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Penguin poo wins Ig Nobel prize
Cutting edge studies on artificial dogs' testicles, locusts which watch Star
Wars and penguin defaecation have been honoured with Ig Nobel awards.
The spoof prizes reward scientific achievements which "cannot, or should
not, be reproduced".

Four genuine Nobel prize winners presented the much-coveted awards in a
ceremony at Harvard University, US.

A study called Pressures Produced When Penguins Pooh - Calculations on Avian
Defaecation was honoured with an award.

Authors Victor Benno Meyer-Rochow, of the International University Bremen,
and Jozsef Gal, of Lorand Eotvos University in Hungary, were unable to
obtain visas to pick up their Fluid Dynamics prize.

"Let's hope it had nothing to do with the explosive nature of our work," Mr
Meyer-Rochow said.


The Ig Nobel awards were founded in 1991 by science magazine editor Marc
Abrahams to shed light on some of the bizarre projects being embarked upon
by researchers across the globe.
"Some of the projects were staggering," said Mr Abrahams. "It made you laugh
and then it made you think, and from the beginning that's what this has been
about."

Ig Nobel winners

Medicine - Gregg Miller from the US for his invention of Neuticles - rubber
replacement testicles for neutered dogs that are available in varying sizes
and degrees of firmness. "Considering my parents thought I was an idiot when
I was a kid, this is a great honour," said Mr Miller.

Peace - A UK team for their pioneering research into the activity of
locusts' brain cells while the insects watched clips from the Star Wars
films.

Physics - John Maidstone from Australia for his part in an experiment that
began in 1927 in which a glob of black tar drips through a funnel every nine
years. Mr Maidstone shared the prize with a late colleague who died sometime
after the second drop.

Biology - The University of Adelaide for "painstakingly smelling and
cataloguing the peculiar odours produced by 131 different species of frogs
when the frogs were feeling stressed".

Chemistry - A University of Minnesota team who set out to prove whether
people can swim faster in water or sugar syrup.

Economics - A Massachusetts inventor who designed an alarm clock that runs
away and hides when it goes off.

Nutrition - A Japanese researcher who photographed and analysed every meal
he had consumed during a period of 34 years.

Literature - The many Nigerians who introduced millions of e-mail users to a
"cast of rich characters... each of whom requires just a small amount of
expense money so as to obtain access to the great wealth to which they are
entitled".

Agricultural History - A study entitled The Significance of Mr Richard
Buckley's Exploding Trousers: Reflections on an Aspect of Technological
Change in New Zealand Dairy-Farming between the World Wars.

Fluid Dynamics - Pressures Produced When Penguins Pooh - Calculations on
Avian Defaecation.