The not so Nobel

So a couple of days back I wrote about being proud of the US for receiving so many Nobel prizes. Well the literature prize has been awarded and the US streak is broken. It was good while it lasted. But the primary purpose is to remind everyone that the Ig Nobel Prizes were awarded last week. For those that don’t know the Ig Nobels celebrate research that “could not or should not be repeated.” Give the list a gander and imagine the glamorous life of a researcher. Yup. Makes me want to sign up. The literature one sounds like something Smitty wouldn’t have minded writing. The biology one may get the WTF award. The physics one could actually have produced techniques that could apply to other materials and shapes, but I doubt it actually did. The winner for weird, but may actually be useful in a last ditch effort sort of way, goes to the one for medicine. Man those hiccups would have to really, really be annoying. Those crazy scientists.