Pigeon-guided missiles, drunken earthworm study win Ig Nobel prizes

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00:00Sending paper airplanes soaring onto stage like a group of unruly students, these scientists

00:07revived a tradition dear to this zany ceremony.

00:11Because of the ignobles, a contraction of ignoble and nobel, they don't take themselves

00:17too seriously.

00:18If you're wearing a hat, would you please remove it?

00:20This is an event to celebrate science and its sometimes wacky experiments.

00:25And prizes are awarded to researchers who tick two boxes.

00:29Every ignoble prize winner has done something that first makes people laugh and then makes

00:34them think.

00:36This year's winners include the scientists behind an experiment using pigeons to guide

00:41missiles.

00:43Or this team of researchers who conducted chromatography experiments, a biophysical

00:48technique to separate drunken earthworms from sober earthworms.

00:53And we can expect some serious practical applications.

00:57If you want to, for instance, make sure that the sperm is working well, is very active,

01:03you could use such techniques to sort the sperm that are very active from the ones that

01:08are non-active.

01:09Just a few weeks before the opening of the Nobel season, the 34th ignoble has invited

01:14only eminent scientists to present the prizes, including the real nobilists, Eric Maskin

01:20and Abhijit Banerjee.

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