Ig Nobel Prize

These are funny every year.
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Abrahams created the Ig Nobels in 1991 when, as the editor of a science magazine, he found himself inundated with requests for advice on how to garner a real Nobel prize from scientists whose work had taken them far from the scientific mainstream.

"Some of them had done things that were really staggering," Abrahams said. "It made you laugh and then it made you think, and from the beginning that's what this has been about."

Two physics and two chemistry Nobel laureates will be among the presenters of 10 Ig Nobels awarded in such fields as medicine, physics, chemistry and biology, with the identities of the winners a closely-guarded secret in the best traditions of the Nobel Academy in Stockholm.

Abrahams would only divulge that the 2005 laureates came from "slightly more" than four continents. "I can't explain that right now," he added.

There is also an Ig Nobel Peace Prize, won last year by Daisuke Inoue, the Japanese inventor of karaoke who was cited for "providing an entirely new way for people to learn to tolerate each other."

The Ig Nobel board of governors -- "a shadowy group," according to Abrahams -- trawls through 5,000 nominations every year.

The winners are discretely contacted beforehand to give them an opportunity to decline. It is a testament to the growing prestige of the event that very few turn down the offer and agree to attend at their own expense.

Acceptance speeches have a one-minute time limit, strictly enforced by a pre-teenage mistress of ceremonies who, when she feels the recipient has said enough, approaches the lectern and repeatedly shouts "Please stop, I'm bored" until they comply.

"Simple, but believe me it works," said Abrahams. "Nobody has ever been able to withstand that."

During the entire proceedings the audience traditionally peppers the stage with paper aeroplanes.

For the past four years, the task of sweeping the planes off the stage was happily undertaken by Roy Glauber, a professor of physics at Harvard. On Tuesday, Glauber was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on quantum optics.

"It gives people in the science world a chance to cut loose, relax and enjoy themselves," said Abrahams. "For everyone else, it's a chance for one evening to be part of that world and get exposed to some subjects and ideas you might never run across."

Previous winners include doctors James Nolan, Thomas Stillwell and John Sands who shared the 1993 Ig for Medicine for their painstakingly researched study: "Acute Management of the Zipper Entrapped Penis."

And Dr. Mara Sidoli of Washington D.C. was honoured with a Literature Ig in 1998 for her pioneering essay published in the Journal of Analytical Psychology: "Farting as a Defence Against Unspeakable Dread."

It takes all kinds.

The Winner Is
Fake dog testicle creator Greg Miller

What started 10 years ago with an experiment on an unwitting Rottweiler named Max has turned into a thriving mail-order business. And on Thursday night Miller's efforts earned him a dubious yet strangely coveted honor: the Ig Nobel Prize for medicine.

"Considering my parents thought I was an idiot when I was a kid, this is a great honor," he said. "I wish they were alive to see it."

The Ig Nobels, given at Harvard University by Annals of Improbable Research magazine, celebrate the humorous, creative and odd side of science.

Miller has sold more than 150,000 of his Neuticles, more than doubling his $500,000 investment. The silicone implants come in different sizes, shapes, weights and degrees of firmness.

The product's Web site says Neuticles allow a pet "to retain his natural look" and "self esteem."

Although the Ig Nobels are not exactly prestigious, many recipients are, like Miller, happy to win.

"Most scientists - no matter what they're doing, good or bad - never get any attention at all," said Marc Abrahams, editor of the Annals of Improbable Research.

Some, like Benjamin Smith of the University of Adelaide in Australia, who won the biology prize, actually nominated their own work. "I've been a fan of the Ig Nobels for a while," he said.

Smith's team studied and catalogued different scents emitted by more than 100 species of frogs under stress. Some smelled like cashews, while others smelled like licorice, mint or rotting fish.

He recalled getting strange looks when he'd show up at zoos asking to smell the frogs. "I've been turned away at the gate," he said.

This year's other Ig Nobel winners include:

_ PHYSICS: Since 1927, researchers at the University of Queensland in Australia have been tracking a glob of congealed black tar as it drips through a funnel - at a rate of one drop every nine years.

_ PEACE: Two researchers at Newcastle University in England monitored the brain activity of locusts as they watched clips from the movie "Star Wars."

_ CHEMISTRY: An experiment at the University of Minnesota was designed to prove whether people can swim faster or slower in syrup than in water.

The Ig Nobel for literature went to the Nigerians who introduced millions of e-mail users to a "cast of rich characters ... each of whom requires just a small amount of expense money so as to obtain access to the great wealth to which they are entitled."

Life goes on.