Richard Collins: Moose crash test dummy could save lives
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This year’s Ig-Nobel prize winners have been announced. The award for the best contribution on an animal subject goes to Swedish engineer Magnus Gens for his invention of a ‘ moose crash test dummy’.
In 1991 Mark Abrahams, editor of the Annals of Improbable Research (AIR), created the Ig-Nobel awards, to be given for research that ‘should not, or could not, be reproduced’. A real Nobel laureate presents old Zimbabwean ten trillion dollar notes to winners at an annual ceremony in Harvard University.
Proceedings close with the words: ‘If you didn’t win a prize, and especially if you did, better luck next year’.
Projects have included ground-breaking ones; ‘Why ducks swim in formation’, ‘Upside-down rhinos’ and a cryonic research publication entitled ‘Safe sex at four degrees Kelvin’, give a flavour of the offerings.
Sir Andre Geim, the only winner of both the Nobel and Ig-Nobel prizes, used magnetism to levitate a frog. A probing piece of research on ancient pottery revealed that the Mayans used self-administered enemas to get high.
But not all ig-Nobel projects are spoofs, some have serious intent. Hanging rhinos up by their legs, for instance, is not entirely daft. Rhinos are transported suspended upside-down from helicopters. Studying how this might affect their well-being is important.
Controlling cockroaches on submarines to prevent food poisoning was another worthy venture. Likewise, Gens sought to reduce the carnage on Nordic roads.
Hedgehogs, badgers and foxes are common accident victims in Ireland. Collisions with these relatively small animals seldom result in damage to cars or injury to people. Accidents involving red or fallow deer, though rare, are a real threat to life and limb.
In Scandinavia, however, the problem is much more serious. Large wild animals, such as boar and deer, wander onto roads. According to the Swedish National Wildlife Council, there are more than 62,000 accidents involving wild animals on Swedish roads each year and the number is increasing. On average, five people are killed annually.
[The segment featuring Magnus Gens and his moose crash test dummy is from 1 hour 17 minutes]
The biggest threat involves moose. This abundant Swedish giant is a great wanderer. Drink-driving can compound the problem; eating fermented fruit can render an animal footless. In 2011, an inebriated moose climbed a tree where it got stuck. Footage of its successful rescue and release ‘went viral’.
A mature bull moose is more than two metres high at the shoulder and weighs three-quarters of a tonne. The huge bulk is supported on long thin legs. Colliding with an animal with such a high centre of gravity is particularly lethal. The car’s bonnet will slide under the huge torso which crashes through the windscreen and could remove the entire top of a speeding car.
Gens created his ‘moose crash test dummy’ to facilitate research on the impacts of large animals on cars during collisions. Suspended at moose height on long artificial legs, the ‘torso’ consisted of 36 disks made from a type of rubber used in truck loading areas.
It had a density similar to that of a moose but was headless and tailless. Car manufacturers tested the resilience of vehicles by crashing them into it under laboratory conditions.
But spare a thought for the poor moose. Surely, we should protect them, not just cars.