
Ig Nobel win for Alpine 'goat man' - sjcsjc
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-37443204
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tspike
If you missed the original article:

[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3612748/Why-
decided-...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3612748/Why-decided-life-
London-goat-Switzerland.html)

He makes for a nice clickbaity punchline of a headline, which is obviously
part of the intent as he wrote a book on the experience and was desperate to
escape his job. Still, for some reason I find it fascinating, especially the
bit about his initial rejection from and subsequent acceptance into the herd.

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Artoemius
This is probably the most profound work out of these (no sarcasm):

 _On the reception and detection of pseudo-profound bullshit_
[http://journal.sjdm.org/15/15923a/jdm15923a.html](http://journal.sjdm.org/15/15923a/jdm15923a.html)

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hyperpallium
> Medicine Prize - Christoph Helmchen and colleagues, for discovering that if
> you have an itch on the left side of your body, you can relieve it by
> looking into a mirror and scratching the right side of your body (and vice
> versa).

~~~
2muchcoffeeman
Does it have to be in a visible spot?

One arm is more flexible than the other and this would be useful when
scratching my back.

~~~
dogma1138
More predictable than visible, the brain needs to be able to feel the gaps.

I would think this isn't that different than the phantom touch experiments
people have been conducting over the years e.g.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DphlhmtGRqI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DphlhmtGRqI).

The nervous system is a pretty interesting "bus", since there isn't a separate
"bus" for each nerve and many of them share the same "bus" the brain actually
figures out what happens based on various other inputs including latency,
signal strength, and input from other senses like sight, sound, and smell.

Overall since every nervous system is unique your brain actually has to
"learn" how does a signal from touching your finger looks like and then it
classifies that signal as say "light prick left index finger", to compensate
for the transmission delay your brain also knows how that signal should look
like so it actually starts processing a "replay" or a "synthetic" version of
the expected signal before the "real" one arrives, or is even generated; this
is very important for your reflexes and response time.

It's pretty interesting that you start "feeling" being punched in the stomach
before your brain can actually register it or even before the punch lands
simply because the sensory input from your sight is on a shorter link (and
also potentially processed faster).

