Whacking for research
A simple experiment — in which one man whacks another in the head — conjures up the spirit of two Ig Nobel Prizes — the one awarded in 1998 to Troy Hurtubise for building and personally testing a suit of armor that he hopes will project him against grizzly bears, and the one given in 2006 to Ivan R. Schwab and Philip R.A. May for studying why woodpeckers don’t get headaches.
(Thanks to investigator Rose Fox for bringing this to our attention.)