The IgNobels have been announced

and the award ceremony has been held.

The 2009 Ig Nobel Prizes were awarded on Thursday night, October 1, at the 19th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony, at Harvard's Sanders Theatre.

Among the findings:

VETERINARY MEDICINE PRIZE: Catherine Douglas and Peter Rowlinson of Newcastle University, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, UK, for showing that cows who have names give more milk than cows that are nameless.

PEACE PRIZE: Stephan Bolliger, Steffen Ross, Lars Oesterhelweg, Michael Thali and Beat Kneubuehl of the University of Bern, Switzerland, for determining — by experiment — whether it is better to be smashed over the head with a full bottle of beer or with an empty bottle.

CHEMISTRY PRIZE: Javier Morales, Miguel Apátiga, and Victor M. Castaño of Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, for creating diamonds from liquid — specifically from tequila.

PUBLIC HEALTH PRIZE: Elena N. Bodnar, Raphael C. Lee, and Sandra Marijan of Chicago, Illinois, USA, for inventing a brassiere that, in an emergency, can be quickly converted into a pair of protective face masks, one for the brassiere wearer and one to be given to some needy bystander.

Much more at the link - including video of the ceremonies.

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Update: The photo at the top is of a Nobel Laureate, MIT Physics Professor Frank A. Wilczek. He was around for the moon landing, as all the best people were.