This year's winners of the Ig Nobel prizes are a bumper crop of wild and crazy SCIENCE!, featuring sword-swallowing, knuckle-cracking, benefits of cow-naming, pregnant women NOT tipping over, a household use for giant panda poop (take that, Packham), diamonds made from tequila, a brassiere that can be used as TWO gas masks, "Ireland's Worst Driver", Icelandic banks, Zimbabwean currency, and a 'Peace Prize' earned by hitting people over the heads with beer bottles (and comparing the effects of empty vs. full bottles) (related inquiry)
posted by wendell on Oct 2, 2009 - 23 comments

An Analysis of the Forces Required to Drag Sheep over Various Surfaces [PDF] was mentioned recently on the Skeptics Guide to the Universe Podcast.
posted by blue_beetle on Oct 19, 2007 - 21 comments

Termination of Intractable Hiccups with Digital Rectal Massage. The Annoying Frequency of Fingernails on a Blackboard. How Many Blinking Photographs Does it Take? The 2006 Ig Nobels.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium on Oct 5, 2006 - 33 comments

IgNobel 2003 Prize Ceremony. [Real Player Video 1:35:43] Waste your morning listening to the Ignitaries giving their nano lectures.
posted by srboisvert on Oct 7, 2003 - 1 comment

Chickens Prefer Beautiful Humans. Suggests that human preferences arise from general properties of nervous systems, rather than from face-specific adaptations, in other words sorry fuglies, it's not socially constructed. N.b this research received a 2003 Ig Nobel Prize.
posted by jfuller on Oct 3, 2003 - 21 comments

And the winner is.... The 2002 IgNobel prizes were awarded in Boston last night. Who says scientists are just a bunch of navel-gazers? Or that a washing machine for dogs was simply impossible? To all nay-sayers, I say........nay! All hail the great and glorious progress science has made possible!
posted by amberglow on Oct 4, 2002 - 16 comments

Amorous ostriches scoop Ig Nobel prize. 'An investigation into why amorous UK ostriches were failing to breed is just one of the winners of the 2002 Ig Nobel Prizes. The annual awards for achievements that "cannot or should not be reproduced" were presented at Harvard University on 3 October. '
'Work on scrotal asymmetry in men and sculpture, the surface area of Indian elephants and a Japanese dog bark translator were among the other recipients of Ig Nobels, awarded annually by the humour magazine, the Annals of Improbable Research.'
The Ig Nobel homepage.
posted by plep on Oct 4, 2002 - 2 comments

2001 Ig Nobel Results: What is most suprising about this is that 9 out of the 10 winners actually wrote acceptance speeches. Awards went to the creator of "Stalin World," a study of teens who pick their noses, a study of injuries due to falling coconuts, and the invention of fart-proof underwear.
posted by KirkJobSluder on Oct 7, 2001 - 8 comments

IG NOBEL PRIZES Honoring individuals whose achievements "cannot or should not be reproduced."This year's prizes were awarded on Thursday evening, October 5, 2000, at Harvard University. Winners include levitating frogs and The Reverend Sun Myung Moon, for bringing efficiency and steady growth to the mass-marriage industry
posted by riley370 on Oct 6, 2000 - 1 comment