In jest and earnest

At Harvard University in the 17 th time it was awarded the so-called Antinobel Prize - The Ig Nobel Prize. The award was established by the humor magazine "Annals of Improbable Research" and is awarded for achievements that "first make people laugh, then think." Title Award parody The Ig Nobel Prize is built on a play of words: Ig Nobel consonant English ignoble (low, shameful). In Russian premium Antinobelevskoy commonly referred to sometimes as Ig, Ignobelevskoy, Gnobelevskoy.

The Ig Nobel Prize, as well as the real Nobel Prize, awarded in several categories: medicine, physics, biology, chemistry, literature, economics and peace prize. In addition, Antinobel Prize in 2007 was awarded in the categories of "linguistics", "aviation" and "food".

Winners of the 2007

In the medical field - Brian Whitcomb (Gloucester) and Dan Meyer (Antioch, TN) for their article in the British Medical Journal «Shpagoglotanie and its side effects."

In the field of physics - L. Mahadevan (Harvard) and Enrique Cerda Vilyablanka (University of Santiago, Chile) for the study of the formation of folds on the sheets.

In the field of biology - Johanna van Bronsviyk from the Eindhoven University of Technology (Netherlands) for a census of the mites, insects, spiders, psevdoskorpionov, crustaceans, bacteria, algae, ferns and fungi with whom we share our bed.

In the field of Chemistry - Mayu Yamamoto of the International Medical Center (Japan) for the invention of a method for isolating vanilla essence from cow dung.

In the field of linguistics - Juan Manuel Toro, Josep Trobalon Juan and Nuria Sebastian-Galles of Barcelona University for a study to prove that rats can not distinguish by ear Japanese words spoken backwards, from the Dutch words spoken backwards.

In the field of literature - Glenda Browne of Australia for the study of the article «the». In this paper, special attention was paid to the difficulties encountered when trying to sort alphabetically words upotreblinemye this part of speech.

"Ig Nobel" Peace Prize - Laboratory of the US Air Force named the Wright brothers (Dayton, Ohio) to promote development of chemical weapons, which would be instilled in the enemy soldiers irresistible sexual attraction to each other.

In the area of ​​nutrition - Brian Uensink Cornell University for a study to prove that a person's appetite is almost insatiable. In the experiment, a plate of soup, who ate the test, gradually filled through discreet tube. The man in this case, ate 70% more than usual, but did not consider himself a well-fed.

In the economic sphere - Kuo Cheng Hsieh from Taiwan, a patented device to catch bank robbers in using the network, falling on top of them.

In the field of aviation - Patricia V. Agostino, Santiago A. Plano and Diego A. Golombek of Argentina for his discovery that Viagra helps hamsters overcome the consequences of abrupt change of time zones. In their experiment, the researchers did not make hamsters fly to Europe, but simply turned on and off light at the right time.

About the winners of this year, the author of the idea Shnoobelevskih premiums Marc Abrahams said: "When you first hear about it, you can not help but laugh. But then the thought of them do not go out of your head. Not so easy to believe that such investigations are carried out in fact - but it's not a hoax, "- writes the British newspaper The Guardian (the full text on site InoPressa).