| Subject |
Name |
Reason |
| 1991 |
|---|
| Biology |
Robert Klark Graham |
A selector of seeds and prophet of propagation, for his pioneering development of the Repository for Germinal Choice, a sperm bank that accepts donations only from Nobellians and Olympians. |
| Chemistry |
Jacques Benveniste |
Prolific proseletizer and dedicated
correspondent of "Nature," for his persistent discovery that water, H2O, is an intelligent liquid, and for demonstrating to his satisfaction that water is able to remember events long after all traces of those events have vanished. |
| Medicine |
Alan Kligerman |
Deviser of digestive deliverance, vanquisher of
vapor, and inventor of Beano, for his pioneering work with anti-gas liquids that prevent bloat, gassiness, discomfort and embarrassment. |
| Literature |
Erich von Däniken |
Vvisionary raconteur and author of Chariots of the Gods?, for explaining how human civilization was influenced by ancient astronauts from outer space. |
| Peace |
Edward Teller |
Father of the hydrogen bomb and first champion of the Star Wars weapons system, for his lifelong efforts to change the meaning of peace as we know it. |
| Economics |
Michael Milken |
Titan of Wall Street and father of the junk bond, to whom the world is indebted. |
| Education |
J. Danforth Quayle |
Consumer of time and occupier of space, for demonstrating, better than anyone else, the need for science education. |
| Apocryphal achievements - featured three fictional recipients for fictional achievements. |
| Physics |
Thomas Kyle |
For his discovery of "the heaviest element in the universe, Administratium" |
| Interdisciplinary research |
Josiah S. Carberry |
For his work in psychoceramics, the study of "cracked pots." |
| Pedestrian technology |
Paul DeFanti |
For his invention of the Buckybonnet, a geodesic fashion structure that pedestrians wear to protect their heads and preserve their composure". |
| 1992 |
|---|
| Biology |
Dr. Cecil Jacobson |
Relentlessly generous sperm donor, and
prolific patriarch of sperm banking, for devising a simple,
single-handed method of quality control. |
| Physics |
David Chorley
Doug Bower |
Lions of low-energy physics, for
their circular contributions to field theory based on the
geometrical destruction of English crops. |
| Chemistry |
Ivette Bassa |
Constructor of colorfulcolloids, for her role in
the crowning achievement of twentieth century chemistry, the
synthesis of bright blue Jell-O. |
| Medicine |
F. Kanda, E. Yagi, M. Fukuda, K. Nakajima, T. Ohta and O. Nakata
of the Shisedo Research Center in Yokohama |
For their pioneering
research study "Elucidation of Chemical Compounds Responsible for
Foot Malodour," especially for their conclusion that people who
think they have foot odor do, and those who don't, don't. |
| Literature |
Yuri Struchkov |
Unstoppable author from the Institute of
Organoelemental Compounds in Moscow, for the 948 scientific papers
he published between the years 1981 and 1990, averaging more than
one every 3.9 days. |
| Peace |
Daryl Gates |
Former Police Chief of the City of Los Angeles, for
his uniquely compelling methods of bringing people together. |
| Economics |
The investors of Lloyds of London |
Heirs to 300 years of dull
prudent management, for their bold attempt to insure disaster by
refusing to pay for their company's losses. |
| Archeology |
Eclaireurs de France |
The Protestant youth group whose name means
"those who show the way," removers of grafitti, for
erasing the ancient paintings from the walls of the Meyrieres Cave
near the French village of Bruniquel. |
| Nutrition |
The utilizers of Spam |
Courageous consumers of canned comestibles,
for 54 years of undiscriminating digestion. |
| Art |
Jim Knowlton |
Modern Renaissance man, for his
classic anatomy poster "Penises of the Animal Kingdom," |
| U.S. National Endowment for the Arts |
For encouraging Mr. Knowlton
to extend his work in the form of a pop-up book. |
| 1993 |
|---|
| Biology |
Paul Williams Jr. (Oregon State Health Division)
Kenneth
W. Newell (Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine) |
Bold
biological detectives, for their pioneering study, "Salmonella
Excretion in Joy-Riding Pigs." |
| Physics |
Louis Kervran (France) |
Ardent admirer of alchemy, for his
conclusion that the calcium in chickens' eggshells is created by a
process of cold fusion. |
| Chemistry |
James & Gaines Campbell (Lookout Mountain, Tennessee) |
Dedicated deliverers of fragrance, for inventing scent strips, the
odious method by which perfume is applied to magazine pages. |
| Medicine |
James F. Nolan
Thomas J. Stillwell
John P. Sands, Jr. |
Medical men of mercy, for their painstaking research report,
"Acute Management of the Zipper-Entrapped Penis." |
| Literature |
E. Topol, R. Califf, F. Van de Werf, P. W. Armstrong, and
their 972 co-authors |
For publishing a medical research paper
which has one hundred times as many authors as pages. |
| Peace |
The Pepsi-Cola Company (Phillipines) |
