From dung1） beetles that navigate using the Milky way and an experiment that required eating a parboiled2） shrew3） to the discovery that walking on water—on the moon—is feasible： These are just a few of the highlights of the 23rd annual Ig Nobel Awards ceremony. Ten winners were awarded prizes in Nobel-esque4） categories for research that first makes people laugh， and then， of course， makes them think. Here are nine of the winners.

The Probability5） Prize went to a team of researchers who discovered the longer a cow has been lying down， the more likely that bovine6） will soon stand up. It gets better. They went on to find once that rested cow stands up， predicting when the animal will again sit down will prove tricky. The team included Bert Tolkamp of the Netherlands， Marie Haskell of the UK， Fritha Langford of the UK and Canada， David Roberts of the UK and Colin Morgan of the UK.

Let there be peace on the Belarus7） streets. Yes， the Peace Prize was snagged8） by Alexander Lukashenko， president of Belarus， who made it illegal to applaud in public； and to the Belarus State Police for arresting a one-armed man for applauding.

Who knew archaeology9） included eating a shrew. Brian Crandall of the Mad Science of the Hudson in New York and Peter Stahl of the University of Victoria in Canada took home the Archaeology Prize after they parboiled a dead shrew， swallowed it without chewing and then meticulously examined their excretions over the next few days. The reason？ The duo wanted to find out which bones would and wouldn’t dissolve inside the human digestive tract. Yuck10）.

Dung， dung， dung， dung！ This team won the Joint Prize in Biology and Astronomy11） for their celestial12） discovery that lost dung beetles find their way home by looking at the Milky Way. Here’s how it works： After rolling a perfect ball of poo， the beetles climb on their dung balls and dance around in circles before taking off. The little jig13） lets the beetles check out the sky to get their bearings14）， according to Marie Dacke， a biologist at Lund University and her colleagues.

The Safety Engineering Prize went to the late Gustano Pizzo for his invention of an anti-hijacking system for aircraft in May 1972. The electro-mechanical system would drop a hijacker through trapdoors15）， and seal him or her into a package before dropping the encapsulated16） criminal through custom bomb bay17） doors. The hijacker would plummet， with parachute， to Earth just in time to get picked up by police who would have been alerted of the falling wrongdoer by radio.

Walking on water would be super-cool， right？ Leave it to physicists to figure out exactly how this feat18） could be achieved. One team won the Physics Prize for finding that a person could physically run across the surface of a pond. The catch19）： The magical feat would only work if that person and the pond were on the moon.

Your eyes may well up20） at this award. The Chemistry Prize went to scientists from Japan and Germany who discovered that the biochemical21） process that causes onions to make people cry is even more complicated than scientists previously thought.

A team of scientists won the Medicine Prize for figuring out the effect listening to the opera had on mice who were about to have heart transplants. The research determined the mice that listened to opera lived longer than mice that listened to New Age music22）. According to the Guardian， the mice that listened to opera lived for 27 days whereas the average survival for mice after a heart transplant is seven days. The study was detailed in the Journal of Cardiothoracic Surgery in March 2012.

This is a doozy23）. An international group of psychologists discovered a bizarre link between drinking alcohol and perception of beauty. It turns out people who think they are drunk also think they are attractive. The beautiful findings were published in May 2012 in the British Journal of Psychology.

屎殼郎使用銀河導(dǎo)航，為了做實驗需要吃下半生不熟的鼩鼱，在月球上“水上漂”具有可行性——這些只是第23屆年度搞笑諾貝爾獎頒獎典禮的諸多亮點中的幾個。在與正式諾貝爾獎類似的獎項中，十個勝出者因為乍看可笑、過后卻發(fā)人深省的研究而獲獎。下面來介紹其中的九位獲獎?wù)摺?/p>

概率學(xué)獎頒給了一個研究團隊。他們發(fā)現(xiàn)，一頭牛躺下的時間越久，它很快要站起來的可能性就越大。研究并未就此止步。他們繼而發(fā)現(xiàn)，一旦那頭休息著的牛站了起來，要預(yù)測它何時會再次臥倒將變得很棘手。該研究團隊的成員包括荷蘭人伯特·托爾坎普、英國人瑪麗·哈斯克爾、英國和加拿大人弗里沙·蘭福德、英國人戴維·羅伯茨和英國人科林·摩根。

讓和平降臨到白俄羅斯的街道上吧。沒錯，和平獎被白俄羅斯總統(tǒng)亞歷山大·盧卡申科和白俄羅斯國家警察摘得。前者規(guī)定在公共場合鼓掌是違法行為，而后者因一個獨臂男子鼓掌而將其逮捕。

