By Adrianne Appel
BOSTON, Oct 3 2008 (IPS)

If you always thought there was something oddly intelligent about that slime slithering across your garden, you can rest assured that your hunch is supported by award-winning scientific research.

And if it crossed your mind that you could go to a strip club, observe lap dancers up close, call it research and win an award to boot, a career in science may be for you.

But don't attempt to use a Coca-Cola douche to avoid pregnancy. New prize-winning research shows Coke does kill sperm, but not quickly enough.

These are real research projects and the award that applauds them for their absurdity is the infamous Ig Nobel, handed out Thursday in a zany ceremony at Harvard University to honour published, peer-reviewed research that seems to take science too far.

Ten studies in all were feted in a ceremony that featured renowned scientists, real Nobel winners and Ig Nobel awardees from all over the world.

The ceremony is led by its mastermind, Marc Abrahams, publisher of the Annals of Improbable Research, and includes a cast of dozens of costumed scientists, musicians and assistants ranging in age from 8 to 84.

The Nobel Laureates who took part in the rowdy ceremony included Jerome Friedman (Physics, 1990), Roy Glauber (Physics, 2005), Dudley Herschbach (Chemistry, 1986) and William Lipscomb (Chemistry, 1976).

Lipscomb, dressed like most in a white laboratory coat, handed out the Ig Nobel prizes, along with help in the form of a dummy likeness of fellow Nobel winner Frank Wilczek (Physics, 2004), toted around by his daughter, Mira.

Brent Jordan and Geoffrey Miller of the University of New Mexico won the Ig Nobel Economics prize for discovering that lap dancers make better tips when they are ovulating. Each winning team was allowed 60 seconds for an acceptance speech.

"Scientists can learn a lot from lap dancers," Jordan said in accepting his prize in front of the boisterous crowd.

Deborah Anderson, of Boston University Medical School, tried to explain what compelled her to study the effectiveness of Coca-Cola as a form of birth control, published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

"Our seminal paper," she began, was inspired by a practice in vogue by girls attending a Catholic boarding school in Puerto Rico. "Coca-Cola does kill sperm in one minute," but that is not fast enough, she reported. "So we don't advocate douching with Coke for contraception."

The two human "V-chip monitors" whose job it was to intervene in case of any distasteful subject matter did not allow a demonstration of the birth control method.

C.Y. Hong, of Taipei Medical University in Taiwan, also tested Coke and came to the same conclusion. His daughter, Wan Hong accepted the Ig Nobel.

"I am 24 and it was precisely in 1984 that they tried it," she said.

Toshiyuki Nakagaki, of Hokkaido University in Japan, and two colleagues accepted an Ig Nobel for their study, "Maze-solving by an Amoeboid Organism," published in the prestigious journal Nature, about whether slime molds could indeed solve puzzles.

The three walked to the podium and sang their acceptance speech, while a cartoon was projected on a large screen behind them of a Rubik's cube being stared down by a slime mold.

"I'm happy to be rid of it," Nakagaki told IPS later, and it was unclear if he was referring to the study or to the award.

Ig Nobels were also awarded to: Brazilian researchers who studied the impact of a large armadillo on an archeological dig; Italian researchers for a study of whether a crunchy sound enhances the perceived crispiness of a potato chip; French researchers who discovered that fleas on dogs jump higher than fleas on cats; U.S. researchers who found that high-priced fake medicines work better than low-priced fake medicines; U.S. researchers who used math to prove that string and hair will knot spontaneously; a British researcher for his research on indignation within organisations, that resulted in a book titled "You Bastard: A narrative exploration"; and to the Swiss for adopting a legal principle that plants have dignity.

"Have you ever forgotten to water a plant and had to throw it away? Did that make you feel uneasy? Our law is for you," said Urs Thurnherr, of the Swiss Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology.

A highlight of the evening was the "Win a date with a Nobel Laureate contest", in which a supposedly unsuspecting female, always attractive and young, is chosen to go on a date with Lipscomb, 84.

Two "human spotlights," covered hair-to-toe in silver paint, highlighted the winner.

The evening also showcased a three-part mini-opera, about redundancy.

The audience directly participated in the ceremony by throwing hundreds of paper airplanes at the stage, an Ig Nobel tradition that was disallowed by Harvard University in the six years following the Sep. 11 attacks on the World Trade Centre and Pentagon, for security reasons, they said.

By the middle of the ceremony, Abrahams had a paper airplane lodged in his rumpled top hat. Asked later whether his display was out of happiness that airplane-throwing was nearly back to normal, he told IPS: "I'm all giddy."

High drama had kicked off the ceremony when Dan Meyer, a professional sword swallower and subject of a past Ig Nobel award, came on stage and gulped down a large sheath, then removed it gracefully with a flourish.

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