FLICKR, MAGNUS BRATHScientists who studied the mental hazards of owning a cat and the curative properties of nasal tampons made with pork were among this year’s Ig Nobel prize winners. The awards, which honor achievements that “first make people laugh and then make them think,” were presented at a Harvard University ceremony last week (September 18).
Hynek Burda of the Czech University of Life Sciences in Prague and his colleagues won the biology Ig Nobel for their research conducted on thousands of strolls with puppies. Observing 70 pets, the researchers reported that while pooping and peeing, dogs sometimes aligned their bodies with the earth’s geomagnetic axis.
Psychologist Kang Lee of the University of Toronto and his colleagues won the neuroscience prize for reporting that seeing the face of Jesus on burnt toast may be a normal function of way our brains process faces. “Sensory input with even the slightest suggestion of a face can result in the interpretation of a face,” they wrote in an April Cortex paper describing their findings.
The prize in public health went to three teams who ...
