. If you all have any
questions I am happy to answer!

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kijin
What happened to the salmon after the experiment? Did the fMRI scan seem to
have had any effect on the taste?

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prefrontal
I cooked it for dinner. We kept it cold in the snow outside the building all
day while we worked. Tasted like regular salmon when we ate it.

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cirrus-clouds
This is still one of my favourite IgNobel winners for Physics from 1999: _The
optimal way to dunk a biscuit in a cup of tea_ *

[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/462987.stm](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/462987.stm)

* _biscuit = cookie in the UK_

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dhuramas
TLDR; researchers at UC Santa Barbara, intending to show how statistics can be
used misleadingly, received statistically significant results when scanning a
salmon with fMRI to show that it's brain responded differently to photos of
different social situations. The salmon was dead.

(sauce:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/9t3bc4](https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/9t3bc4))

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9214
This belongs to "pure gold dust" category of my neurofeedback-related
readings. Makes a good point about the prevalence of data dredging in
scientific (and esp. medical) communities.

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abugheratwork
I'm glad to read that they ate the salmon.

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AndrewOMartin
As we're talking about serious (though not entirely un-ludicrous) experiments
concerning dead fish, I'm not going to miss an opportunity to post this video
of a dead fish placed in "fast flowing water" (it's actually a tank with a jet
and an outlet, but the effect is much the same).

Which way do you think the dead fish will move, upstream or downstream? Place
your bets now.

[https://vimeo.com/44887922](https://vimeo.com/44887922)

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jlv2
Very interesting article, even if from 2012.

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michaericalribo
Do you mean that it was even more interesting at the time, in 2012?

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pandapower2
The dead salmon has aged like fine wine.

