THE 2024 IG-NOBEL PRIZE WINNERS

The Ig-Nobel Prizes have been announced for 2024. These are the awards given out for dubious scientific research. The award ceremony was last Thursday. The winners, although that may not be the correct usage of that word:
– A pair of scientists from Germany and Brazil for finding evidence that some real plants imitate the shapes of neighboring artificial plastic plants.
– A large team of researchers for studying whether the hair on the heads of most people in the northern hemisphere swirls in the same direction (clockwise or counter-clockwise) as hair on the heads of most people in the southern hemisphere. (* Well?? Does it? DOES IT???)
– James C. Liao, for demonstrating and explaining the swimming abilities of a dead trout.
– A team of scientists from Japan for discovering that many mammals are capable of breathing through their anus. (* I can do that. Well, partially. I’ve got the exhale part down pretty good.)
– Researchers who proved, both in theory and by 350,757 experiments, that when you flip a coin, it tends to land on the same side as it started.
– Scientists who used chromatography to separate drunk and sober worms. (* ‘Cause worms have a hard time using a Breathalyzer.)
– Saul Justin Newman, for research that found many of the people famous for having the longest lives lived in places that had lousy birth-and-death record-keeping.
– Fordyce Ely and William E. Petersen, for exploding a paper bag next to a cat that’s standing on the back of a cow, to explore how and when cows spew their milk.
* I’m guessing that cat experiment is something they could only do one time.
* These people are smart, but it would have been smarter not to show up for the ceremony.
* The Ig-Nobel Prize, also known as “If We Don’t Spend This Leftover Research Money They’ll Cut Our Budget Next Year.”