Ig Nobel Winner Bras a Sigh of Relief

An annual accolade presented by the organization Improbable Research, the 2009 Ig Nobel Prize winners, were announced on Thursday, October 1.

And as has been the case since 1991, these, billed as the 19th First Annual Ig Nobel Prizes, delivered mirth with a mind to meaningful methodology mixed in.

With full deference to their mission to recognize "research that makes people laugh and then think," the 2009 Ig Nobel awards ceremony, broadcast live on the Web from Harvard University's Sanders Theater, made a place on a stage filled with actual Nobel Laureates for a new crop of folks who, whether having intended it or not, managed to strike just the right blend of serious inquiry with unbridled silliness.

Among the most memorable presentations was delivered by Public Health Ig Nobel winner Elena Bodnar for her design of a brassiere that, in an emergency, can convert into not one but two gas masks: one for the wearer, and a spare for an onlooker in need.

Bodnar's subsequent demonstration upon acceptance involved the retrieval of two examples of her invention from under her dress, which were summarily disassembled before the crowd and affixed to several Nobel laureates tapped as volunteers, including 2008 Economics Nobel winner Paul Krugman.

But as the Boston Globe warns us, by all means enjoy the silliness but don't be distracted from the serious work that is performed by many of those recognized by the Ig Nobel. Bodnar, for example, works in the field of trauma and worked to help children heal in her Ukrainian homeland when the Chernobyl nuclear accident occurred.

Accolades were handed out in a total of 10 fields of inquiry, including:

Veterinary Medicine: Catherine Douglas and Peter Rowlinson from England's Newcastle University for their exploration of why cows with names give more milk than cows without names;

Chemistry: Javier Morales, Miguel Apatiga, and Victor M. Castaño from Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México for their development of a process for making diamonds from liquid (which just so happened to be tequila); and

Physics: Katherine Whitcome from the University of Cincinnati, Daniel Lieberman of Harvard University, and Liza Shapiro from the University of Texas for their analytical investigation of why pregnant women don't tip over.

The full listing of current winners and past winners alike -- including such pinnacles of research as the side effects of sword swallowing and homosexual necrophilia in mallard ducks -- may be explored at the Improbable Research Web site.

Photo, 2006 Ig Nobel Award Ceremony, courtesy of Jeff Dlouhy, via Flickr