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MrNemesis [soylentnews.org] writes:

Winners of the annual Ig Nobel Prizes, celebrating unusual scientific research, have been announced [improbable.com]. Some highlights of prizes awarded to thought-provoking research this year include:

Inventing a chemical recipe to partially un-boil an egg
Bangkok Metropolitan Police offering to pay policemen extra cash if the policemen refuse to take bribes
Trying to use mathematical techniques to determine whether and how Moulay Ismael the Bloodthirsty, the Sharifian Emperor of Morocco, managed, during the years from 1697 through 1727, to father 888 children

Although perhaps the most deserved win goes to a pair of Smiths for...

...Justin Schmidt painstakingly creating the Schmidt Sting Pain Index, which rates the relative pain people feel when stung by various insects; and to Michael L. Smith, for carefully arranging for honey bees to sting him repeatedly on 25 different locations on his body, to learn which locations are the least painful (the skull, middle toe tip, and upper arm). and which are the most painful (the nostril, upper lip, and penis shaft).

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