The following is an article from The Annals of Improbable Research.
Ig Nobel Achievements distilled into limerick form
by Martin Eiger, Improbable Research Limerick Laureate
The Ig Nobel Prizes honor achievements that first make people laugh, then make them think. For details of all the Ig Nobel Prize-winning achievements, see each year's special Ig Nobel issue of the magazine, and the website.
(Image credit: Flickr user Federico Moroni, NASA, vandalism by Miss C)
2013 Biology/Astronomy Prize
Marie Dacke, Emily Baird, Marcus Byrne, Clarke Scholtz, and Eric Warrant, for discovering that when dung beetles get lost, they can navigate home by looking at the Milky Way.
With my fancy, brand new GPS,
I find my way home even less.
If I looked at the sky,
Like the dung beetle, I
Would likely have greater success
2013 Probability Prize
Bert Tolkamp, Marie Haskell, Fritha Langford, David Roberts, and Colin Morgan, for making two related discoveries: that the longer a cow has been lying down, the more likely that cow will soon stand up; and that once a cow stands up, you cannot easily predict how soon that cow will lie down again.
(Image credit: Flickr user Giorgio, altered by Miss C)
The passage of time ups the rate
At which lying-down cows change their state.
But can we tell when
They'll lie down again?
We can't, so we'll just have to wait.
2013 Psychology Prize
Laurent Bègue, Brad Bushman, Oulmann Zerhouni, Baptiste Subra, and Medhi Ourabah, for confirming, by experiment, that people who think they are drunk also think they are attractive.
(Image credit: NBC)
The time used to be when I thunk,
In terms of my looks, that I stunk.
But those days have passed.
I'm attractive at last,
Now that I think that I'm drunk.
In summary...
Speech bubbles via Speechable.
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This article is republished with permission from the November-December 2013 issue of the Annals of Improbable Research.
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