So following my long, convoluted and high brow post of yesterday only really appealing to us hypnosis nerds… I have some lighter stuff to marvel at today… I absolutely laughed out loud the first time someone pointed this stuff out to me…

So this utterly hilarious and wonderful article over the Telegaph states:

As the government prepares to crack down on ‘irrelevant’ research, we look at some of the things we’ll be losing, courtesy of the Ig Nobel awards. The government has unveiled plans to allocate research funding according to how much “impact” the research has.

The plans have come under fire from academics, who say that curiosity-driven, speculative research has led to some of the most important breakthroughs in scientific history, including penicillin, relativity theory and the theory of evolution. More than that, though, it might bring an end to the quirky, sometimes daft, sometimes weirdly inspired research that brings harmless entertainment and occasional enlightenment to armchair boffins and science nerds everywhere.

Do please go and read the article in full, if you don’t here are my favourites from the ones they list, I think they are nothing short of absolutely hilarious and will keep me laughing for weeks:

Digital rectal massage is a cure for hiccups, winner, Medicine, 2006
Chinstrap penguins can squirt poo up to 40cm, winner, Fluid Dynamics, 2005
Ducks can be homosexual necrophiliacs too (winner, Biology, 2003)
Suicide rates are linked to the amount of country music played on the radio, winner, Medicine, 2004
Why woodpeckers don’t get headaches – winner, Ornithology, 2006

Hahahahahahahaha 🙂