The 2013 Ig Nobel Prizes: Drunk People Feel Sexy, And More Of The Year's Silliest ScienceLast night were the Ig Nobel Prizes the most important of Nobel Prize ceremonies. The ceremony honors the year's strangest--but also very good!--scientific research in 10 different categories. Past winners have included research on remote-controlled whale snot retrieval and the physics of why you don't spill your coffee. So how did this year stack up? Oh man. Some real gems. Here they are:For: assessing the effect of listening to opera on heart transplant patients who are mice.Reference: Auditory stimulation of opera music induced prolongation of murine cardiac allograft survival and maintained generation of regulatory CD4+CD25+ cells Masateru Uchiyama Xiangyuan Jin Qi Zhang Toshihito Hirai Atsushi Amano Hisashi Bashuda and Masanori Niimi Journal of Cardiothoracic Surgery vol. 7 no. 26 epub. March 23 2012.[Ed note: It had an effect actually.]For: confirming by experiment that people who think they are drunk also think they are attractive.Reference: 'Beauty Is in the Eye of the Beer Holder': People Who Think They Are Drunk Also Think They Are Attractive Laurent Bègue Brad J. Bushman Oulmann Zerhouni Baptiste Subra Medhi Ourabah British Journal of Psychology epub May 15 2012. [Ed note: Ha Beer Holder.]For: discovering that when dung beetles get lost they can navigate their way home by looking at the Milky Way.Reference: Dung Beetles Use the Milky Way for Orientation Marie Dacke Emily Baird Marcus Byrne Clarke H. Scholtz Eric J. Warrant Current Biology epub January 24 2013. The authors at Lund University Sweden the University of Witwatersrand South Africa and the University of Pretoria[Ed note: We wrote about this study! It rules.]For: inventing an electro-mechanical system to trap airplane hijackers   the system drops a hijacker through trap doors seals him into a package then drops the encapsulated hijacker through the airplane's specially-installed bomb bay doors whence he parachutes to earth where police having been alerted by radio await his arrival.Reference: US Patent #3811643 Gustano A. Pizzo anti hijacking system for aircraft May 21 1972.[Ed note: ???]For: for discovering that some people would be physically capable of running across the surface of a pond   if those people and that pond were on the moon.Reference: Humans Running in Place on Water at Simulated Reduced Gravity Alberto E. Minetti Yuri P. Ivanenko Germana Cappellini Nadia Dominici Francesco Lacquaniti PLoS ONE vol. 7 no. 7 2012 e37300.[Ed note: But that would be awesome right?]For: discovering that the biochemical process by which onions make people cry is even more complicated than scientists previously realized.Reference: Plant Biochemistry: An Onion Enzyme that Makes the Eyes Water S. Imai N. Tsuge M. Tomotake Y. Nagatome H. Sawada T. Nagata and H. Kumagai Nature vol. 419 no. 6908 October 2002 p. 685. [Ed note: Also in that study: Can we create a super onion that doesn't make our eyes water?]For: parboiling a dead shrew and then swallowing the shrew without chewing and then carefully examining everything excreted during subsequent days   all so they could see which bones would dissolve inside the human digestive system and which bones would not.Reference: Human Digestive Effects on a Micromammalian Skeleton Peter W. Stahl and Brian D. Crandall Journal of Archaeological Science vol. 22 November 1995 pp. 789â€Âœ97.[Ed note: Om nom.](To the president of Belarus) For: making it illegal to applaud in public AND to the Belarus State Police for arresting a one-armed man for applauding.[Ed note: Also existing is banned. Stop. You're doing it right now. Stop.]For: making two related discoveries: First that the longer a cow has been lying down the more likely that cow will soon stand up; and Second that once a cow stands up you cannot easily predict how soon that cow will lie down again.Reference: Are Cows More Likely to Lie Down the Longer They Stand? Bert J. Tolkamp Marie J. Haskell Fritha M. Langford David J. Roberts Colin A. Morgan Applied Animal Behaviour Science vol.  124 nos. 1-2 2010 pp. 1â€Âœ10.[Ed note: If cow tipping were real this could be significantly more complicated.]For: the medical techniques described in their report Surgical Management of an Epidemic of Penile Amputations in Siam   techniques which they recommend except in cases where the amputated penis had been partially eaten by a duck.Reference:  Surgical Management of an Epidemic of Penile Amputations in Siam by Kasian Bhanganada Tu Chayavatana Chumporn Pongnumkul Anunt Tonmukayakul Piyasakol Sakolsatayadorn Krit Komaratal and Henry Wilde American Journal of Surgery 1983 no. 146 pp. 376-382.[Ed note: Okay then! Until next year friends.]You can watch last night's ceremony here. There were people dressed as mice and also an opera.  [Ed note: If cow tipping were real this could be significantly more complicated.]I hope that this is a joke that cow tipping isn't real or POPSCI does not realize how many idiots there are on this planet.rainbowmakerNot a joke cow tipping is an urban myth.  OK the proof is not exactly scientific.  But consider this:  Since Youtube is the clearing house of all things stupid shouldn't there be at  least one video capturing an authentic cow tipping????  Look for yourself.  You won't find one.