The Ig-Nobel Prizes

An article i wrote for the PT magzine

You are a researcher, but conventional research does not turn you on. Don’t worry, if you’re interested in explaining ‘why woodpeckers don’t get a headache’ or you wish to write the equations of motion of the hula hoop, you still get a prize, not the Nobel, but the Ig-Nobel.
These prizes, instituted in 1991, are given out by the scientific humor journal Annals of Improbable Research (AIR) for ten achievements that "first make people laugh, and then make them think."
Originally concieved as a parody of the Nobel prizes, these prizes are given out by Nobel laurets, for genuine research in whacky areas. To give you a taste of the types of ‘research’ that wins an Ig-Nobel prize, here is a list of some recent winners:
PEACE: Howard Stapleton of Merthyr Tydfil, Wales, for inventing an electromechanical teenager repellant -- a device that makes annoying noise designed to be audible to teenagers but not to adults.

MATHEMATICS: Nic Svenson and Piers Barnes of the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Research Organization, for calculating the number of photographs you must take to (almost) ensure that nobody in a group photo will have their eyes closed.

PHYSICS: Basile Audoly and Sebastien Neukirch of the Université Pierre et Marie Curie, in Paris, for their insights into why, when you bend dry spaghetti, it often breaks into more than two pieces.

The prize ceremony takes place at Harvard every year, around the same time as the Nobel prize ceremony, and is marked by numerous comic antics. The ceremony traditionally closes with the following words: "If you didn't win a prize - and especially if you did - better luck next year!"

So, if you have a crazy research opening, an eye for the comic aspect of science, there are the Ig-Nobel Prizes for you.