Suppliers of sugary
hopes and dreams, for sponsoring a contest to create a
millionaire, and then announcing the wrong winning number, thereby
inciting and uniting 800,000 riotously expectant winners, and
bringing many warring factions together for the first time in
their nation's history. |
| Economics |
Ravi Batra (Southern Methodist University) |
Shrewd economist and
best-selling author of "The Great Depression of 1990" ($17.95) and
"Surviving the Great Depression of 1990" ($18.95), for selling
enough copies of his books to single-handedly prevent worldwide
economic collapse. |
| Consumer Engineering |
Ron Popeil |
Incessant inventor and perpetual pitchman of late
night television, for redefining the industrial revolution with
such devices as the Veg-O-Matic, the Pocket Fisherman, Mr. Microphone, and the Inside-the-Shell Egg Scrambler |
| Mathematics |
Robert Faid (Greenville, South Carolina) |
Farsighted and faithful
seer of statistics, for calculating the exact odds
(710,609,175,188,282,000 to 1) that Mikhail Gorbachev is the Antichrist. |
| Psychology |
John Mack (Harvard Medical School)
David Jacobs (Temple
University) |
Mental visionaries, for their leaping conclusion that
people who believe they were kidnapped by aliens from outer space,
probably were - and especially for their conclusion "the focus of
the abduction is the production of children". |
| 1994 |
|---|
| Biology |
W. Brian Sweeney
Brian Krafte-Jacobs
Jeffrey W. Britton
Wayne Hansen |
For their breakthrough study, "The Constipated
Serviceman: Prevalence Among Deployed US Troops," and especially
for their numerical analysis of bowel movement frequency. |
| Chemistry |
Bob Glasgow (Texas State Senator) |
Wise writer of logical
legislation, for sponsoring the 1989 drug control law which makes
it illegal to purchase beakers, flasks, test tubes, or other
laboratory glassware without a permit. |
| Medicine |
Patient X (formerly
of the US Marine Corps) |
Valiant victim of a venomous bite from his
pet rattlesnake, for his determined use of electroshock therapy -
at his own insistence, automobile sparkplug wires were attached to
his lip, and the car engine revved to 3000 rpm for five minutes. |
Dr. Richard C. Dart (Rocky Mountain Poison Center)
Dr. Richard A. Gustafson (University of Arizona Health
Sciences Center) |
For their well-grounded medical report: "Failure
of Electric Shock Treatment for Rattlesnake Envenomation." |
| Literature |
L. Ron Hubbard |
Ardent author of science fiction and founding
father of Scientology, for his crackling Good Book, "Dianetics,"
which is highly profitable to mankind or to a portion thereof. |
| Peace |
John Hagelin (Maharishi University & The Institute of Science,
Technology and Public Policy) |
Promulgator of peaceful thoughts,
for his experimental conclusion that 4,000 trained meditators
caused an 18 percent decrease in violent crime in Washington, D.C. |
| Economics |
Jan Pablo Davila (Chile) |
Tireless trader of financial futures
and former employee of the state-owned Codelco Company, for
instructing his computer to "buy" when he meant "sell," and
subsequently attempting to recoup his losses by making
increasingly unprofitable trades that ultimately lost .5 percent
of Chile's gross national product. Davila's relentless achievement
inspired his countrymen to coin a new verb: " davilar," meaning,
"to botch things up royally." |
| Mathematics |
The Southern Baptist Church of Alabama |
Mathematical measurers of
morality, for their county-by-county estimate of how many Alabama
citizens will go to Hell if they don't repent. |
| Entomolgy |
Robert A. Lopez (Westport, NY) |
Valiant veterinarian and friend
of all creatures great and small, for his series of experiments in
obtaining ear mites from cats, inserting them into his own ear,
and carefully observing and analyzing the results. |
| Psychology |
Lee Kuan Yew (former Prime Minister of Singapore) |
Practitioner of
the psychology of negative reinforcement, for his thirty-year
study of the effects of punishing three million citizens of
Singapore whenever they spat, chewed gum, or fed pigeons. |
| Apochryphal Achievements - no longer officially listed |
| Physics |
The Japanese Meteorological Agency |
For its seven-year study of whether earthquakes are caused by catfish wiggling their tails. This winner is not officially listed, as it was based on what turned out to be erroneous press accounts. |
| 1995 |
|---|
| Physics |
D.M.R. Georget, R. Parker, and A.C. Smith (Institute of
Food Research, Norwich, England) |
For their rigorous analysis of
soggy breakfast cereal, published in the report entitled 'A Study
of the Effects of Water Content on the Compaction Behaviour of
Breakfast Cereal Flakes." |
| Chemistry |
Bijan Pakzad (Beverly Hills) |
For creating DNA Cologne and DNA
PERFUME, neither of which contain deoxyribonucleic acid, and both
of which come in a triple helix bottle. |
| Medicine |
Marcia E. Buebel
David S. Shannahoff-Khalsa
Michael R.
