Ig Nobel awards: A scientific event for odd research

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Ig Nobel awards: A scientific event for odd research

Ten scientific achievements, verging on the absurd, were recognized in Boston.

Each year, the Ig Nobel Awards are carried-out as a parody of the Nobel Prize ceremonies.

The Harvard-sponsored event is meant to make you laugh but also make you think.

CCTV America’s Karina Huber reports.

It was a night to celebrate eccentricity. 1100 spectators and four Nobel Prize winners gathered to throw paper airplanes, play Tic Tac Toe and applaud some of the wackiest scientific achievements of the year.

They included an investigative piece on whether things look differently when viewed from between your legs and another study on the effects of different fabrics on the sex lives of rats.

A biology winner this year is actually a designer who experienced living as a goat for days in the Swiss Alps.

Marc Abrahams, who created the event, said winners tend to be hard to classify. Some are scientists, others not. What binds them is unorthodox thinking.

The Ig Nobel prizes have occurred for 26 years. In that time period, two countries have dominated in terms of winners – Japan and the U.K.

New Zealand’s Mark Avis won the economics prize for a study on the perceived personalities of rocks from a sales and marketing perspective. He says the study came with tremendous risk.

The winners all traveled to the event at their own expense but left with a hefty prize – a ten trillion dollar Zimbabwean note, which is worth about four dollars if you sell it on eBay.