Studies on pigeon-guided rockets and swimming abilities of dead fish among the Ig Noble winners

A study examining the possibility of using pigeons as missile guides and one examining the swimming abilities of dead fish were among the winners of this year's Ig Nobel Prize, the award for comical scientific achievement, on Thursday.

The 34th annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony took place at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology less than a month before the actual Nobel Prizes were announced. It was organized by the website of the magazine Annals of Improbable Research to make people laugh and think. The winners received a transparent box containing historical items related to Murphy's Law – the theme of the evening – and a nearly worthless $10 trillion bill from Zimbabwe. The awards were presented to the winners by real Nobel Prize winners.

“While some politicians have tried to make sensible things sound crazy, scientists have discovered some crazy-sounding things that make a lot of sense,” said Marc Abrahams, the magazine's master of ceremonies and editor, in an email interview.

At the beginning of the ceremony, safety advice was given by Kees Moliker, winner of the 2003 Ig Noble for Biology. He received his award for a study that documented the existence of homosexual necrophilia in mallards.

“This is the duck,” he said, holding up a duck. “This is the dead one.”

Then someone came on stage wearing a yellow target on his chest and a plastic mask. Soon they were swarmed by people from the audience throwing paper airplanes at them.

Then the awards ceremony began – several dry speeches interrupted by a girl who came on stage and repeatedly screamed, “Please stop. I'm bored.” The awards ceremony was also interrupted by an international song contest inspired by Murphy's Law, one of which was about coleslaw and another about the legal system.

Winners were honored in 10 categories, including peace and anatomy. Among them were scientists who showed that a vine from Chile mimics the shapes of nearby artificial plants, and another study that examined whether the hair on the heads of people in the Northern Hemisphere swirls in the same direction as the hair of people in the Southern Hemisphere.

Other winners include a group of scientists who showed that dummy drugs with side effects can be more effective than dummy drugs with no side effects, and a group who showed that some mammals can no longer breathe through their anus. The winners came on stage wearing fish-inspired hats.

Julie Skinner Vargas accepted the Peace Prize on behalf of her late father, BF Skinner, who authored the study on pigeon rockets. Skinner Vargas is also the director of the BF Skinner Foundation.

“I want to thank you for finally recognizing his most important contribution,” she said. “Thank you for setting the record straight.”

James Liao, a biology professor at the University of Florida, accepted the physics award for his study demonstrating and explaining the swimming abilities of a dead trout.

“I've found that a live fish moves more than a dead one, but not much,” Liao said, holding up an artificial fish. “A dead trout dragged behind a stick also thrashes its tail in time with the current, like a live fish surfing on swirling eddies and recovering energy from its environment. A dead fish does things similar to a live fish.”