Liquid cats and vampire bats: 2017’s Ig Nobel awards

PARIS: Can a cat be both liquid and solid at the same time? Have vampire bats developed a taste for human blood? Will holding a crocodile bolster or blunt your gambling drive? These questions may appear improbable, yet they are important, said the organizers of the annual Ig Nobel awards “for achievements that first make people laugh, then make them think.” Researchers who invested time and money in solving these and other burning questions were honored Thursday with Ig Nobels in 10 categories. “The winners this year have truly earned their prizes,” master of ceremonies Mark Abrahams, editor of The Annals of Improbable Research — a science humor magazine — told guests as he unveiled this year’s statuette: a mannequin head with a red question mark perched on top. The Ig Nobel for physics went to French researcher Marc-Antoine Fardin for a science paper questioning: “Can a Cat Be Both a Solid and a Liquid?" A liquid, he explained to the audience, is something that can adapt its shape to the container it is in. The study was a serious attempt to probe “some of the actual questions and problems that are studied in rheology, the study of flows,” Fardin said. The prize for anatomy research went to a study asking “Why Do Old Men Have Big Ears,” while the nutrition award went to a research paper entitled: “What’s for Dinner? First Report of Human Blood in the Diet of the Hairy-Legged Vampire Bat.”

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