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by ibgames

EARTHDATE: September 25, 2016

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REAL LIFE NEWS: THE IG NOBEL PRIZES HONOUR WACKY SCIENCE

by Hazed

A man who put trousers on rats, a man who pretended to be a goat, and a man who wrote about collecting flies were among the recipients of an award at this year’s Ig Nobel prize ceremony, which celebrates “achievements that first make people laugh, then make them think”.

The ceremony was held on Thursday night at Harvard, where scientists honour the strangest research of the year. Prizes are handed out by real Nobel laureates, and this year the winners were given a $10tn Zimbabwean bill (worth about 40 cents in US currency).

A urologist from Egypt, Ahmed Shafik, won his prize for his study on the effect of trousers in various fabrics on the sex lives of rats.

The economics prize went to a team from New Zealand and the UK who studies the personalities of rocks.

The man who pretended to be a goat was Thomas Thwaites, who created prosthetic limbs that let him move like a goat, allowing him to live with a herd in the Swiss Alps. He shared his biology award with Charles Foster, who spent time living as a badger, an otter, a fox and a stoat.

The psychology award went to a team that investigated lying. They asked 1,000 liars how often they lied, and rated how good they were at lying.

The peace prize went to philosophers whose paper “On the Reception and Detection of Pseudo-Profound Bullshit” studied how people react to gibberish that looks meaningful.

Most people who win an Ig Nobel prize are delighted to have their scientific endeavours recognised, but the winner of the chemistry prize probably wasn’t – Volkswagen won for their chicanery in fixing the emissions tests for their cars.

You can read all the details of the award winners at the source links below.

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/sep/22/ig-nobel-prizes-trousers-for-rats-and
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-37443204
http://www.improbable.com/ig/winners/

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