Everyone is familiar with Nobel Prizes, which are awarded for physics, chemistry, medicine, literature, and peace. These are given to those who have contributed " greatest benefit to humankind". However, fewer people are aware of Ig Nobel Prize. This is bestowed to "honor achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think". One of this year's Ig Nobel awards has been given to scientists who experimented on effects on rhinoceroses of hanging them upside down. rhino study won award for transportation research. Researchers from Cornell University were trying to ascertain healthiest way to relocate animals by helicopter.
The Ig Nobel prizes are organized by science humor magazine Annals of Improbable Research. Wikipedia says: "The Ig Nobel Prize is satirical prize awarded annually since 1991 to celebrate ten unusual or trivial achievements in scientific research." It added: "The name of award is pun on the Nobel Prize, which it parodies, and on word ignoble (not noble)." Other recipients of this year's award studied bacteria in chewing gum stuck to pavements, conducted tests on forms of cat communication, and carried out research on whether humans evolved to grow beards to protect themselves from punches to face. All award winners receive now-defunct Zimbabwean $10 trillion note.
