Can pigeons control rockets? Can dead trout swim? Ig Nobel Prizes honor the strangest research

How does it happen?6:00Can pigeons guide rockets? Can dead trout swim? Ig Nobel Prize honors weirdest research

The man who first documented homosexual necrophilia between two mallards stood at a podium in front of a group of venerated Nobel laureates on Thursday, holding a stuffed specimen of the desecrated bird in question.

“It's a duck. It's a dead duck,” said biologist Kees Moliker, pulling the dummy from a plastic bag and waving it over his head, drawing wild applause from his fellow MIT scientists.

Thus began the 34th Ig Nobel Prize ceremony.

The annual awards ceremony, organized by the journal Annals of Improbable Research, is a parody of the prestigious Nobel Prize and a play on the word “ignoble.” The awards are given for the strangest and funniest scientific research.

“The criterion for this prize is to laugh first and think later,” said Mühliker, head of the Annals of Improbable Research's European bureau and an Ig Nobel laureate. How does it happen? Hosted by Neil Koksal.

“But the first and most important thing is to laugh.”

Dead fish float

This year, awards were presented to, among others, research into the possibility of using pigeons to guide missiles, an experiment in which Scientists Explode Paper Bag Next to Cat Standing on Cow's Back, a study that examined the swimming abilities of dead troutand a group of scientists who discovered that Many mammals can breathe through their buttocks.

The study can be conducted over any period of time, not just over the past year.

“Thanks to the wonders of the Internet, everything is now digital, so information just appears,” Moliker said.

Ely Fordyce and William E. Petersen were posthumously awarded the Ig Nobel Prize in biology for their 1939 paper bag experiment, which the Ig Nobel laureates said was intended to “investigate how and when cows regurgitate milk.”

“Animal welfare wasn't a big issue at the time,” Moliker said.

WATCH | Ig Nobel Prize 2024:

The physics prize was awarded to James Liao, a biology professor at the University of Florida, for his 2004 study on whether dead fish can float.

His conclusion? Yeah, something like that.

“I found that live fish move faster than dead fish, but not by much,” Liao said as he accepted the award.

“A dead trout pulled by a stick also flaps its tail in time with the current, just like a live fish gliding through swirling eddies, restoring the energy of the environment. Dead fish do what live fish do.”

A man in a lab coat bends over holding balloons behind his back while another man points a large syringe at his butt while two other men watch.
A team of researchers performs a demonstration showing how many mammals are capable of breathing through their anuses during the 2024 Ig Nobel Prize in Physiology ceremony. (Steven Senne/Associated Press)

A team of American and Japanese scientists has won the Physiology Prize for 2021 study that found mammals can breathe through their anuses.

Co-author Takebe Takanori, a professor at Tokyo Medical and Dental University, spoke to CBC Radio Quirks and Quarks about the research of that time, and its potential applications to humans.

“First of all, thank you so much for believing in our potential [the] “The anus,” Takanori said after receiving the prize, before turning his attention to his colleagues, who demonstrated how breathing through the butt works with elaborate displays involving balloons and a large syringe.

Project “Dove”

The notorious Peace Prize went to the late B.F. Skinner, a Harvard psychologist known for his work developing the science of operant conditioning, which uses positive and negative reinforcement to change behavior.

But he won the Ig Nobel Prize for one of his lesser-known works: Project Dove, in which he tried to develop pigeon-guided bombs for the US military during World War II.

A woman with a head of cabbage on her lap holds a sign that reads: "The best is the enemy of the good"
Esther Duflo, winner of the 2019 Nobel Prize in Economics, holds a prop during a show in which real Nobel laureates hand out awards. (Brian Snyder/Reuters)

He said the research was promising, but funding dried up with the advent of guided weapons.

“I want to thank you for finally recognizing his vital contributions,” said his daughter, Julie Skinner Vargas, accepting the award on his behalf. “Thank you for setting the record straight.”

Throughout the evening, the winners had exactly one minute to accept their prizes and make speeches, after which the eight-year-old girl would start screaming, “I'm bored, please stop!”

“It's so good,” Moeliker said. “It's a very, very good mechanism that should be used, you know, in parliament or for boring teachers and things like that.”

The audience was also invited to launch paper airplanes at those present on stage.

Back to that duck…

Müliker has been involved with the Ig Nobel Prize since he won it in biology in 2003.

“I was the first to witness and document homosexual necrophilia in a mallard,” he said matter-of-factly. “It's two ducks having sex. One is dead, and both are male.”

(Both heterosexual necrophilia and homosexual intercourse between live mallards have been observed in this species, Muliker's Notes 2001.)

A university lecture hall full of smiling people throwing paper airplanes.
In keeping with Ig Nobel Prize tradition, spectators throw paper airplanes toward the stage. (Steven Senne/Associated Press)

He said he was stunned at the time, seeing something he had never heard of and something his biology teachers had certainly never warned him about.

However, he claims that only six or seven people bothered to read his work before the Ig Nobel Prize recognized it.

“I'm a big fan of good science communication, so I thought it was a good thing,” he said. “I accepted the award with joy, and it really changed my life for the better.”

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