I wonder what would happen if we sent some of these to our friendly, progressive, democratic leaders in Congress and the Senate!
BOSTON Link --Gregg Miller mortgaged his home and maxed out his
credit cards to mass produce his invention -- prosthetic testicles for
neutered dogs.
What started 10 years ago with an experiment on an unwitting
Rottweiler named Max has turned into a thriving mail-order business.
And on Thursday night Miller's efforts earned him a dubious yet
strangely coveted honor: the Ig Nobel Prize for medicine.
"Considering
my parents thought I was an idiot when I was a kid, this is a great
honor," he said. "I wish they were alive to see it."
The Ig
Nobels, given at Harvard University by Annals of Improbable Research
magazine, celebrate the humorous, creative and odd side of science.
Miller has sold more than 150,000 of his Neuticles, more than
doubling his $500,000 investment. The silicone implants come in
different sizes, shapes, weights and degrees of firmness.
The product's Web site says Neuticles allow a pet "to retain his natural look" and "self esteem."
Although the Ig Nobels are not exactly prestigious, many recipients are, like Miller, happy to win.
"Most
scientists -- no matter what they're doing, good or bad -- never get
any attention at all," said Marc Abrahams, editor of the Annals of
Improbable Research.
Some, like Benjamin Smith of the University
of Adelaide in Australia, who won the biology prize, actually nominated
their own work. "I've been a fan of the Ig Nobels for a while," he said.
Smith's
team studied and catalogued different scents emitted by more than 100
species of frogs under stress. Some smelled like cashews, while others
smelled like licorice, mint or rotting fish.
He recalled getting
strange looks when he'd show up at zoos asking to smell the frogs.
"I've been turned away at the gate," he said.
This year's other Ig Nobel winners include:
--
PHYSICS: Since 1927, researchers at the University of Queensland in
Australia have been tracking a glob of congealed black tar as it drips
through a funnel -- at a rate of one drop every nine years.
--
PEACE: Two researchers at Newcastle University in England monitored the
brain activity of locusts as they watched clips from the movie "Star
Wars."
-- CHEMISTRY: An experiment at the University of Minnesota
was designed to prove whether people can swim faster or slower in syrup
than in water.
The Ig Nobel for literature went to the Nigerians
who introduced millions of e-mail users to a "cast of rich characters
... 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."