10 October 2005
Massey Lecturer Awarded Top Science Prize
Massey University's James Watson was presented with the 2005 Agricultural History Ig Nobel prize at the 15th First
Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony at Harvard's Sanders Theatre on Thursday night.
This prestigious award was made in recognition of his paper published in Agricultural History "The Significance of Mr.
Richard Buckley's Exploding Trousers: Reflections on an Aspect of Technological Change in New Zealand Dairy-Farming
between the World Wars".
Australia also punched above it's weight in the awards taking the Biology prize for a study on the smell of stressed
frogs and the Physics prize for studying a glob of tar dropping through a funnel since 1927.
The internet entrepreneurs of Nigeria took the Literature award for their creative writing which has introduced to the
world a rich cast of characters including General Sani Abacha, Mrs. Mariam Sanni Abacha, Barrister Jon A Mbeki Esq., and
others.
The Peace prize went to English academics who studied the brainwaves of a locust which was forced to watch Star Wars,
while the Nutrition prize went to Dr Yoshiro Nakamats of Japan who had photographed and analysed every meal he had eaten
in the last 34 years.
Calculations on the pressure buildup in a shitting penguin won the Fluid Dynamics prize for a group of European
scientists while American cognoscentiae took the remaining awards: the alarm clock that runs away and hides taking the
Economics gong; a study answering the age old question of whether people can swim faster in water or syrup took the
Chemistry prize; and the prize in Medicine for the invention artificial testicals for dogs.
Nature has described the awards as "arguably the highlight of the scientific calendar".
ENDS