Studies on pigeon-controlled rockets and swimming abilities of dead fish among Ig Nobel Prize winners

BOSTON (AP) — A study examining the possibility of using pigeons to guide missiles and a study examining the swimming abilities of dead fish were among the winners Thursday of this year's Ig Nobel Prize, the award for comic scientific achievement.

Held less than a month ago the actual Nobel Prizes The 34th annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was organized by the journal Annals of Improbable Research. website to make people laugh and think. The winners received a transparent box containing historical items related to Murphy's Law – the theme of the evening – and a nearly worthless Zimbabwean $10 trillion note. The winners were presented with the prizes by real Nobel Prize winners.

“While some politicians have tried to make sensible things sound crazy, scientists have discovered some crazy-sounding things that make a lot of sense,” said Marc Abrahams, the magazine's master of ceremonies and editor, in an email interview.

At the beginning of the ceremony, Kees Moliker, winner of the 2003 Ig Nobel Prize in Biology, gave safety advice. He received his prize for a study that documented the existence of homosexual necrophilia in mallards.

“This is the duck,” he said, holding up a duck. “This is the dead one.”

Then someone came on stage wearing a yellow target on his chest and a plastic mask. Soon they were swarmed by people from the audience throwing paper airplanes at them.

Then the awards ceremony began – several dry speeches interrupted by a girl who came on stage and repeatedly screamed, “Please stop. I'm bored.” The awards ceremony was also interrupted by an international song contest inspired by Murphy's Law, one of which was about coleslaw and another about the legal system.

Winners were honored in ten categories, including peace and anatomy. Among them were scientists who showed that a vine from Chile mimics the shapes of nearby artificial plants, and another study examined whether the hair on the heads of people in the Northern Hemisphere swirls in the same direction as the hair of people in the Southern Hemisphere.

Other winners include a group of scientists who showed that dummy drugs with side effects can be more effective than dummy drugs with no side effects, and a scientist who showed that some mammals can breathe through their anus. The winners came on stage wearing fish-themed hats.

Julie Skinner Vargas accepted the Peace Prize on behalf of her late father, BF Skinner, who authored the study on pigeon rockets. Skinner Vargas is also the director of the BF Skinner Foundation.

“I want to thank you for finally recognizing his most important contribution,” she said. “Thank you for setting the record straight.”

James Liao, a biology professor at the University of Florida, accepted the physics award for his study demonstrating and explaining the swimming abilities of a dead trout.

“I've found that a live fish moves more than a dead one, but not much,” Liao said, holding up an artificial fish. “A dead trout dragged behind a stick also thrashes its tail in time with the current, like a live fish surfing on swirling eddies and recovering energy from its environment. A dead fish does things similar to a live fish.”