Counting nose hairs in cadavers, repurposing dead spiders and explaining why scientists lick rocks, are among the winning achievements in this year's Ig Nobels, the prize for humorous scientific feats. The 33rd annual prize ceremony provides 10 spoof prizes that are awarded to teams and individuals around the globe. Among the winners this year was a team of scientists from India, China, Malaysia and the United States, who took the mechanical engineering prize for its study of repurposing dead spiders to be used in gripping tools. Other winning teams were lauded for studying how electrified chopsticks can change the taste of food, exploring whether there’s an equal number of hairs in each of a person’s two nostrils, methodically studying the boredom of teachers and students, and experiments on a city street to see how many passersby stop to look upward when they see strangers looking upward.
