The Ig Nobels

[Sue Mackay]

For those of you whose families (well OK, whose teenage children) think that chasing dead people is a complete waste of time, here is some ammunition to prove that others carry out even more obscure research.

http://www.ignobel.com/ig/

This year's awards are about to be announced, but click on past winners to see how others spend their time :D

[Sue Mackay]

And of course the Darwin Awards are coming up again

http://www.darwinawards.com/darwin/

[Davran]

"the female malaria mosquito Anopheles gambiae is attracted equally to the smell of limburger cheese (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limburger_cheese) and to the smell of human feet."

So that's why I always get bitten on my ankles! |shocked|

[Clive Blackaby]

That was fun .... now what was I supposed to be doing this evening :D

[Sue Mackay]

That was fun .... now what was I supposed to be doing this evening :D

Sorry Clive. I went on there this morning to see who had won but the site was down, presumably being updated. Here is an article which lets you know who won this year.

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gNoNpYiJWIQ9LXI4zhu1ympl_ITQ

I particularly like the award for Linguistics:
Juan Manuel Toro, Josep B. Trobalon and Nuria Sebastian-Galles, for determining that rats sometimes can't distinguish between Japanese, played backward, and Dutch, played backward.