Ig Nobels Honor Odd Innovations

More than 1,200 paper-airplane throwing spectators gathered in Sanders Theatre last night to watch three Nobel prize laureates award the 2000 Ig Nobel Prizes to weird and wacky endeavors.

Nobel winners Charles Clements, Professor Dudley R. Herschbach '56 and Richard J. Roberts were on hand to honor work that "cannot or should not be reproduced."

Winners journeyed from the Netherlands, Scotland and Canada to accept their prizes. The gala ceremony recognized imaginative endeavors, ranging from levitating a frog with magnets to developing software that detects when a cat walks across a computer keyboard.

Australian Consulate-General Michael Baum attended to accept the literature award on behalf of Australian winner Jasmuheen, who explains in her book Living on Light that eating really isn't necessary.

"I think the scientific community needs to have its pants taken off every now and then," Baum said of the event, sponsored by the Annals of Improbable Research.

Magazine editor Marc Abrahams acted as master of ceremonies for this, the 10th annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony.

"If you didn't win an Ig Nobel prize tonight, and especially if you did, better luck next year," Abrahams said at the conclusion of the ceremony.

The evening also featured a series of events that centered around the theme "Intelligence." Roberts himself served as the prize in the Win-a-Date-With-a-Nobel-Lauerate Contest.

Also, Margot Button and Brian Nash, two local singers, starred in the world premiere of "The Brain Food Opera," a farce presented in three acts, set to well-known pieces of music from operas such as Carmen and La Traviata.

Special guests feuded in a debate to determine the Smartest Person in the World, with participants including Jamil Mahuad, former president of Ecuador and Leonid Hambro, former principal pianist of the New York Philharmonic.

Other highlights of the ceremony included a performance by Jim Bredt, who, painted silver from head to toe, performed for his ninth year as "the human spotlight."

Several of this year's winners will lecture today at the Harvard School of Public Health.

Tomorrow, the winners will travel to MIT to explain their work. Past winner Hyuk-Ho Kwon, inventor of the self-perfuming business suit, will join them.

The event was simulcast live on the Internet. A video recording of the ceremony is available at http://ignobel.org.