Check out what was the biggest highlight of the 2012 Ig Nobel Prize

(Image Source: Playback / IMPROBABLE RESEARCH)

You have certainly heard of the Nobel Prizes, which are awarded annually to scientists and personalities who stood out in some way - through scientific research or humanitarian action - on December 10th. However, there is also the Ig Nobel Prize, which awards research related to seemingly bizarre or absurd topics or criticizes other research.

According to the staff of the Technological Innovation website, the intention of the award is to honor those scientific studies that “make us laugh before we make us think”. So the highlight of this year was research in which scientists were able to demonstrate that a dead salmon can recognize human emotions by looking at photographs, as well as mapping the zombie brain region responsible for generating these reactions.

According to the researchers, the study serves to challenge the methods used by some research in the field of neuroscience, which employs functional magnetic resonance imaging and statistical techniques to draw any possible conclusions. As the scientists explained, the method is so vague that, as they themselves demonstrated, it allowed the team to prove what it wanted based on the brain of a dead fish.

Check out more crazy polls that also received awards:

  • Anatomy: Researchers have found that chimpanzees can recognize other chimpanzees through photographs of their buttocks;
  • Psychology: Scientists have been able to prove that the Eiffel Tower looks smaller if we look at it with its head tilted to the left;
  • Medicine: A pair of doctors have figured out how to minimize the risk of patients exploding during colonoscopy;
  • Peace: Award given to a Russian company that has developed a method for turning old ammunition into diamonds.

The Ig Nobel Prize-giving ceremony took place yesterday, September 20, at Harvard University in the United States.

Source: Technological Innovation and IMPROBABLE RESEARCH