Boyle |
For their invigorating study entitled "The Effects of
Unilateral Forced Nostril Breathing on Cognition." |
| Literature |
David B. Busch & James R. Starling (Madison Wisconsin) |
For
their deeply penetrating research report, "Rectal foreign bodies:
Case Reports and a Comprehensive Review of the World's
Literature." The citations include reports of, among other items:
seven light bulbs; a knife sharpener; two flashlights; a wire
spring; a snuff box; an oil can with potato stopper; eleven
different forms of fruits, vegetables and other foodstuffs; a
jeweler's saw; a frozen pig's tail; a tin cup; a beer glass; and
one patient's remarkable ensemble collection consisting of
spectacles, a suitcase key, a tobacco pouch and a magazine. |
| Peace |
The Taiwan National Parliament |
For demonstrating that politicians
gain more by punching, kicking and gouging each other than by
waging war against other nations. |
| Economics |
Nick Leeson and his superiors at Barings Bank
Robert Citron (Orange County, California) |
For using the
calculus of derivatives to demonstrate that every financial
institution has its limits. |
| Dentistry |
Robert H. Beaumont (Shoreview, Minnesota) |
For his incisive
study "Patient Preference for Waxed or Unwaxed Dental Floss." |
| Psychology |
Shigeru Watanabe, Junko Sakamoto, & Masumi Wakita (Keio
University) |
For their success in training pigeons to discriminate
between the paintings of Picasso and those of Monet. |
| Nutrition |
John Martinez (J. Martinez & Company in Atlanta, Georgia) |
For Luak
Coffee, the world's most expensive coffee, which is made from
coffee beans ingested and excreted by the luak (aka, the palm
civet), a bobcat-like animal native to Indonesia. |
| Public Health |
Martha Kold Bakkevig (Sintef Unimed in Trondheim, Norway)
Ruth Nielson of the Technical (University of Denmark) |
For their
exhaustive study, "Impact of Wet Underwear on Thermoregulatory
Responses and Thermal Comfort in the Cold." |
| 1996 |
|---|
| Biology |
Anders Barheim & Hogne Sandvik (University of Bergen,
Norway) |
For their tasty and tasteful report, "Effect of Ale,
Garlic, and Soured Cream on the Appetite of Leeches." |
| Physics |
Robert Matthews (Aston University, England) |
For his studies of
Murphy's Law, and especially for demonstrating that toast often
falls on the buttered side. |
| Chemistry |
George Goble (Purdue University) |
For his blistering world record
time for igniting a barbeque grill-three seconds, using charcoal
and liquid oxygen. |
| Medicine |
James Johnston (R.J. Reynolds)
Joseph Taddeo (U.S. Tobacco)
Andrew Tisch (Lorillard)
William Campbell (Philip Morris)
Edward A. Horrigan (Liggett Group)
Donald S. Johnston (American
Tobacco Company)
Thomas E. Sandefur Jr.(deceased - chairman of
Brown and Williamson Tobacco Co.) |
For their unshakable discovery,
as testified to the U.S. Congress, that nicotine is not addictive. |
| Literature |
The editors of the journal "Social Text," |
For eagerly publishing
research that they could not understand, that the author said was
meaningless, and which claimed that reality does not exist. |
| Peace |
Jacques Chirac (President of France) |
For commemorating the
fiftieth anniversary of Hiroshima with atomic bomb tests in the
Pacific. |
| Economics |
Dr. Robert J. Genco (University of Buffalo) |
For his discovery
that "financial strain is a risk indicator for destructive
periodontal disease. |
| Art |
Don Featherstone (Fitchburg, Massachusetts) |
For his ornamentally
evolutionary invention, the plastic pink flamingo. |
| Biodiversity |
Chonosuke Okamura (Okamura Fossil Laboratory, Nagoya,
Japan) |
For discovering the fossils of dinosaurs, horses, dragons,
princesses, and more than 1000 other extinct "mini-species," each
of which is less than 1/100 of an inch in length. |
| Public Health |
Ellen Kleist (Nuuk, Greenland)
Harald Moi (Oslo, Norway) |
For their cautionary medical report "Transmission of Gonorrhea
Through an Inflatable Doll." |
| 1997 |
|---|
| Biology |
T. Yagyu and his colleagues from the University Hospital
of Zurich, Switzerland, from Kansai Medical University in Osaka,
Japan, and from Neuroscience Technology Research in Prague, Czech
Republic |
For measuring people's brainwave patterns while they
chewed different flavors of gum. |
| Physics |
John Bockris of Texas A&M University |
For his wide-
ranging achievements in cold fusion, in the transmutation of base
elements into gold, and in the electrochemical incineration of
domestic rubbish. |
| Medicine |
Carl J. Charnetski and Francis X. Brennan, Jr. of Wilkes
University, and James F. Harrison of Muzak Ltd. in Seattle,
