September 11, 2021

Greetings fellow Bizarros:

The recipients of the 2021 Ig Nobel Prizes include researchers who experimented with upside-down rhinos, analyzed the bacteria in discarded gum and studied the ways cats communicate with humans.

The prizes, awarded by science magazine Annals of Improbable Research, were announced Thursday at the 31st annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony.

The Biology Prize went to Swedish researcher Susanne Schotz, who analyzed the variations in cat vocalizations while communicating with humans.

The Ecology Prize was awarded to a team of Spanish and Iranian researchers who used genetic analysis to compare the different species of bacteria found on discarded chewing gum recovered from paved surfaces in various countries.

The Chemistry Prize went to a team of researchers from Germany, Britain, New Zealand, Greece, Cyprus and Austria who used chemical analysis to test whether bodily odors created by a movie theater audience could be used to track incidents of violence, sexuality, drug use and profanity in films.

The Economics Prize was presented to Pavlo Blavatskyy, who led a study that suggests the obesity of a country's politicians can be used to indicate the level of corruption in the country.

The Medicine Prize was awarded to Olcay Cem Bulut, Dare Oladokun, Burkard Lippert and Ralph Hohenberger for their study demonstrating that sexual orgasms are as effective as decongestant medicines at improving nasal breathing.

The Peace Prize was given to a team of U.S. researchers who tested the hypothesis that humans evolved beards to protect themselves from punches to the face.

The Physics Prize went to a team of researchers who conducted experiments to learn why pedestrians do not constantly collide with other pedestrians, while the Kinetics Prize went to a different team of researchers who looked into why pedestrians sometimes do collide with other pedestrians.

The Entomology Prize was awarded to John Mulrennan Jr., Roger Grothaus, Charles Hammond and Jay Lamdin, the authors of research study "A New Method of Cockroach Control on Submarines."

The Transportation Prize was given to a team of Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Brazil, Britain and U.S. researchers who conducted experiments to determine whether it is safer to airlift a rhinoceros with the animal upside-down.

Bizarrely,
Lewis

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Questions? Comments? Email: lewis@gophercentral.com

Alligator tries to bite woman's paddleboard

A Florida woman had a tense encounter with an alligator that attempted to take a bite out of her paddleboard, and the incident was caught on camera. Vicki Reamy Baker posted photos and videos to Facebook showing the alligator refusing to leave her alone while she was on her paddleboard at Silver Springs State Park. "Get away from me," Baker says in one of the videos. Baker said the gator tried to take a bite out of her board. "Gator tried to eat my board. Someone has been feeding him and made him very dangerous. He was a big boy," she wrote on Facebook. Baker said she was able to escape from the reptile after pushing it away with her paddle.

Elvis Presley's hair auctioned for $72,500

A baseball-sized clump of hair that came from the head of Elvis Presley sold for $72,500 in an auction. Kruse GWS Auctions, based in Los Angeles, said the "Elvis Presley jar of hair with extensive documentation" sold for $72,500 in an auction that also included the sale of the performer's iconic jumpsuit from his 1972 Madison Square Garden performance for $1,012,500. The auction house said the baseball-sized clump of hair was collected over the course of multiple haircuts by Homer Gilleland, Presley's personal barber for more than two decades. The "extensive documentation" included with the hair, which has since been transferred to a sealed jar, includes plane tickets from occasions when Presley brought Gilleland on the road with him to cut his hair and a certificate of authenticity signed by John Reznikoff of University Archives, "the world's most trusted authority in the field of hair collecting."

READER COMMENTS

I know why the woman walked away from the moving car she was driving. Obviously, she realized she was too drunk to drive!! I think she's got a rough future ahead of her! -MICHELLE

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