Japan’s 12th Ig Noble Prize Winner: Mayu Yamamoto & Dung Vanilla

Last year’s Ig Noble awards were a rare disappointment for Japan, but they’ve got a winner this year:

Mayu Yamamoto, a Japanese researcher who developed a way to extract a vanilla fragrance and flavor from cow dung, has been awarded an Ig Nobel Prize for her efforts.

Yamamoto, 26, was given the Ig Nobel Prize for Chemistry at the award ceremony held at Harvard University on Thursday night.

She is the 12th Japanese person to have been awarded an Ig-Nobel Prize.

Yamamoto developed vanillin — vanilla flavoring and fragrance — from cow dung, earning her the award.

Congratulations!

12 comments - What do you think? Posted by James - October 5, 2007 at 6:43 pm

Categories: Odd / Strange Tags:

…

WTF? She should have received the worst prize. Who will eat cow’s dung? I once heard that some type of gums are made from cow’s urine, I don’t know if that’s true.
…

Man, if this vanilla hit the market then she should be sued. I don’t want to find myself eating cow’s dung without knowing it.
http://myspace.com/truthson D-san

She’s cute too.
http://www.transpacificradio.com/ Garrett

Guys, the Ig Noble Awards are for the most useless or comical achievements in science. It’s a joke. Ig Noble. Think about it. . .

Ignoble.

That said, I have some candy here. Anybody want white chocolate? How ’bout this new one? Brown vanilla.

Oh, and fellas, do you really think you don’t eat products made from cow dung?
matcityus

Hey, ppl drink water recycled from sewage everyday,
and i’m sure its some of the best water they ever had.
Its not like ur actually eating dung,
its a chemically extracted and refined substance. There is no feces in the final product.
J-ude

I’m not surprised something like this was researched, there’s a whole Japanese porn subculture where they have girls like her eating scat; and it’s not like it’s obscure, this was on the cover of a box right in front of those ad’s in those xxx video stores (that are bigger than most Blockbusters in America). I’m sure she questioned why people could even enjoy it and researched into it.
kunoichi

Hey james, how about writing some about the japanese moon satellite:
http://www.jaxa.jp/index_e.html
the overthinker

What I want to know is, what on earth possessed her to look at a pile of steaming cow dung and think “wouldn’t it be great if we could get something we could eat from that?” I cannot believe for a moment she was wondering if scat tasted good, though.
Zard002

Relax people!!!
I thought it was great what she did.

Make from cow dung but dont smell like
cow dung!!! That is a feat in itself.

Remember, this process cost less than the
normal process from vanilla beans. Make
something useful out of something noone want
and people make fun of you… Sheesh.

the overthinker

Yeah, well that’s why she got the IgNobel – if she has used, say, rice husks, it wouldn’t have been nearly as ‘significant’….

chemistry

I cannot believe people are getting so ridiculous and insulting about this. This has nothing to do with obscene fetishes. She found a way to get vanillin from cow dung, which is funny and creative, so it got this prize. Vanillin is one of the most important aroma chemicals in the history of the world and its synthesis is, no doubt, very lucrative. matcityus is right; if you eat this vanillin, you are not actually eating cow dung! Has everyone forgot that their food might be fertilized with cow dung or might have in the past? That means some chemicals from the cow dung go into the food. I guess we should stop eating fertilized vegetables unless they were fertilized with even more environmentally harmful chemicals. I can’t understand all the Japanese (language), but it sounded like she thought it would be good to figure out a way to recycle, which is an admirable goal in this world that desperately needs to become more sustainable.

W.Jim Wasseluk

I caught this vanilla synthesis from cow dung research on the KBS Korean “SPONGE” show on 1/22/08. After dedicating over 45 years to the environmental field myself, I really would support her effort. The reason for the experiment was to address the need to dispose of tremendous accumulations of factory farm animal excrement either currently land applied or buried with the peripheral concerns of surface/ground water contamination.The controlled high temperature/pressure concept has been around for quite some time. Tyson Foods(chicken products) has a similar process that takes animal visera/fecal waste from slaughter operations and consistently produces various oil byproducts that are recycled(for in- house heat/power cogeneration projects).Do you believe that all Biodiesel and some lubricants can only come from corn/ soybean processing? William Boeing (founder of Boeing Aircraft Company) once said’”Technology is presenting challenges so “NEW and UNUSUAL” that it behooves no one to dismiss any NOVEL IDEA with the statement that “It Can’t Be Done”.

Japan’s 12th Ig Noble Prize Winner: Mayu Yamamoto & Dung Vanilla

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