Science That Makes You Laugh…Or Wonder?
Nobel Prizes are awarded for only the most serious scientific achievements; the “Ig Nobel†Prizes, on the other hand, are awarded for the most unusual, although sometimes still legitimate, scientific achievements. The awards are the brainchild of editor and co-founder Marc Abrahams, whose magazine is called “The Annals of Improbably Research,†and whose web site is www.improb.com.
Past awards have gone to researchers who:
- Gave hamsters Viagra and discovered it prevented them from suffering jet lag
- Looked at sword swallowing and its side affects on the human body
- Created a “bottomless†bowl of soup which proved Americans eat as long as there is food in front of them, not just until they are full
- Found that wrinkles in sheets are replicated in human and animal skin
- Created a device which dropped a net over bank robbers
- Explored why woodpeckers don’t get headaches
- Looked into what would happen to clams that were fed Prozac
- Asked why spaghetti breaks into more than two pieces
- Queried why birds were not pooping on a statue
- Levitated a frog, pieces of fruit and a grasshopper