Ig Nobel Prizes!

I learnt about the Journal of Irreproducible Results in 1995 from my friend Som. And thus I also became aware of the Annals of Improbable Research, and came to look forward to the annual Ig Nobel Prizes.

Recently, thanks to Scan Man’s blog, I discovered that there’s now an Improbable Research blog!

There’s nothing like serious humour, to help retain one’s sanity in an insane world!

This year’s IgNoble awards were announced last evening.

Here are the 2006 Winners :

Ornithology

For exploring and explaining why woodpeckers don't get headaches.

Nutrition

For showing that dung beetles are finicky eaters.

Peace

For inventing an electromechanical teenager repellant -- a device that makes annoying noise designed to be audible to teenagers but not to adults; and for later using that same technology to make telephone ringtones that are audible to teenagers but not to their teachers.

Acoustics

For conducting experiments to learn why people dislike the sound of fingernails scraping on a blackboard.

Mathematics

For calculating the number of photographs you must take to (almost) ensure that nobody in a group photo will have their eyes closed.

Literature

For the report "Consequences of Erudite Vernacular Utilized Irrespective of Necessity: Problems with Using Long Words Needlessly."

Medicine

For the medical case report "Termination of Intractable Hiccups with Digital Rectal Massage".

Physics

For insights into why, when you bend dry spaghetti, it often breaks into more than two pieces.

Chemistry

For the study "Ultrasonic Velocity in Cheddar Cheese as Affected by Temperature."

Biology

For showing that the female malaria mosquito Anopheles gambiae is attracted equally to the smell of limburger cheese and to the smell of human feet.

Way to go!