The Necrophiliac Duck

[trixtah]

The Ig Nobels are about to start their 2005 tour in the UK; here is a list of participants:

• ROBERT BATTY (Ig Nobel Biology Prize winner, 2004). The discovery that herrings apparently communicate by farting.


• CHRIS McMANUS (Ig Nobel Medicine Prize winner, 2002 and 2003 Aventis Prize winner). Scrotal Asymmetry in Man and in Ancient Sculpture


• KEES MOELIKER (Ig Nobel Biology Prize winner, 2003), The First Scientifically Recorded Case of Homosexual Necrophilia in the Mallard Duck


• WOLTER SEUNTJENS. A comprehensive study of the Hidden Sexuality of the Human Yawn.


• PEK VAN ANDEL (Ig Nobel Medicine Prize winner, 2000). The first MRI pictures taken of a couple's sexual organs while those organs were in use.


• BEN WILSON (Ig Nobel Biology Prize winner, 2004). The discovery that herrings apparently communicate by farting

This year's prizes will be presented in October.

The Guardian has quite a lot of info on the necrophiliac duck. I think I'd quite like to know a bit more about the farting herrings, too. The MRI on the screwing couple is a bit old-hat -- it's better than sticking cameras up people's bits, a la Masters and Johnson.

But my favourite Ig Nobel research is that done last year on The Effects of Country Music On Suicide.



Country music is hypothesized to nurture a suicidal mood through its concerns with problems common in the suicidal population, such as marital discord, alcohol abuse, and alienation from work. The results of a multiple regression analysis of 49 metropolitan areas show that the greater the airtime devoted to country music, the greater the white suicide rate. The effect is independent of divorce, southernness, poverty, and gun availability.



When I heard about this one, it just proved what I always suspected... (country music certainly makes me feel suicidal, and, interestingly, homocidal. I wonder if the two are related?). So, I'm all for this kind of research!