Ig Nobel Prizes Drunken worms and plastic plants researched
A research team demonstrates during a performance that many mammals can breathe through their anus.
Image: dpa
The audience at the Ig Nobel Prize ceremony was in a good mood.
Image: dpa
Research was also carried out into the swimming ability of a dead trout.
Image: dpa
Research into the separation of drunk and sober worms was also honored.
Image: dpa
A research team demonstrates during a performance that many mammals can breathe through their anus.
Image: dpa
The audience at the Ig Nobel Prize ceremony was in a good mood.
Image: dpa
Research was also carried out into the swimming ability of a dead trout.
Image: dpa
Research into the separation of drunk and sober worms was also honored.
Image: dpa
Curious research and lots of humor: the Ig Nobel Prizes are cult. This year, too, a lot of bizarre things were awarded - and some prizes went to Germany.
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- Drunken worms, real plants imitating plastic plants and the swimming abilities of a dead trout: ten scientific studies designed to "first make you laugh and then make you think" have been awarded the "Ig Nobel Prizes" in the USA.
- The unendowed fun prizes, awarded for the 34th time by a journal for curious research, are intended to "celebrate the unusual and honor the imaginative", according to the organizers.
Drunken worms, real plants imitating plastic plants and the swimming abilities of a dead trout: ten scientific studies designed to "first make you laugh and then make you think" have been awarded "Ig Nobel Prizes" in the USA. The non-endowed fun prizes, awarded for the 34th time by a journal for curious research, are intended to "celebrate the unusual and honor the imaginative", according to the organizers. "Ignoble" means "dishonorable" in German.
The traditionally flashy gala, which had only taken place digitally for the last four years in a row due to the coronavirus pandemic, was celebrated with an audience for the first time again on Friday night at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge on the US East Coast. Scientists from the Netherlands and France, for example, were honored in the chemistry category for their use of chromatography - a process for separating a mixture of substances - to separate drunk and sober worms. US scientist James Liao received the prize in the physics category for demonstrating and explaining the swimming abilities of a dead trout.
Some of the prizes also went to Germany: scientists Christian Büchel, Tahmine Fadai and Lieven Schenk from the University of Hamburg received the award in the medicine category for demonstrating that fake medicine with painful side effects can be more effective than fake medicine without painful side effects. US scientist Jacob White and his Brazilian colleague Felipe Yamashita, working at the University of Bonn, were awarded in the Botany category for discovering evidence that some real plants mimic the shapes of neighboring plastic plants.
dpa