The 2024 Schnobel Prize: mammals that breathe with their anus, building drunken worms and pigeons in rockets

The Ig Nobel Prize is a parody of the Nobel Prize, celebrating its 34th edition and traditionally held "with a touch of fun."

The award ceremony operates under the slogan “achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think” and honors real scientists who have managed to view scientific inquiries "from a different, more amusing perspective."

Below, we provide a list of awards that will certainly bring you a bit of "Friday cheer."

Peace

Awarded to the late American psychologist B.F. Skinner for researching the feasibility of placing live pigeons inside rockets as a means to determine their trajectory. A project he deemed mad received impeccable demonstration, but ultimately was scrapped.

“The sight of a live pigeon executing its task, despite its beauty, simply reminded the committee of how fantastic our proposal was,” wrote Skinner.

Botany

Awarded to Jacob White from the USA and Felipe Yamashita from Germany for demonstrating that the South American plant Boquila trifoliolata can mimic the leaves of nearby plastic plants. Essentially, the researchers proved the hypothesis that "plants can see" is plausible.

Medicine

Swiss, German, and Belgian teams won in this category for showing that fake medications that cause painful side effects can be more effective for patients than fake medications that do not cause painful side effects.

Physics

The prize was awarded to James Liao from the University of Florida for his comprehensive, widely published study of the swimming abilities... of dead trout.

Probability Theory

The award was shared by a team of 50 researchers who flipped 350,757 coins to test a hypothesis proposed by Percy Diaconis, a former magician and Stanford University professor, regarding the tendency of coins to land on the same side they were tossed from.

Chemistry

A team from Amsterdam successfully separated drunken and sober worms using chromatography.

Biology

Another award was given posthumously to Fordyce Eli and William Petersen for researching the factors influencing milk production in herds: cats on cows' backs and explosive paper bags seemingly scared cows enough to decrease their milk secretion.

Physiology

Japanese researchers Ryo Okabe and Takanori Takebe discovered that mammals can breathe through their anus — which is actually an alternative means of delivering oxygen to critically ill patients if ventilator supplies run low, as happened during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Source: Gizmodo, CNN