The 2013 Ig Nobel prizes were officially awarded yesterday. If you don't know about this illustrious (and hilarious) event, you owe it to yourself to become familiar with it. There is far too much seriousness going on and this is an annual reminder that no one, absolutely no one, should take themselves too seriously.
It is also a chance to realize all of the serious science (which sometimes sounds silly) going on around the world into a wide variety of topics. After reviewing these each year I am laughing...but also wondering, why would anybody NOT be interested in science?
I will tease you with just a few of the awards this year with a properly respectful comment or two...have fun reading about the others yourself or from past years at the second link above:
PSYCHOLOGY PRIZE: Laurent Bègue, Brad Bushman, Oulmann Zerhouni , Baptiste Subra, and Medhi Ourabah for confirming, by experiment, that people who think they are drunk also think they are attractive. (Boy...it really took a party to prove that, didn't it?)
PEACE PRIZE: Alexander Lukashenko, president of Belarus, for making it illegal to applaud in public, AND to the Belarus State Police, for arresting a one-armed man for applauding. (I am simply speechless...and I would hate to inspire any applause!! )
---and a rare double prize:
JOINT PRIZE IN BIOLOGY AND ASTRONOMY: Marie Dacke, Emily Baird, Marcus Byrne, Clarke Scholtz, and Eric Warrant, for discovering that when dung beetles get lost, they can navigate their way home by looking at the Milky Way. (I guess these are 'country' dung beetles who can actually see the Milky Way, right?)
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