To: elmatador who wrote (49880 ) 5/10/2009 4:49:18 AM From: Snowshoe Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 217901 The Ig Nobel prize awards are a LOT more fun. Some examples... 2008 - Economics: Geoffrey Miller, Joshua Tyber, and Brent Jordan, for discovering that exotic dancers earn more when at peak fertility .[38] 2008 - Medicine: Rebecca Waber and Dan Ariely for demonstrating that expensive placebos are more effective than inexpensive placebos .[41][42] 2007 - Nutrition: Brian Wansink, for investigating people's appetite for mindless eating by secretly feeding them a self-refilling bowl of soup .[27] 2006 - Ornithology: Ivan R. Schwab, of the University of California Davis, and Philip R.A. May of the University of California Los Angeles, for exploring and explaining why woodpeckers don't get headaches .[17] 2005 - Economics - Presented to Gauri Nanda of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for inventing Clocky, an alarm clock that runs away and hides , repeatedly, thus ensuring that people get out of bed, and thus theoretically adding many productive hours to the workday. 2004 - Public Health - Presented to Jillian Clarke of the Chicago High School for Agricultural Sciences, and then Howard University, for investigating the scientific validity of the five-second rule about whether it's safe to eat food that's been dropped on the floor. 2003 - Biology - Presented to C.W. Moeliker, of Natuurmuseum Rotterdam, for documenting the first scientifically recorded case of homosexual necrophilia in the mallard duck . 2002 - Peace - Presented to Keita Sato, President of Takara Co., Dr. Matsumi Suzuki, President of Japan Acoustic Lab, and Dr. Norio Kogure, Executive Director, Kogure Veterinary Hospital, for promoting peace and harmony between the species by inventing Bow-Lingual, a computer-based automatic dog-to-human language translation device . 2001 - Astrophysics - Presented to Dr. Jack Van Impe and Rexella Van Impe of Jack Van Impe Ministries, Rochester Hills, Michigan, for their discovery that black holes fulfill all the technical requirements for the location of Hell . 2000 - Computer Science - Presented to Chris Niswander of Tucson, Arizona, for inventing PawSense, software that detects when a cat is walking across your computer keyboard . 1999 - Peace - Presented to Charl Fourie and Michelle Wong of Johannesburg, South Africa, for inventing the Blaster, a foot-pedal activated flamethrower that motorists can use against carjackers .en.wikipedia.org improbable.com