Science
Researchers who studied how slippery banana peels are, how pieces of pork can stop nosebleeds, and deer reactions to people dressed as polar bears were were celebrated at the 24th Ig Nobel Prize ceremony.
The annual award, which is designed to entertain and promote innovation, takes place at Harvard University and is organized by the Annals of Incredible Research magazine.
The Ig Nobel Prize is a comic take on science and is awarded about a month before the more serious Nobel Prize.
The strange discoveries of 2014
The Physics Prize was awarded to a team from Japan. She measured the amount of friction between the boots and the banana peel, and between the banana peel and the floor when a person steps on the banana peel.
The Neuroscience Award was presented to a team from China and Canada who tried to understand what happens in the brains of people who see Jesus in a slice of toast.
The winners in the Psychology category were researchers from Australia, the US and the UK, who found that “owls”, that is, those who like to stay up late, are more likely to have these character traits like narcissism, manipulation, and psychopathy than those who tend to wake up early in the morning.
See also: Owl people are more likely to be psychopaths and manipulators
The Public Health Award went to researchers from the Czech Republic, Japan, the USA and India. They were recognized for three separate works exploring how psychologically harmful it is for a person to own a cat. They found that cats begin to bite, adopting their owners' depression.
Discoveries in science 2014
The Ig Nobel Prize in Biology was awarded to researchers from the Czech Republic, Germany and Zambia for their work “Dogs are sensitive to small fluctuations in the Earth's magnetic field”. The study found that when dogs are relieved, they prefer to align their body's axis with the north and south of the Earth's geomagnetic field.
Scientists from Italy won an Art Award by measuring the relative pain people feel when looking at works of art while a powerful laser beam is directed at them.
The Italian government's National Institute of Statistics was awarded the Economics Prize for fulfilling the European Union's mandate for each member country to increase the size of the national economy . How did they do it? It's very simple. They included proceeds from prostitution, illegal drug sales, smuggling and other illegal financial transactions.
The Medical Award went to specialists from the Detroit Medical Center in the United States who tested the effectiveness of the method of stopping uncontrolled nosebleeds by shoving it into the nostrils salted pork.
German and Norwegian scientists won the Arctic Science Award for their study of how reindeer react to humans disguised as polar bears.
Read also: Interesting facts about polar bears
And in the Nutrition category, the victory went to scientists from Spain, who studied the use of bacteria isolated from infant excrement in sausage production.