The following is an article from The Annals of Improbable Research.
(Image credit: Jeremy Noble)
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 also see the website.
2007 Ig Nobel Aviation Prize
The prize was awarded to Patricia V. Agostino, Santiago A. Plano and Diego A. Golombek of Universidad Nacionalde Quilmes, Argentina, for their discovery that Viagra aids jetlag recovery in hamsters.
REFERENCE: "Sildenafil Accelerates Reentrainment of Circadian Rhythms After Advancing Light Schedules," Patricia V. Agostino, Santiago A. Plano and Diego A. Golombek, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 104, no. 23, June 5, 2007, pp. 9834-9.
One's timing just doesn't feel right
Right after a very long flight.
Viagra can kill
Hamsters' jetlag, but still,
The hamster will stay up all night.
2007 Ig Nobel Linguistics Prize
The prize was awarded to Juan Manuel Toro, Josep B. Trobalon and Nzria Sebastian-Gallis, of Universitat de Barcelona, for showing that rats sometimes cannot tell the difference between a person speaking Japanese backwards and a person speaking Dutch backwards.
(Image credit: B-nji3)
REFERENCE: "Effects of Backward Speech and Speaker Variability in Language Discrimination by Rats," Juan M. Toro, Josep B. Trobalon and Núria Sebastián-Gallés, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, vol. 31, no. 1, January 2005, pp. 95-100.
Japanese spoken backwards is such
That it seems, to a rat, very much
Acoustically near
To whatever they hear
When they hear, in reverse, spoken Dutch.
1999 Ig Nobel Peace Prize
The prize was awarded to Charl Fourie and Michelle Wong of Johannesburg, South Africa, for inventing an automobile burglar alarm consisting of a detection circuit and a flamethrower.
REFERENCE: International Patent WO 99/32331, granted July 1, 1999.
Fourie and Wong, the inventive,
Serve car owners anal retentive:
Alarms for detection,
But here's the perfection –
A flamethrower for disincentive.
Image manipulation via Speechable.
_____________________
The article above is republished with permission from the January-February 2011 issue of the Annals of Improbable Research. You can download or purchase back issues of the magazine, or subscribe to receive future issues. Or get a subscription for someone as a gift!
Visit their website for more research that makes people LAUGH and then THINK.