Washington |
For their discovery that listening to elevator Muzak
stimulates immunoblobulin A (IgA) production, and thus may help
prevent the common cold. |
| Literature |
Doron Witztum, Eliyahu Rips and Yoav Rosenberg of
Israel, and Michael Drosnin of the United States |
For their
hairsplitting statistical discovery that the bible contains a
secret, hidden code. |
| Peace |
Harold Hillman of the University of Surrey, England |
For his
lovingly rendered and ultimately peaceful report "The Possible
Pain Experienced During Execution by Different Methods." |
| Economics |
Akihiro Yokoi of Wiz Company in Chiba, Japan and Aki
Maita of Bandai Company in Tokyo |
The father and mother of
Tamagotchi, for diverting millions of person-hours of work into
the husbandry of virtual pets. |
| Entymology |
Mark Hostetler of the University of Florida |
For his
scholarly book, "That Gunk on Your Car," which identifies the
insect splats that appear on automobile windows. |
| Astronomy |
Richard Hoagland of New Jersey |
For identifying
artificial features on the moon and on Mars, including a human
face on Mars and ten-mile high buildings on the far side of the
moon. |
| Communications |
Sanford Wallace, president of Cyber Promotions of Philadelphia |
Nothing has stopped this self-appointed courier from delivering electronic junk mail to all the world. |
| Meteorology |
Bernard Vonnegut of the State University of Albany |
For his revealing report, "Chicken Plucking as Measure of Tornado
Wind Speed." |
| 1998 |
|---|
| Biology |
Peter Fong of Gettysburg College, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania |
For contributing to the happiness of clams by giving them Prozac. |
| Physics |
Deepak Chopra of The Chopra Center for Well Being, La Jolla, California |
For his unique interpretation of quantum physics as it applies to life, liberty, and the pursuit of economic happiness. |
| Chemistry |
Jacques Benveniste of France |
For his homeopathic discovery that not only does water have memory, but that the information can be transmitted over telephone lines and the Internet. |
| Medicine |
Patient Y and to his doctors, Caroline Mills, Meirion Llewelyn, David Kelly, and Peter Holt, of Royal Gwent Hospital, in Newport, Wales |
For the cautionary medical report, "A Man Who Pricked His Finger and Smelled Putrid for 5 Years." |
| Literature |
Dr. Mara Sidoli of Washington, DC |
For her illuminating report, "Farting as a Defence Against Unspeakable Dread". |
| Peace |
Prime Minister of India, Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Prime Minister of Pakistan, Nawaz Sharif |
For their aggressively peaceful explosions of atomic bombs. |
| Economics |
Richard Seed of Chicago |
For his efforts to stoke up the world economy by cloning himself and other human beings. |
| Science Education |
Dolores Krieger, Professor Emerita, New York University |
For demonstrating the merits of therapeutic touch, a method by which nurses manipulate the energy fields of ailing patients by carefully avoiding physical contact with those patients. |
| Statistics |
Jerald Bain of Mt. Sinai Hospital in Toronto and Kerry Siminoski of the University of Alberta |
For their carefully measured report, "The Relationship Among Height, Penile Length, and Foot Size". |
| Safety Engineering |
Troy Hurtubise, of North Bay, Ontario |
For developing and personally testing a suit of armor that is impervious to grizzly bears. |
| 1999 |
|---|
| Biology |
Dr. Paul Bosland, director of The Chili Pepper Institute, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, New Mexico, |
For breeding a spiceless jalapeńo chili pepper. |
| Physics |
Dr. Len Fisher of Bath, England and Sydney, Australia |
For calculating the optimal way to dunk a biscuit. Also, to Professor Jean-Marc Vanden-Broeck of the University of East Anglia, England, and Belgium, for calculating how to make a teapot spout that does not drip. |
| Chemistry |
Takeshi Makino, president of The Safety Detective Agency in Osaka, Japan |
For his involvement with S-Check, an infidelity detection spray that wives can apply to their husbands' underwear. |
| Medicine |
Dr. Arvid Vatle of Stord, Norway |
For carefully collecting, classifying, and contemplating which kinds of containers his patients chose when submitting urine samples. |
| Literature |
The British Standards Institution |
For its six-page specification (BS 6008) of the proper way to make a cup of tea. |
| Peace |
Charl Fourie and Michelle Wong of Johannesburg, South Africa |
For inventing the Blaster, an automobile burglar alarm consisting of a detection circuit and a flamethrower. |
