Awards given to silly science
First make people laugh then make them think,” is the slogan for one of the silliest awards in science. The Ig Nobel Prize is in its 27th year, and this year’s theme was “uncertainty”.
Ten winners in subjects ranging from physics to biology were given prizes for their wacky research, on 14 September.
The physics award went to scientists from France, Singapore and the US for their research into whether cats can be considered both a solid and a liquid. Their argument was that cats can be both because of a feline’s ability to adopt the shape of any container.
The winner of the anatomy prize was UK doctor James Heathcote, for his research into why old men have big ears. He found that as time goes on and people get older, gravity pulls the ears down, making them bigger.