“Some people covet it, others flee from it,” writes Marc Abrahams, editor, Annals of Improbable Research. “Some see it as a hallmark of civilization, others as a scuff mark. Some laugh with it, others laugh at it. Many praise it, a few condemn it, others are just mystified. And many people are madly in love with it.”
Mr. Abrahams is referring, of course, to the Ig Nobel Prize, created in 1991 to honor “discoveries that cannot, or should not, be reproduced.” The 2016 prizes were awarded last night at the 26th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony at Harvard’s Sanders Theatre.
Japan’s Atsuki Higashiyama accepted the Perception Prize for “investigating whether things look different when you bend over and view them between your legs,” while the Reproduction Prize went to the late Egyptian Urologist Ahmed Shafik “for studying the effects of wearing polyester, cotton, or wool trousers on the sex life of rats, and for conducting similar tests with human males.” (Shafik apparently found significantly lower rates of sexual activity among the polyester-clad rats, theorizing that it may have had something to do with the material creating electrostatic charges.)
The complete list of winners is here.
