IT'S that time of year - the annual Ig Nobel awards ceremony took place at Harvard University last week, attended by more than 1,000 guests who watched as the winners in ten categories received their precious trophies.
The awards are compiled by the Annals of Improbable Research, which likes to highlight scientists who have "done something that makes people laugh then think".
This year one of the winners was Egyptian urologist Dr Ahmed Shafik, who put pants on rats to study the effect of different fabrics on their sex lives.
The rodents wore polyester, cotton, wool and polyester-cotton blend trousers - with a special hole for their tails, with Dr Shafik finding those wearing polyester showed "significantly lower rates of sexual activity".
He postulated this could be because the non-natural fibre generated electrostatic fields around their genitals.
Other winners included British biologists Thomas Thwaites and Charles Foster - two men who spent time living as animals.
Thwaites spent three days as part of a herd of goats, using specially designed prosthetic limbs which allowed him to walk on all fours.
Meanwhile Foster, from Oxford University, tried to focus on senses other than sight as he lived variously as a badger, fox, otter, red deer and a swift, "in an attempt to see woods as they really are without that distorting lens of vision and cognition".
The above article was sent to subscribers in Pharmacy Daily's issue from 28 Sep 16
To see the full newsletter, see the embedded issue below or CLICK HERE to download Pharmacy Daily from 28 Sep 16