誰知道考古學(xué)還包括吃鼩鼱這件事。來自紐約哈得遜瘋狂科學(xué)公司的布賴恩·克蘭德爾和加拿大維多利亞大學(xué)的彼得·斯塔爾將一只死鼩鼱煮得半熟，囫圇吞下，然后在接下來的幾天里認真研究自己的排泄物，他們?yōu)榇藢⒖脊艑W(xué)獎收入囊中。究其原因？兩人想搞清楚在人體消化道內(nèi)，哪些骨頭會溶解，哪些骨頭不會溶解。真惡心。

大糞、大糞、大糞、大糞！這個團隊贏得生物學(xué)與天文學(xué)聯(lián)合獎是因為他們的一個天文發(fā)現(xiàn)：迷路的屎殼郎通過觀察銀河找到了回家的路。以下是該現(xiàn)象的發(fā)生過程：在滾出一個完美的糞球后，屎殼郎爬上糞球，在出發(fā)之前繞圈跳舞。據(jù)隆德大學(xué)生物學(xué)家瑪麗·達克及其同事稱，這支吉格舞可以讓屎殼郎觀察天空，以便找到方向。

安全工程獎頒給了已故的古斯塔諾·皮佐，以表彰他于1972年5月發(fā)明的反劫機系統(tǒng)。這個機電系統(tǒng)會通過活板門讓劫機者落入陷阱，并將其密封在一個包裹內(nèi)，然后通過專門定做的炸彈艙門將封裝好的罪犯投下去。借助降落傘，劫機者會垂直下降至地球上，通過無線電獲悉有罪犯正在降落的警方剛好能及時趕到，將其捉拿歸案。

要是能有水上漂的本領(lǐng)，那真是酷斃了，對吧？那就把這個問題留給物理學(xué)家吧，讓他們?nèi)ヅ宄烤谷绾尾拍軐崿F(xiàn)這一絕技。獲得物理學(xué)獎的團隊因以下發(fā)現(xiàn)而獲獎：人的身體真的可以在池塘水面上飛奔。但美中不足的是，只有這個人和池塘位于月球上時，這種神奇的絕技才能實現(xiàn)。

這個獎項可能會讓你的眼淚奪眶而出?；瘜W(xué)獎頒給了來自日本和德國的科學(xué)家們，他們發(fā)現(xiàn)洋蔥使人哭泣的生化過程比科學(xué)家以前認為的更加復(fù)雜。

一個科學(xué)家團隊搞清楚了讓即將進行心臟移植的老鼠聽歌劇會有怎樣的效果，因而獲得了醫(yī)學(xué)獎。該研究確認，與聆聽新世紀音樂的老鼠相比，聆聽歌劇的老鼠活得更久。據(jù)《衛(wèi)報》稱，聆聽歌劇的老鼠活了27天，而進行過心臟移植的老鼠的平均生存期為七天。這項研究的詳情發(fā)表在2012年3月號的《心胸外科雜志》上。

這是一個奇聞。由心理學(xué)家組成的一個國際小組發(fā)現(xiàn)，在飲酒與對美的感知之間存在奇怪的關(guān)聯(lián)。結(jié)論是，認為自己喝醉酒的人同時也認為自己很有吸引力。這些美妙的研究結(jié)果于2012年5月發(fā)表在《英國心理學(xué)雜志》上。

1.dung [d??] n. 糞

2.parboil [?pɑ?（r）?b??l] vt. 把……煮得半熟

3.shrew [?ru?] n. [動]鼩鼱，尖嘴鼠

4.–esque：[后綴]表示“……（樣）式的，似……般的”

5.probability [?pr?b??b?l?ti] n. 可能性，或然性，概率

6.bovine [?b??va?n] n. 牛

7.Belarus [?b?l??ru?s] n. 白俄羅斯，白俄羅斯共和國

8.snag [sn?ɡ] vt. 〈美〉抓?。C會等）

9.archaeology [?ɑ?（r）ki??l?d?i] n. 考古學(xué)

10.yuck [j?k] int. [表示反感、討厭等]呸，啐

11.astronomy [??str?n?mi] n. 天文學(xué)

12.celestial [s??lesti?l] adj. 天上的，天空的

13.jig [d??ɡ] n. 吉格舞（一種輕快的三拍快步舞）

14.bearing [?be?r??] n. 方向，方位

15.trapdoor [?tr?p?d??（r）] n. 活板門；通氣門

16.encapsulated [?n?k?psj?le?t?d] adj. 密封的

17.bomb bay：[航空學(xué)] （轟炸機上的）炸彈艙

18.feat [fi?t] n. 技藝，武藝

19.catch [k?t?] n. 隱藏的困難；意料不到的復(fù)雜情況

20.well up：涌出

21.biochemical [?ba????kem?k（?）l] adj. 生物化學(xué)的

22.New Age music：新世紀音樂，是在上個世紀70年代后期出現(xiàn)的一種音樂形式，最早用于幫助冥想及潔凈心靈，但許多后期的創(chuàng)作者已不再遵循這一初衷。

23.doozy [?du?zi] n. 好玩或異乎尋常的東西