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Everyone hears about the winners of the Nobel Prize, but what about those lesser-known researchers whose efforts don't rise to the same level? This gap is filled by the "Ig Nobel Prize." See this link for a list of current and past winners, plus a description of the research that brought them this prize.
Here's a summary of current (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.
Here's a summary of current (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.
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