Wasabi alarm, beetle sex win Ig Nobel spoof prizes

[kristopher]

Source: Reuters

Fri Sep 30, 2011 9:47am EDT
(Reuters) - Prognosticators who predicted the end of the world and got it wrong, scientists who built a wasabi fire alarm, and researchers who studied how the urge to urinate affects decision-making were among the winners of spoof Ig Nobel prizes on Thursday.

The annual prizes, meant to entertain and encourage scientific research, are awarded by the Journal of Improbable Research as a whimsical counterpart to the Nobel Prizes, which will be announced next week.

Ig Nobels also went to researchers who found that the male buprestid beetle likes to copulate with Australian beer bottles called stubbies, and researchers who showed why discus throwers become dizzy and hammer throwers do not.

Former winners of the real Nobel prizes hand out the prizes at a ceremony held at Harvard University in Massachusetts...



Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/30/us-nobel-spoof-idUSTRE78S6VP20110930

[IADEMO2004]

1. and now for some non-spoof beetle sex. Post coitus

Wood post that is. I found these two while I was mowing a few years ago.

[skamaria]

2. "King of the world ma!"

[Ian David]

3. I KNOW that beetle...

[sakabatou]

4. "Stop talking, you're boring!"