The 2008 Ig Nobel Prizes were awarded last night at the 18th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony. Click here to see a list of the winners. Recorded video is (or soon will be) posted for your viewing pleasure, displeasure or indifference.
Related event: The new winners will try to explain what they did and why they did it on Saturday, October 4, at the Ig Informal Lectures at MIT. It starts at 1:0 pm. You are invited (and it’s free—but seating is limited, so get there early).
In the photo here, Nobel Laureate William Lipscomb (left) and Benoit Mandelbrot, the inventor of the mathematical concept of fractals, drink Coca-Cola to toast the winners of the Ig Nobel Chemistry Prize. The prize was awarded to two teams of doctors—one team discovered that Coke is an effective spermacide; the other team discovered that it is not. Photo: Kees Moeliker / Annals of Improbable Research.
NOTE: Click here to see Nature News reporter Steve Nadis’s diary of his visit to the ceremony.