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The IgNobel Prize
How do they make it ?

The IgNobel prizes are awarded every year since 1991. Every time, ten prizes approximatively can be awarded to one or many people, but also to an institution or an anonymous group (like the prize of nutrition in 1992, given to people who eat some corned-beef). There are no permanent categories but some are almost unavoidable, for example literature or peace. the prizes are awarded in the university of Harvard, often with the company of a holder of the Nobel Prize.

The top 10 of the best prizes :
Number 10 (Mathematics, 1993) : Robert Faid who calculated the exact chances that Mikhaïl Gorbatchev could be the Antechrist.
Number 9 (Peace, 2007) : The Air Force Wright Laboratory for the works on the « gay bomb », a chemical weappon that should make soldiers sexually irresistible to their co-fighters.
Number 8 (Computer science, 2000) : Chris Niswander for the creation of a software that detects if a cat is walking on the keyboard of the computer.
Number 7 (Astrophysics, 2001) : Jack and Rexella Van Impe for the discovery that the black holes have all the required qualities to shelter the Hell.
Number 6 (Peace, 1999) : Charl Fourie and Michelle Wong for the invention of an alarm against steals of cars, equiped with a flame thrower.
Number 5 (Astronomy, 1997) : Richard Hoagland for the identification of a human face on Mars and some 15 kilometers high skyscrapers on the hidden side of the Moon.
Number 4 (Mathematics, 2002) : K. P. Sreekumar and G. Nirmalan for their estimation of the total surface of the Indian elephant.
Number 3 (Peace, 2003) : Lal Bihari for having lead an active life whereas he was officially dead in 1976, for having lead a baited posthumous campaign against the bureaucracy and for having created the association of dead people.
Number 2 (Technology, 2001) : John Keogh who patented the coil in 2001 and the Australian offices of patents which gave him a patent of innovation.
And the best (Peace, 1996) : Jacques Chirac, French president, who tested a nuclear bomb the day of the 50th anniversary of the destruction of Hiroshima.

The Prizes in 2008 :
Nutrition : Massimiliano Zampini and Charles Spence for their study about sonority of food.
Peace : the ethic comity about non human biotechnology of Switzerland for the establishment that plants have dignity.
Archeology : Astolfo G. Mello Araujo and José Carlos Marcelino for the mesure of nocive effects of tatou on the content of archeological digs.
Biology : Marie-Christine Cadiergues, Christel Joubert and Michel Franc for the discovery that dog's fleas can jump higher than cat's fleas.
Médicine : Dan Ariely who demonstrated that a placebo is more efficient when it's more expensive.
Cognitive sciences : Toshiyuki Nakagaki, Hiroyasu Yamada, Ryo Kobayashi, Atsushi Tero, Akio Ishiguro and Ágotá Tóth for the discovery that mycetozoaires could find their way in a labyrinth.
Economics : Geoffrey Miller, Joshua Tybur and Brent Jordan for the discovery that the ovulation cycle of a stripper can change her tips.
Physics : Dorian Raymer and Douglas Smith for the mathematical proof that hairs, ropes and a lot of things always make knotts.
Chemistry : Sharee A. Umpierre, Joseph A. Hill and Deborah J. Anderson for the proof that Coke is an efficient spermicide, and Chuang-Ye Hong, C.C. Shieh, P. Wu, et B.N. Chiang for the proof that Coke is not an efficient spermicide.
Litterature : David Sims for his nice study « You Bastard : A Narrative Exploration of the Experience of Indignation within Organizations ».

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