It's not the Oscars… it's the 2010 Weird Science Awards! I, for one, could not be more excited. The 2010 Ig Nobel Awards are finally here and this year's winners are weirder than ever. "The criterion for the Ig Nobels - "science that makes you laugh, and then makes you think" - is a pretty good rule of thumb for the Weirdies as well. But you could go with other criteria, such as "Why on earth did they spend research money on that?" ... or "Wow, that's weird!" ... or "Ewwwww!"
Rabbit Penis Transplant
This one's kinda insane. Scientists worked really hard to re-attach rabbit penises on... what? Rabbits that didn't have a penis? I don't want to even get into how the rabbits lost their penises. But it turned out that when they attached a new penis onto the rabbit, they were able to make babies like normal. Check out this picture of a huge rabbit, because it would just be wrong to put up a picture of a rabbit penis.
Smell Like Dead Celebrities!
For the celebrity obsessed, I guess this one is a good one. "MyDNAFragrance's" line of perfumery appears to be the latest marketing gimmick driven by genetics. A venture that uses the DNA from dead celebs like Marilyn Monroe, Michael Jackson and others mix up personality-driven fragrances."
The thing is, the scents do use the dead celebs DNA - in a way. But there is no way to tell how the fragrance will mix with your body chemistry. Plus, apparently Elvis had really bad B.O.
Fruit Bat Sex!
"Researchers report that female Chinese fruit bats make an effort to prolong the sexual pleasure for their partners. The study suggests that there may be an evolutionary advantage to at least some types of kinky sex in the animal world." That's just nasty. Imagine the researchers whose job it was to basically watch fruit bat porn. Would you rather work at Burger King or be paid to watch fruit bat sex? I can't even answer that.
Gay Penguin Dads
German zookeepers found out that male penguins make good parents when some "opposite sex" (thanks Carrie Prejan!) penguins rejected their baby. "To solve it, they placed the egg in a nest shared by two male penguins. The pair is one of three same-sex couples that have tried to mate at the zoo. The males incubated the egg for 30 days and continued to care for the chick after it hatched." Gay penguin Dads?? That sounds awesome!
Creepy Old Dead Finger
If you're into history, then this one's for you. "Back in 1737, Galileo's admirers removed three fingers, a vertebra and a tooth from the astronomer's body when his corpse was being moved to a new tomb." The vertebra and one of the fingers were found pretty quickly afterward, but the tooth and the other two fingers weren't found... Until now! They turned up in a container that was auctioned to a private collector. Gross! Who would buy a crusty finger?!??! Someone did. And now they crusty body parts are going to be on display at The Museum of History and Science in Florence.
Glow In The Dark Puppies!
This one is just wrong. "South Korean scientists cloned a litter of genetically engineered dogs that glow red under ultraviolet light...It's a proof of concept for procedures that could help develop treatments for genetic diseases in humans." Ok, so they did it for the greater good of humanity, but still. Puppies!?!? I like my puppies glow-free and cute, thank you very much.
What do you think of these awards? Weird? Cool? What???
Comments
Post a Comment