who said going to university was a waste of time? [QUOTE]Ever wondered how far a penguin can fire waste from its anus? Or whether humans can swim faster in water or in sugar syrup? Perhaps even what frogs smell like when they are stressed? Answers to these burning questions were among the 10 areas of work celebrated at the Ig Nobel prizes at Harvard University last night. The awards, a spoof on the Nobel prizes announced earlier this week, are given for research which "cannot or should not be reproduced". Marc Abrahams, editor of the Annals of Improbable Research and the man behind the awards, said they "honour achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think". Top billing went to the award for fluid dynamics, shared by Victor Benno Meyer-Rochow of the International University Bremen and Jozsef Gal of Lorand Eotvos University in Hungary "for using basic principles of physics to calculate the pressure that builds up inside a penguin". In a videotaped acceptance speech, Dr Meyer-Rochow said the research had started in 1993 when he led the first (and, so far, only) Jamaican expedition to the Antarctic. Years later, while showing a group of students pictures of the faeces-lined nests where penguins lived, he was asked how the displays were created. "They get up, move to the edge of the nest, turn around, bend over and shoot," he said. "The student who had asked the question, she blushed. The audience chuckled and we got the idea to calculate what pressure is produced by a penguin's pooh." On hand to award the prizes were a collection of real Nobel laureates - Dudley Herschbach (chemistry, 1986), William Lipscomb (chemistry, 1976), Sheldon Glashow (physics,1979), Robert Wilson (physics, 1978) - who greeted the winners with handshakes and trumpet blasts. The medicine prize went to Greg Miller of Missouri for his invention of Neuticles - artificial replacement testicles for dogs which come in a range of sizes. Neuticles allow your pet to "retain his natural look, self-esteem and aids in the trauma associated with neutering", says the company's website. Brian Gettelfinger and Edward Cussler turned up wearing tiny swimming trunks to claim this year's chemistry prize. They had tackled a subject that even Isaac Newton tried, but failed, to get to the bottom of, namely, would people be able to swim faster in water or in a sticky syrup? (Turns out you can swim just as fast in either liquid). The physics prize went to history's most patient team of scientists, who have watched congealed tar drip through a funnel for almost 78 years. The ceremony ended with the traditional paper plane throwing competition, but there was one change: the man usually responsible for sweeping up the planes from the stage, Harvard physicist Roy Glauber, was absent, having been awarded this year's Nobel prize for physics on Tuesday. Dr Abrahams said the Ig Nobels were meant to poke fun at the frustration faced by scientists in their daily work. "Their job is to try and make sense of things that nobody else can make any sense of," he said. "Persistence is a big part of it but having a sense of humour about constant failure is a terrifically useful thing in that line of work." He ended the ceremony with the traditional call to researchers around the world: "If you didn't win an Ig Nobel prize tonight - and especially if you did - better luck next year." The winners Physics: John Mainstone and the late Thomas Parnell of the University of Queensland, for an experiment that began in the year 1927, in which a glob of congealed black tar has been slowly dripping through a funnel at a rate of around one drop every nine years. Medicine: Greg A Miller of Missouri for inventing Neuticles - artificial replacement testicles for dogs Literature: The internet entrepreneurs of Nigeria, for using email to distribute a bold series of short stories, thus introducing millions of readers to a cast of rich characters, each of whom requires just a small amount of money so as to obtain access to the great wealth they will share with you. Peace: Claire Rind and Peter Simmons of Newcastle University for electrically monitoring the activity of a locust's brain cell while it was watching selected highlights from the film Star Wars. Biology: An international team of scientists and perfumiers for smelling and cataloguing the peculiar odours produced by 131 different species of frogs when the frogs were feeling stressed. Economics: Gauri Nanda of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for inventing an alarm clock that runs away and hides, thus ensuring that people get out of bed, theoretically adding many productive hours to the work day. Nutrition: Yoshiro Nakamats of Tokyo for photographing and then analysing every meal he has eaten over 34 years. Chemistry: Edward Cussler of the University of Minnesota and Brian Gettelfinger of the University of Minnesota and the University of Wisconsin, for settling the scientific question: can people swim faster in syrup or in water? Agricultural history: James Watson of Massey University, New Zealand, for his scholarly study, The Significance of Mr Richard Buckley's Exploding Trousers. Fluid dynamics: Victor Benno Meyer-Rochow of International University Bremen, Germany, and the University of Oulu, Finland; and Jozsef Gal of Lorand Eotvos University, Hungary, for using basic principles of physics to calculate the pressure that builds up inside a penguin, as detailed in their report Pressures Produced When Penguins Pooh - Calculations on Avian Defecation.[/QUOTE]
