By Sean Henahan, Access Excellence

CAMBRIDGE, MA- Aesthetic pigeons, soggy cereal, DNA Cologne and wet underwear were among the topics studied by this year's winners of the Ig Nobel Prize.The "Igs" are presented each year by The Annals of Improbable Research, the "the journal of inflated research and personalities."

Five Nobel Laureates, aided by children, scuba divers, a marching band, and a dog, gathered at Harvard to present the 1995 Ig Nobel Prizes. This was the Fifth First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony, honoring people whose achievements "cannot or should not be reproduced."

The Prizes were handed out by Nobel Laureates Sheldon Glashow (Physics '79), Dudley Herschbach (Chemistry '86), William Lipscomb (Chemistry '76), Joseph Murray (Physiology or Medicine '90) and Richard Roberts (Physiology or Medicine '93). Later in the evening, Professor Herschbach was given away in the Win-aDate-With-a-Nobel-Laureate Contest.

John Martinez, who won the 1995 Ig Nobel Nutrition Prize, served cups of Luak coffee to the Nobel Laureates -- the coffee is made from beans that have been ingested and excreted by the luak, a bobcat-like animal native to Indonesia.

Sally Yeh, the president of Bijan Fragrances, Inc., presented DNA cologne and DNA perfume to the Nobel Laureates; Yeh was representing 1995 Ig Nobel Chemistry Prizewinner Bijan Pakzad, who designed the fragrances. The winners of the Ig Nobel Physics, Literature and Dentistry Prizes delivered acceptance speeches via videotape.

The theme of this year's ceremony was "DNA." The five Nobel Laureates paid tribute to deoxyribonucleic acid by collaborating to read a Dr. Seuss-like poem, "DNA and Green Eggs and Ham," and joined with the Nicola Hawkins Dance Company in the world premiere of "The Interpretive Dance of the Nucleotides." Nobel Laureate James Watson, the co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, delivered a tape-recorded tribute to DNA cologne.

Twelve-year-old Kate Eppers delivered a tribute to DNA, in which she explained that her favorite singer, Mariah Carey, "depends on DNA." "Without DNA," Eppers told the sellout crowd, "Mariah Carey wouldn't be Mariah Carey -she'd be a fish or something."

Nobel Laureates Herschbach and Roberts also delivered 30-second Heisenberg Certainty Lectures (the time limit was strictly enforced by a professional referee), as did Tom and Ray Magliozzi of NPR's "Car Talk" program, and Harvard Astronomy Department Chairman Robert Kirshner (the so-called "David Letterman of Astronomy") and Bijan's Sally Yeh.

The ceremony was televised live around the world via the Internet, with assistance from convicted felon Robert T. Morris, whose worm program shut down the Internet several years ago, and who is now a convicted felon and a member of the AIR editorial Board. It was also recorded for later broadcast (on the day after Thanksgiving) on National Public Radio's "Talk of the Nation / Science Friday" program.

The keynote address was delivered by Dr. Robert Lopez, who won a 1994 Ig Nobel Prize for experimentally placing cat ear mites into his own ear. Dr. Lopez's topic was "Dare to Be Bold." Here is a complete list of the 1995 Ig Nobel Prizewinners.

NUTRITION John Martinez of J. Martinez & Company in Atlanta, for Luak Coffee, the world's most expensive coffee, which is made from coffee beans ingested and excreted by the luak (aka, the palm civet), a bobcat-like animal native to Indonesia.

PHYSICS D.M.R. Georget, R. Parker, and A.C. Smith, of the Institute of Food Research, Norwich, England, for their rigorous analysis of soggy breakfast cereal, published in the report entitled 'A Study of the Effects of Water Content on the Compaction Behaviour of Breakfast Cereal Flakes." [Published in the research journal "Powder Technology," November, 1994, vol. 81, no. 2, pp. 189-96.]

ECONOMICS Awarded jointly to Nick Leeson and his superiors at Barings Bank and to Robert Citron of Orange County, California, for using the calculus of derivatives to demonstrate that every financial institution has its limits.

MEDICINE Marcia E. Buebel, David S. Shannahoff-Khalsa, and Michael R. Boyle, for their invigorating study entitled "The Effects of Unilateral Forced Nostril Breathing on Cognition." [Published in "International Journal of Neuroscience," vol. 57, 1991, pp. 239-249.]

LITERATURE David B. Busch and James R. Starling, of Madison Wisconsin, for their deeply penetrating research report, "Rectal foreign bodies: Case Reports and a Comprehensive Review of the World's Literature." The citations include reports of, among other items: seven light bulbs; a knife sharpener; two flashlights; a wire spring; a snuff box; an oil can with potato stopper; eleven different forms of fruits, vegetables and other foodstuffs; a jeweler's saw; a frozen pig's tail; a tin cup; a beer glass; and one patient's remarkable ensemble collection consisting of spectacles, a suitcase key, a tobacco pouch and a magazine. [Published in the medical journal "Surgery," September 1986, pp. 512-519.]

PEACE The Taiwan National Parliament, for demonstrating that politicians gain more by punching, kicking and gouging each other than by waging war against other nations.

PSYCHOLOGY Shigeru Watanabe, Junko Sakamoto, and Masumi Wakita, of Keio University, for their success in training pigeons to discriminate between the paintings of Picasso and those of Monet. [Their report, entitled "Pigeons' Discrimination of Paintings by Monet and Picasso," was published in "Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior," vol. 63, 1995, pp. 165-174.]

PUBLIC HEALTH Martha Kold Bakkevig of Sintef Unimed in Trondheim, Norway, and Ruth Nielson of the Technical University of Denmark, for their exhaustive study, "Impact of Wet Underwear on Thermoregulatory Responses and Thermal Comfort in the Cold." [Published in "Ergonomics," vol 37, no. 8, Aug. 1994 , pp. 1375-89.]

DENTISTRY Robert H. Beaumont, of Shore View, Minnesota, for his incisive study "Patient Preference for Waxed or Unwaxed Dental Floss." [Published in the research journal "Journal of Periodontology," vol. 61, no. 2, Feb. 1990, pp. 123-5. ]

CHEMISTRY Bijan Pakzad of Beverly Hills, for creating DNA Cologne and DNA Perfume, neither of which contain deoxyribonucleic acid, and both of which come in a triple helix bottle.

For more information on the IgNobel prizes see the Annals of Improbable Research

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