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“pigeon project”, worm race, secrets of longevity… The most eccentric research rewarded

This competition, called the Ig-Nobel – a pun on “despicable” in English – rewards “achievements that first make people laugh, then make them think”.

Ten winners

Here are the ten winners of the 34th edition, which took place Thursday night in the United States, a month before the actual Nobels.

Breathing through the anus. The prize for physiology went to a Japanese-American team that discovered that many mammals can breathe through their anus. We already knew that loaches, a species of fish, are capable of “gut breathing”. The researchers demonstrated that this was also the case in mice, pigs and rats, suggesting that the intestine could be used as an “accessory respiratory organ”.

Missile guide pigeons. The “Ig-Nobel” of peace was awarded to the now-deceased American psychologist BF Skinner for placing trained pigeons in the noses of missiles to guide them during World War II. The “pigeon project” was abandoned in 1944, despite an apparently successful test on a target in New Jersey (eastern United States).

Plants dream of plastic. The botany award recognized research showing that some plants mimic the shape of nearby plastic plants. The researchers hypothesize that Boquila, a South American vine, “has a kind of eye that can see.” “How do they do it? We have no idea! », launched Felipe Yamashita, from the University of Bonn (Germany) to laughter from the audience.

Head or sideburns. The researchers won the probability award for tossing coins 350,757 times. Inspired by a magician, they showed that the side that is face up before the toss wins about 50.8% of the time. After 81 days of flipping parts, the team had to use massage guns to soothe their shoulders.

The secret of longevity. The demography prize went to a study showing that many people renowned for their longevity live in places with “poor quality” birth and death records. The real secret to longevity is “to move to a place where birth certificates are rare, teach your kids about pension fraud and start lying,” said its Australian laureate, Saul Justin Newman.

Worm race. The chemistry prize went to a team that used a complex technique called chromatography to separate drunk and sober worms. The researchers demonstrated at the Ig-Nobel stage by reconstructing a race between a sober, red-painted worm and a drunk, blue worm. The sober worm won.

Swirls of hair. The Franco-Chilean team that won the anatomy prize was interested in the vortices formed by the hair growing at the top of the skull. In most people, they grow clockwise, she found. In the Southern Hemisphere, however, vortices in the opposite direction are more common.

Painful placebo. The prize for medicine rewarded a European team that demonstrated that placebos – treatments without active ingredients used in medical studies to compare the effectiveness of a real treatment – were more effective if they produced painful side effects.

The dead fish swims. The physics prize was awarded to James Liao for “demonstrating and explaining the swimming capabilities of a dead trout”. “We found that a live fish moves more than a dead fish,” he said.

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