The Ig Nobel Prizes: The Annals of Improbable Research

#399
Title: The Ig Nobel Prizes: The Annals of Improbable Research
Author: Marc Abrahams
Publisher: Dutton
Year: 2003
250 pages

The Ig Nobels are awarded (with help of Nobel laureates) for silly science. I appreciate the intersection of peculiar or bizarre preoccupations and objects with research that is sometimes useful, sometimes not. The Ig Nobels cover a good range of quirky professional and avocational studies. I prefer these to the awards that, while funny, are more mean-spirited and aren't about research but about policy or writing (e.g., digs at Deepak Chopra or Dan Quayle). Some of the research studies are solid; others make you wonder whether an IRB or any form of oversight was involved. My favorite awards include "The Happiness of Clams" (outcome: They reproduce more with an SSRI) "Levitating Frogs"  (more accurately, frogs suspended by electromagnets), and "The Kitty and the Keyboard" (on the development of software that detects when a cat is walking on the computer keyboard).