| Science Education |
Kansas State Board of Education and the Colorado State Board of Education |
For mandating that children should not believe in Darwin's theory of evolution any more than they believe in Newton's theory of gravitation, Faraday's and Maxwell's theory of electromagnetism, or Pasteur's theory that germs cause disease. |
| Sociology |
Steve Penfold, of York University in Toronto |
For doing his Ph.D. thesis on the history of Canadian donut shops. |
| Environmental Protection |
Hyuk-ho Kwon of Kolon Company of Seoul, South Korea |
For inventing the self-perfuming business suit. |
| Managed Health Care |
George Blonsky and Charlotte Blonsky of New York City and San Jose, California |
For inventing a device (U.S. Patent 3,216,423 ) to aid women in giving birth - the woman is strapped onto a circular table, and the table is then rotated at high speed. |
| 2000 |
|---|
| Biology |
Richard Wassersug of Dalhousie University |
For his firsthand report, "On the Comparative Palatability of Some Dry-Season Tadpoles from Costa Rica". |
| Physics |
André Geim of the University of Nijmegen, the Netherlands, and Sir Michael Berry of Bristol University, England |
For using magnets to levitate a frog and a sumo wrestler. |
| Chemistry |
Donatella Marazziti, Alessandra Rossi, and Giovanni B. Cassano of the University of Pisa, Italy, and Hagop S. Akiskal of the University of California, San Diego |
For their discovery that, biochemically, romantic love may be indistinguishable from having severe obsessive-compulsive disorder. |
| Medicine |
Willibrord Weijmar Schultz, Pek van Andel, and Eduard Mooyaart of Groningen, the Netherlands, and Ida Sabelis of Amsterdam |
For their illuminating report, "Magnetic Resonance Imaging of Male and Female Genitals During Coitus and Female Sexual Arousal." |
| Literature |
Jasmuheen (formerly known as Ellen Greve) of Australia, first lady of Breatharianism |
For her book Living on Light, which explains that although some people do eat food, they don't ever really need to. |
| Peace |
The British Royal Navy |
For ordering its sailors to stop using live cannon shells, and to instead just shout "Bang!" |
| Economics |
The Reverend Sun Myung Moon |
For bringing efficiency and steady growth to the mass marriage industry, with, according to his reports, a 36-couple wedding in 1960, a 430-couple wedding in 1968, an 1800-couple wedding in 1975, a 6000-couple wedding in 1982, a 30,000-couple wedding in 1992, a 360,000-couple wedding in 1995, and a 36,000,000-couple wedding in 1997. |
| Computer Science |
Chris Niswander of Tucson, Arizona |
For inventing PawSense, software that detects when a cat is walking across your computer keyboard. |
| Psychology |
David Dunning of Cornell University and Justin Kreuger of the University of Illinois |
For their modest report, "Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments". |
| Public Health |
Jonathan Wyatt, Gordon McNaughton, and William Tullet of Glasgow, Scotland |
For their alarming report, "The Collapse of Toilets in Glasgow". |
| 2001 |
|---|
| Biology |
Buck Weimer of Pueblo, Colorado |
For inventing Under-Ease, airtight underwear with a replaceable charcoal filter that removes bad-smelling gases before they escape. |
| Physics |
David Schmidt of the University of Massachusetts |
For his partial explanation of the shower-curtain effect: a shower curtain tends to billow inwards while a shower is being taken. |
| Medicine |
Peter Barss of McGill University, Canada |
For his impactful medical report "Injuries Due to Falling Coconuts". |
| Literature |
John Richards of Boston, England, founder of The Apostrophe Protection Society |
For his efforts to protect, promote, and defend the differences between the plural and the possessive. |
| Peace |
Viliumas Malinauskas of Grutas, Lithuania |
For creating the amusement park known as "Stalin World". |
| Economics |
Joel Slemrod, of the University of Michigan Business School, and Wojciech Kopczuk, of the University of British Columbia |
For their conclusion that people find a way to postpone their deaths if that would qualify them for a lower rate on the inheritance tax. |
| Astrophysics |
Dr. Jack Van Impe and Rexella Van Impe of Jack Van Impe Ministries, Rochester Hills, Michigan |
For their discovery that black holes fulfill all the technical requirements for the location of Hell. |
| Psychology |
Lawrence W. Sherman of Miami University, Ohio |
For his influential research report "An Ecological Study of Glee in Small Groups of Preschool Children". |
| Public Health |
