BOSTON (AP) — Study A paper exploring the possibility of using pigeons to guide missiles and a paper studying the swimming abilities of dead fish are among the winners of this year's Ig Nobel Prizes, an award recognizing comical scientific achievements.
The 34th annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony, held less than a month before the Nobel laureates were announced at MIT, was hosted by the journal Annals of Improbable Research. website to make people laugh and think. The winners received a clear box containing historical items related to Murphy's Law, the theme of the evening, and a nearly worthless Zimbabwean $10 trillion bill. The winners were presented with their prizes by real Nobel laureates.
“While some politicians have tried to make sensible things sound crazy, scientists have discovered some crazy-sounding things that make a lot of sense,” Marc Abrahams, master of ceremonies and the magazine's editor, said in an email interview.
The ceremony began with Kees Moliker, the 2003 Ig Noble Prize winner in biology, handing out safety instructions. His prize was awarded for research that documented the existence of homosexual necrophilia in mallards.
“It's a duck,” he said, holding the duck in his hands. “It's dead.”
Then someone with a yellow target on their chest and a plastic mask on their face came on stage. They were soon swarmed by people from the audience throwing paper airplanes at them.
Then came the awards ceremony, a series of dry presentations that were interrupted by a girl who came on stage and repeatedly shouted, “Please stop. I'm bored.” The awards ceremony was also interrupted by an international song contest inspired by Murphy's Law, including kale salad and the legal system.
Winners were recognized in 10 categories, including World and Anatomy. They included scientists who showed that a Chilean grapevine mimics the shapes of nearby artificial plants, and another study that looked at whether the hair on people's heads in the Northern Hemisphere curls in the same direction as hair in the Southern Hemisphere.
Other winners included a group of scientists who showed that fake drugs that cause side effects can be more effective than fake drugs that do not, and a group of scientists who showed that some mammals can breathe through their anuses. The winners wore fish-shaped hats on stage.
Julie Skinner Vargas accepted the peace prize on behalf of her late father, B.F. Skinner, who wrote the pigeon rocket study. Skinner Vargas is also the head of the B.F. Skinner Foundation.
“I want to thank you for finally recognizing his vital contribution,” she said. “Thank you for setting the record straight.”
James Liao, a biology professor at the University of Florida, won the physics prize for his research demonstrating and explaining the swimming abilities of dead trout.
“I found that live fish move more than dead fish, but not much,” Liao said, holding up a fake fish. “A dead trout pulled by a stick also flaps its tail in time with the current, just like a live fish, sliding through swirling eddies, returning its energy to the environment. Dead fish do what live fish do.”