Former 'Clean Diesel' Maker Wins Notorious Harvard Prize

It has been a year since we learned that Volkswagen’s tranquil and oh-so-green “clean diesel” utopia was actually a carefully constructed facade hiding a scorched wasteland of pollution and lies. Apparently, that doesn’t mean the jokes need to stop.

The scientific humor magazine Annals of Improbable Research has awarded the financially hurting automaker with a notorious prize that most recipients usually build a fun evening around. It’s extremely, no, absolutely likely that Volkswagen didn’t appreciate the humor.

On September 22, AIR held their Ig Nobel Prize ceremony at Harvard University, celebrating unusual, offbeat and often pointless scientific achievements. Actual Nobel Prize winners usually hand out the awards. This year’s recipients included the late Ahmed Shafik, who won the Reproduction Prize for studying “the effects of wearing polyester, cotton, or wool trousers on the sex life of rats, and for conducting similar tests with human males.”

Last year’s Chemistry Prize went to a group of Australians who developed a chemical process to partially unboil an egg. However, this year’s top spot in chemistry went to a group of Germans (known to most as “Volkswagen”).

The automaker was awarded for “solving the problem of excessive automobile pollution emissions by automatically, electromechanically producing fewer emissions whenever the cars are being tested.” According to the university, nobody showed up to collect the prize. Had the automaker sent a delegation, their grim faces would likely have sucked the life out of the room.

It’s possible that the increase in environmental scrutiny and new testing methods developed in the wake of the diesel emissions scandal warranted Volkswagen a Peace Prize, but that award went to a group of Canadians for their study, “On the Reception and Detection of Pseudo-Profound Bullshit.”

h/t to Rudy Lukez

[Source: Popular Mechanics]

(Correction: the Ig Nobel Prize is administered by the publication Annals of Improbable Research, with the ceremony occurring at Harvard University. The university does not organize the event. The story has been changed to reflect this.)