Ig Nobel Prize winners don’t get a photo-op with the King of Sweden, or their own petition for Obama, but their discoveries are worth a good laugh and some serious consideration. Here’s some of the wackiest science honored by this year’s Ig Nobel Prizes. The full list of winners, announced last week by the Annals of Improbable Research (AIR), can be found here.
Biology: Fleas living on dogs jump higher than fleas living on cats. Three French scientists measured fleas jumping out of plastic pipes; the dog fleas outjumped the cat fleas by an average of 2.3 centimeters.
Physics: “String theory” agrees with Murphy’s Law. Two Americans tumbled string in a make-shift clothes dryer and identified all the different knots that came out by their Jones polynomial. They mathematically proved that if you shake up a bunch of loose strings (or hair or shoelaces or headphone cords) they will inevitably get tangled.
Chemistry: Coca-Cola may or may not be bad for your sperm. Three researchers at
