Friday, October 5, 2001

Ig Nobel Prizes Awarded
By TIM SWARTZENDRUBER

Harvard University's science-humor magazine, the Annals of Improbable Research, on Thursday awarded its annual Ig Nobel Prizes, which celebrate achievements that "cannot or should not be reproduced."

The awards, which spoof the Nobel Prizes, went to winners in literature, public health, technology, and seven other categories. Actual Nobel laureates were scheduled to participate in Thursday night's ceremony, which was also to feature a one-minute wedding ceremony for two geologists from Arizona State University.

Following is a list of the winners:

• Chittaranjan Andrade and B.S. Srihari, of the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, in Bangalore, India, received the public-health award for their "probing" medical discovery that nose picking is a common activity among adolescents.



• Peter Barss, of McGill University, in Montreal, received the medical award for his report "Injuries Due to Falling Coconuts."



• John Keogh, of Hawthorn, Australia, received the technology award for patenting the wheel in the year 2001; the Australian Patent Office was also honored for granting Innovation Patent No. 2001100012 to Mr. Keogh.



• Viliumas Malinauskus, of Grutas, Lithuania, received the peace award for creating the amusement park known as "Stalin World."



• John Richards, of Boston, England, the founder of the Apostrophe Protection Society, received the literature award for his efforts to "protect, promote, and defend" the differences between plural and possessive.



• David Schmidt, of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, received the physics award for his partial solution to the question of why shower curtains billow inwards.



• Lawrence W. Sherman, of Miami University, in Oxford, Ohio, received the psychology award for his influential research report, "An Ecological Study of Glee in Small Groups of Preschool Children."



• Joel Slemrod, of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, and Wojciech Kopczuk, of the University of British Columbia, in Vancouver, received the economics award for their conclusion that people would find ways to postpone their deaths if that would qualify them for a lower rate on the inheritance tax.



• Jack and Rexella Van Impe, of Jack Van Impe Ministries, based in Rochester Hills, Mich., received the astrophysics award for their discovery that black holes fulfill all the technical requirements to be the location of hell.



• Buck Weimer, of Pueblo, Colo., received the biology award for inventing "Under-Ease," airtight underwear with a replaceable charcoal filter that removes bad-smelling gases before they escape.