igNobels 2009

The prizes were awarded this evening at Harvard's annual IgNobel Prize ceremony. This year's theme was "Risk". Among the winners are: Veterinary Medicine: Catherine Bertenshaw and Peter Rowlinson, Newcastle, for showing that cows who have names give more milk than nameless cows. (Not sure what that has to do with risk...) Peace: Stefan Bolliger (sp?), et al., Univ. of Bern, Switzerland, for determining whether it is better to be smashed over the head with a full or empty bottle of beer. (The empty ones work better!) Public Health: Ilena Badnar of the University of Chicago for inventing a brassiere that can be converted to a pair of gas masks. Paul Krugman with a pink bra cup on his face...woah. Biology: Fumiyake Yamaguchi et al. for demonstrsating that the feces of giant pandas can be used to reduce kitchen waste by 90%. It's great that Little Miss Sweetie Poo keeps the speeches short by running up and yelling "please stop! I'm bored!" Hopefully the whole list and the video will be up on their web site soon!