Chittaranjan Andrade and B.S. Srihari of the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Bangalore, India |
For their probing medical discovery that nose picking is a common activity among adolescents. |
| Technology |
John Keogh of Hawthorn, Victoria, Australia |
For patenting the wheel in the year 2001 |
| Australian Patent Office |
For granting John Keogh of Hawthorn, Victoria, Innovation Patent #2001100012. |
| 2002 |
|---|
| Biology |
Norma E. Bubier, Charles G.M. Paxton, Phil Bowers, and D. Charles Deeming of the U.K |
For their report "Courtship Behaviour of Ostriches Towards Humans Under Farming Conditions in Britain". |
| Physics |
Arnd Leike of the University of Munich |
For demonstrating that beer froth obeys the Mathematical Law of Exponential Decay. |
| Chemistry |
Theodore Gray of Wolfram Research, in Champaign, Illinois |
For gathering many elements of the periodic table, and assembling them into the form of a four-legged periodic table table. |
| Medicine |
Chris McManus of University College London |
For his excruciatingly balanced report, "Scrotal Asymmetry in Man and in Ancient Sculpture". |
| Literature |
Jointly to Vicki L. Silvers of the University of Nevada-Reno and David S. Kreiner of Central Missouri State University |
For their colourful report "The Effects of Pre-Existing Inappropriate Highlighting on Reading Comprehension". |
| Peace |
Keita Sato, President of Takara Co., Dr. Matsumi Suzuki, President of Japan Acoustic Lab, and Dr. Norio Kogure, Executive Director, Kogure Veterinary Hospital |
For promoting peace and harmony between the species by inventing Bow-Lingual, a computer-based automatic dog-to-human language translation device |
| Economics |
The executives, corporate directors, and auditors of Enron, Lernaut & Hauspie (Belgium), Adelphia, Bank of Commerce and Credit International (Pakistan), Cendant, CMS Energy, Duke Energy, Dynegy, Gazprom (Russia), Global Crossing, HIH Insurance (Australia), Informix, Kmart, Maxwell Communications (UK), McKessonHBOC, Merrill Lynch, Merck, Peregrine Systems, Qwest Communications, Reliant Resources, Rent-Way, Rite Aid, Sunbeam, Tyco, Waste Management, WorldCom, Xerox, and Arthur Andersen |
For adapting the mathematical concept of imaginary numbers for use in the business world. (All companies were forced to restate their financial reports due to false or incorrect accounting and are U.S.-based unless otherwise noted.) |
| Hygiene |
Eduardo Segura, of Lavakan de Aste, in Tarragona, Spain |
For inventing a washing machine for cats and dogs. |
| Interdisciplinary Research |
Karl Kruszelnicki of The University of Sydney, Australia |
For performing a comprehensive survey of human belly button fluff - who gets it, when, what color, and how much. |
| Mathematics |
K.P. Sreekumar and G. Nirmalan of Kerala Agricultural University, India |
For their analytical report "Estimation of the Total Surface Area in Indian Elephants". |
| 2003 |
|---|
| Biology |
C.W. Moeliker, of Natuurmuseum Rotterdam |
For documenting the first scientifically recorded case of homosexual necrophilia in the mallard duck. |
| Physics |
Jack Harvey, John Culveno, Warren Payne, Steve Cowle, Michael Lawrance, David Stuart, and Robyn Williams of Australia |
For their irresistible report "An Analysis of the Forces Required to Drag Sheep over Various Surfaces". |
| Chemistry |
Yukio Hirose of Kanazawa University |
For his chemical investigation of a bronze statue, in the city of Kanazawa, that fails to attract pigeons. |
| Medicine |
Eleanor Maguire, David Gadian, Ingrid Johnsrude, Catriona Good, John Ashburner, Richard Frackowiak, and Christopher Frith of University College London |
For presenting evidence that the hippocampi of London taxi drivers are more highly developed than those of their fellow citizens. |
| Literature |
John Trinkaus, of the Zicklin School of Business, New York City |
For meticulously collecting data and publishing more than 80 detailed academic reports about things that annoyed him, such as:
- What percentage of young people wear baseball caps with the peak facing to the rear rather than to the front; What percentage of pedestrians wear sport shoes that are white rather than some other color; What percentage of swimmers swim laps in the shallow end of a pool rather than the deep end; What percentage of automobile drivers almost, but not completely, come to a stop at one particular stop-sign; What percentage of commuters carry attaché cases; What percentage of shoppers exceed the number of items permitted in a supermarket's express checkout lane; and what percentage of students dislike the taste of Brussels sprouts.
