Singing of science and slime molds

Toshiyuki Nakagaki, of Hokkaido Univ., Japan, center, and fellow researchers sing their Ig Nobel Prize acceptance speech in three-part harmony, after they were awarded the Ig Nobel Prize for Cognitive Science Prize at Harvard Univ. in Cambridge, Mass., on Thurs., Oct. 2, for their research showing that slime molds can solve puzzles.
Winners included:
NUTRITION: Massimiliano Zampini and Charles Spence for demonstrating that food tastes better when it sounds better.
PEACE: The Swiss Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology and the citizens of Switzerland for adopting the legal principle that plants have dignity.
ARCHAEOLOGY: Astolfo Gomes de Mello Araujo and Jose Carlos Marcelino for showing armadillos can scramble the contents of an archaeological dig.
BIOLOGY: Marie-Christine Cadiergues, Christel Joubert and Michel Franc for discovering that fleas that live on a dog can jump higher than fleas that live on a cat.
MEDICINE: Dan Ariely for demonstrating that expensive fake medicine is more effective than cheap fake medicine.
COGNITIVE SCIENCE: Toshiyuki Nakagaki, Hiroyasu Yamada, Ryo Kobayashi, Atsushi Tero, Akio Ishiguro and Agota Toth for discovering that slime molds can solve puzzles.
ECONOMICS: Geoffrey Miller, Joshua Tyber and Brent Jordan for discovering that exotic dancers earn more when at peak fertility.
PHYSICS: Dorian Raymer and Douglas Smith for proving that heaps of string or hair will inevitably tangle.
CHEMISTRY: Sheree Umpierre, Joseph Hill and Deborah Anderson for discovering that Coca-Cola is an effective spermicide, and C.Y. Hong, C.C. Shieh, P. Wu and B.N. Chiang for proving it is not.
LITERATURE: David Sims for his study "You Bastard: A Narrative Exploration of the Experience of Indignation within Organizations."
CREDIT: AP Photo/Josh Reynolds
SOURCE: Associated Press.

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