The Italian Almanac

October 7, 1950: Tibet invaded by China

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A study of how food that sounds better tastes better has won Italy its third spoof Nobel prize. Massimiliano Zampini, 38, an experimental pyschologist from northern Italy, got the funnier version of the Nobel for the joint study The Role of Auditory Cues in Modulating the Perceived Crispness and Staleness of Potato Chips. Working with Professor Charles Spence at Oxford, he found that potato chips - crisps to the British - that sound crunchier taste better.

Zampini said he was honoured to get the Ig Nobel award, stressing that the prize may be humorous but the work was dead serious. ''People actually thought that we were giving them different chips when all we were doing was modulating the crunch,'' he said. Zampini added he and Spence were sorry they couldn't attend the ceremony at Harvard University and ''wouldn't dream'' of refusing the honour. ''This prize represents a moment of fun, which is always welcome. Good science and humour make you laugh but think too''.

The potato chip research earned Italy its third Ig Nobel. In 2000 a Pisa University team found that love was like obsessive-compulsive disorder and in 2003 a Rome group won for a work entitled Politicians' Uniquely Simple Personalities. The Vatican also picked up a prize, for economics in 2005, for a study of ''outsourcing prayer in India''.

Zampini and Spence's weird science was in good company at the 18th annual ceremony at the prestigious US university, where real Nobel laureates hand out the improbable prizes. The chemistry award went to Coca-Cola's alleged potential to kill sperm; the biology award for research proving that fleas on dogs jump higher than fleas on cats; and the prize for medicine to an economist who found that expensive fake pills work better than cheap ones. Other winners included researchers who discovered exotic dancers make more money when they are at peak fertility; and a pair of Brazilian archaeologists who showed armadillos can change the course of history by jumbling artifacts at archaeological dig sites.

The Ig Nobels, an irreverent event that showcases the humorous side of science, takes place a few days before the real Nobel Prize announcements start. The annual award is given by the Annals of Improbable Research magazine to wacky but often surprisingly useful achievements. Organisers ham things up to the extreme. When speeches go on for more than a minute, an 8-year-old named Miss Sweetie Poo is there to declare ''Please stop. I'm bored,'' and usher the gushing prize-winners off the stage. But the prizes are awarded to scientists for actual work, not stunts.

The number of Italians living abroad grew by more than 200,000 last year, according to a report. The 'Italians in the World Report 2007', by the Catholic immigration association, Migrantes, notes that there are now 3.7 million Italians scattered around the world, in addition to around 60 million people of Italian origin. The emigrant population is increasingly younger, with around half of Italians resident abroad under 35, the report found.

Around 600,000 of the Italian population resident abroad is under the age of 18, with 24,000 babies born each year to Italian parents and registered for Italian citizenship. The report showed that while two thirds of Italians abroad emigrated, around a third comprise Italians who were born in their parents' adopted country. The over-60s make up a fifth of the total number of Italian emigrants.

In keeping with a decades-old pattern, the majority of emigrants are from Italy's poorer, southern regions, where jobs are harder to come by. Migrantes noted that Italian emigrants usually manage to improve their quality of life abroad, owning houses and finding secure employment. And while many retain links with their home country, owning second houses or spending holidays here, only a minority of emigrants fail to learn the language of their adopted country, want to live in Italy or send savings back to family here. Nevertheless, the report found that the majority of emigrants don't stray too far from home. Some 57% of Italians live in other European countries, although 38% have settled in the Americas, 3% in Oceania, 1% in Africa and 1% in Asia.

The report surveyed Italians with university degrees living abroad and confirmed bad news for the Italian brain drain: over half of graduate emigrants said they would not consider returning to Italy. Most Italians with degrees live in the United Kingdom, France, Spain and the United States. Over half Italian emigrants are unmarried and around 45% are women.

Italy's Alenia Aeronautica, the aircraft manufacturing unit of Italian aerospace and defence group Finmeccanica SpA, has won a 287 million dollar contract to supply the US Air Force with 18 refurbished G222 tactical transport aircraft. The planes, used by the Italian Air Force until 2005, will be supplied to the Afghanistan Air Corps starting next year. Deliveries of the planes will continue through 2011.

''Today's announcement is another signal of our group's growing strength in the US market. It is a great honour for Finmeccanica to be entrusted with this responsibility and we are proud that the US Air Force has chosen the G222,'' said Chairman and CEO of Finmeccanica Francesco Guarguaglini.

The G222s - flown by the US Air Force during the 1990s as the C-27A - can deliver ten tons of cargo, transport vehicles, and allow the medical evacuation of 36 patients. The aircraft can land in rugged and short landing strips, a Finmeccanica statement said.