|
| Peace |
Lal Bihari, of Uttar Pradesh, India |
For a triple accomplishment: First, for leading an active life even though he has been declared legally dead; second, for waging a lively posthumous campaign against bureaucratic inertia and greedy relatives; and third, for creating the Association of Dead People. Lal Bihari overcame the handicap of being dead, and managed to obtain a passport from the Indian government so that he could travel to Harvard to accept his Prize. However, the U.S. government refused to allow him into the country. His friend Madhu Kapoor therefore came to the Ig Nobel Ceremony and accepted the Prize on behalf of Lal Bihari. Several weeks later, the Prize was presented to Lal Bihari himself in a special ceremony in India. |
| Economics |
Karl Schwärzler and the nation of Liechtenstein |
For making it possible to rent the entire country for corporate conventions, weddings, bar mitzvahs, and other gatherings. |
| Engineering |
John Paul Stapp, Edward A. Murphy, Jr., and George Nichols |
For jointly giving birth in 1949 to Murphy's Law, the basic engineering principle that "If there are two or more ways to do something, and one of those ways can result in a catastrophe, someone will do it" (or, in other words: "If anything can go wrong, it will"). |
| Interdisciplinary Research |
Stefano Ghirlanda, Liselotte Jansson, and Magnus Enquis of Stockholm University |
For their inevitable report "Chickens Prefer Beautiful Humans." |
| Psychology |
Gian Vittorio Caprara and Claudio Barbaranelli of the University of Rome La Sapienza, and to Philip Zimbardo of Stanford University |
For their discerning report "Politicians' Uniquely Simple Personalities". |
| 2004 |
|---|
| Biology |
Ben Wilson of the University of British Columbia, Lawrence Dill of Simon Fraser University, Canada, Robert Batty of the Scottish Association for Marine Science, Magnus Whalberg of the University of Aarhus, Denmark, and Hĺkan Westerberg of Sweden's National Board of Fisheries, |
For showing that herrings apparently communicate by farting. |
| Physics |
Ramesh Balasubramaniam of the University of Ottawa, and Michael Turvey of the University of Connecticut and Haskins Laboratory |
For exploring and explaining the dynamics of hula-hooping. |
| Chemistry |
The Coca-Cola Company of Great Britain, |
For using advanced technology to convert liquid from the River Thames into Dasani, a transparent form of water, which for precautionary reasons has been made unavailable to consumers. |
| Medicine |
Steven Stack of Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan, and James Gundlach of Auburn University, Auburn, Alabama |
For their published report "The Effect of Country Music on Suicide". |
| Literature |
The American Nudist Research Library of Kissimmee, Florida |
For preserving nudist history so that everyone can see it. |
| Peace |
Daisuke Inoue of Hyogo Prefecture, Japan |
For inventing karaoke, thereby providing an entirely new way for people to learn to tolerate each other. |
| Economics |
The Vatican |
For outsourcing prayers to India. |
| Engineering |
Donald J. Smith and his father, Frank J. Smith, of Orlando, Florida |
For patenting the comb over (U.S. Patent 4,022,227 ) |
| Psychology |
Daniel Simons of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Christopher Chabris of Harvard University |
For demonstrating that when people pay close attention to something, it's all too easy to overlook anything else - even a woman in a gorilla suit. [See inattentional blindness] |
| Public Health |
Jillian Clarke of the Chicago High School for Agricultural Sciences and Howard University |
For investigating the scientific validity of the five-second rule about whether it's safe to eat food that's been dropped on the floor. |
| 2005 |
|---|
| Biology |
Presented jointly to Benjamin Smith of the University of Adelaide, Australia and the University of Toronto, Canada and the Firmenich perfume company, Geneva, Switzerland, and ChemComm Enterprises, Archamps, France; Craig Williams of James Cook University and the University of South Australia; Michael Tyler of the University of Adelaide; Brian Williams of the University of Adelaide; and Yoji Hayasaka of the Australian Wine Research Institute |
For painstakingly smelling and cataloging the peculiar odours produced by 131 different species of frogs when the frogs were feeling stressed. |
| Physics |
John Mainstone and Thomas Parnell of the University of Queensland, Australia |
For patiently conducting the so-called pitch drop experiment that began in the year 1927 - in which a glob of congealed black tar pitch has been slowly, slowly dripping through a funnel, at a rate of approximately one drop every nine years |
| Chemistry |
Edward Cussler of the University of Minnesota and Brian Gettelfinger of the University of Minnesota and the University of Wisconsin-Madison |
For conducting a careful experiment to settle the longstanding scientific question: can people swim faster in syrup or in water? It was found that swimmers in the experiment reach comparable velocity in both media. |
| Medicine |
Gregg A. Miller of Oak Grove, Missouri, in the U.S.A. |
For inventing Neuticles - artificial replacement testicles for dogs, which are available in three sizes, and three degrees of firmness. |
| Literature |
The Internet entrepreneurs of Nigeria |
For creating and then using e-mail to distribute a bold series of short stories, thus introducing millions of readers to a cast of rich characters - General Sani Abacha, Mrs. Mariam Sanni Abacha, Barrister Jon A Mbeki Esq., and others - each of whom requires just a small amount of expense money so as to obtain access to the great wealth to which they are entitled and which they would like to share with the kind person who assists them. |
