US military plans to create a weapon that would put a new twist on the slogan ''make love, not war'' were among the many off-beat ideas honoured at the 2007 Ig Nobel awards. A study of jet-lagged hamsters, some ''bottomless'' soup bowls, and an in-depth examination of sword-swallowing also earned prizes.
The tongue-in-cheek awards are organised by the humorous scientific journal the Annals of Improbable Research for research achievements ''that make people laugh ?– then think''. The ceremony, held at Harvard University, is traditionally attended by several real Nobel laureates, including one who swept paper airplanes from the stage for several years before receiving the Nobel prize in Physics.
The Ig Nobel peace prize went to the US Air Force's Wright Laboratory in Ohio for its 1994 plan to develop a weapon that would make enemy soldiers sexually irresistible to one another, an idea later dubbed the ''gay bomb''.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn12721-military-wins-ig-nobel-peace-prize-for-gay-bomb.html
THE Pentagon considered developing a host of non-lethal chemical weapons that would disrupt discipline and morale among enemy troops, newly declassified documents reveal.
Most bizarre among the plans was one for the development of an ''aphrodisiac'' chemical weapon that would make enemy soldiers sexually irresistible to each other. Provoking widespread homosexual behaviour among troops would cause a ''distasteful but completely non-lethal'' blow to morale, the proposal says.
http://technology.newscientist.com/channel/tech/mg18524823.800-pentagon-reveals-rejected-chemical-weapons.html
Peace
The tongue-in-cheek awards are organised by the humorous scientific journal the Annals of Improbable Research for research achievements ''that make people laugh ?– then think''. The ceremony, held at Harvard University, is traditionally attended by several real Nobel laureates, including one who swept paper airplanes from the stage for several years before receiving the Nobel prize in Physics.
The Ig Nobel peace prize went to the US Air Force's Wright Laboratory in Ohio for its 1994 plan to develop a weapon that would make enemy soldiers sexually irresistible to one another, an idea later dubbed the ''gay bomb''.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn12721-military-wins-ig-nobel-peace-prize-for-gay-bomb.html
THE Pentagon considered developing a host of non-lethal chemical weapons that would disrupt discipline and morale among enemy troops, newly declassified documents reveal.
Most bizarre among the plans was one for the development of an ''aphrodisiac'' chemical weapon that would make enemy soldiers sexually irresistible to each other. Provoking widespread homosexual behaviour among troops would cause a ''distasteful but completely non-lethal'' blow to morale, the proposal says.
http://technology.newscientist.com/channel/tech/mg18524823.800-pentagon-reveals-rejected-chemical-weapons.html
Peace
