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Everyone knows the Nobel Prizes for medicine, literature, and peace. These are for those who contributed "the greatest benefit to humankind". Fewer people are aware of the Ig Nobel Prize. This is to "honor achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think". One of this year's Ig Nobel awards is for an experiment on the effects on rhinoceroses of hanging them upside down. The study won the award for transportation research. Researchers were trying to find out the healthiest way to relocate rhinoceroses by helicopter.
The Ig Nobel prizes are organized by a science humor magazine. Wikipedia says: "The Ig Nobel Prize is a satirical prize awarded…to celebrate ten unusual or trivial achievements in scientific research." It added: "The name of the award is a pun on the Nobel Prize…and on the word ignoble (not noble)." Other recipients of this year's award studied the bacteria in chewing gum, conducted tests on cat communication, and carried out research on whether humans grow beards to protect themselves from punches to the face. All winners receive a now-defunct Zimbabwean $10 trillion note.
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