| Peace |
Claire Rind and Peter Simmons of University of Newcastle, in the UK, |
For electrically monitoring the activity of a brain cell in a locust while that locust was watching selected highlights from the movie Star Wars. |
| Economics |
Gauri Nanda of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
For inventing Clocky, an alarm clock that runs away and hides, repeatedly, thus ensuring that people DO get out of bed, and thus theoretically adding many productive hours to the workday. |
| Agricultural History |
James Watson of Massey University, New Zealand |
For his scholarly study, "The Significance of Mr. Richard Buckley's Exploding Trousers". |
| Fluid Dynamics |
Victor Benno Meyer-Rochow of International University Bremen, Germany and the University of Oulu, Finland; and József Gál of Loránd Eötvös University, Hungary |
For using basic principles of physics to calculate the pressure that builds up inside a penguin, as detailed in their report "Pressures Produced When Penguins Poo - Calculations on Avian Defecation". |
| Nutrition |
Dr. Yoshiro Nakamatsu of Tokyo, Japan |
For photographing and retrospectively analyzing every meal he has consumed during a period of 34 years (and counting). |
| 2006 |
|---|
| Biology |
Bart Knols of Wageningen Agricultural University, in Wageningen, the Netherlands; and of the National Institute for Medical Research / Ifakara Centre, Tanzania, and of the International Atomic Energy Agency, in Vienna, Austria) and Ruurd de Jong of Wageningen Agricultural University and of Santa Maria degli Angeli, Italy |
For showing that the female malaria mosquito Anopheles gambiae is attracted equally to the smell of limburger cheese and to the smell of human feet. |
| Physics |
Basile Audoly and Sebastien Neukirch of the Université Pierre et Marie Curie |
For their analysis that explains why spaghetti breaks into several pieces when it is bent. |
| Chemistry |
Antonio Mulet, José Javier Benedito and José Bon of the Polytechnic University of Valencia, Spain, and Carmen Rosselló of the University of Illes Balears, in Palma de Mallorca, Spain |
For their study "Ultrasonic Velocity in Cheddar Cheese as Affected by Temperature". |
| Medicine |
Francis M. Fesmire of the University of Tennessee College of Medicine |
For his medical case report "Termination of Intractable Hiccups with Digital Rectal Massage"; and Majed Odeh, Harry Bassan, and Arie Oliven of Bnai Zion Medical Center, Haifa, Israel, for their subsequent medical case report also titled "Termination of Intractable Hiccups with Digital Rectal Massage". |
| Literature |
Daniel Oppenheimer of Princeton University |
For his report "Consequences of Erudite Vernacular Utilized Irrespective of Necessity: Problems with Using Long Words Needlessly". |
| Peace |
Howard Stapleton of Merthyr Tydfil, Wales |
For inventing an electromechanical teenager repellant - a device that makes annoying high-pitched noise designed to be audible to teenagers but not to adults; and for later using that same technology to make telephone ringtones that are audible to teenagers but probably not to their teachers. |
| Acoustics |
D. Lynn Halpern of Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates, and Brandeis University, and Northwestern University, Randolph Blake of Vanderbilt University and Northwestern University and James Hillenbrand of Western Michigan University and Northwestern University |
For conducting experiments to learn why people dislike the sound of fingernails scraping on a blackboard. |
| Mathematics: |
Nic Svenson and Piers Barnes of the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization |
For calculating the number of photographs must be taken to (almost) ensure that nobody in a group photo will have their eyes closed. |
| Nutrition |
Wasmia Al-Houty of Kuwait University and Faten Al-Mussalam of the Kuwait Environment Public Authority |
For showing that dung beetles are finicky eaters. |
| Ornithology |
Ivan R. Schwab, of the University of California Davis, and Philip R.A. May of the University of California Los Angeles |
For exploring and explaining why woodpeckers don't get headaches. |
| 2007 |
|---|
| Biology |
Johanna E.M.H. van Bronswijk |
For taking a census of all the mites and other life forms that live in people's beds. |
| Physics |
L. Mahadevan and Enrique Cerda Villablanca |
For their theoretical study of how sheets become wrinkled |
| Chemistry |
Mayu Yamamoto |
For extracting vanilla flavour from cow dung. |
| Medicine |
Dan Meyer and Brian Witcombe |
For investigating the side-effects of swallowing swords. |
| Literature |
Glenda Browne |
For her study of the word "the". |
| Peace |
The Air Force Wright Laboratory in Dayton, Ohio |
For suggesting the research and development of a "gay bomb," which would cause enemy troops to become sexually attracted to each other. |
| Economics |
Kuo Cheng Hsieh |
For patenting a device to catch bank robbers by ensnaring them in a net. |
| Aviation |
Patricia V. Agostino, Santiago A. Plano and Diego A. Golombek |
For discovering that hamsters recover from jetlag more quickly when given Viagra. |
| Linguistics |
Juan Manuel Toro, Josep B. Trobalon and Nuria Sebastian-Galles |
For determining that rats sometimes can't distinguish between Japanese, played backward, and Dutch, played backward. |
| Nutrition |
Brian Wansink |
For investigating people's appetite for mindless eating by secretly feeding them a self-refilling bowl of soup |
