蜜芽传媒

Drum roll... this year's 'Ig Nobels' have been announced in a not-so-glittering, but definitely fun, award online ceremony - and as ever they've celebrated some weird and wonderful scientific studies.

This year's winners include a Swedish scientist who's spent 'enormous amounts of time' listening to cats purring, yowling and 'trilling', a team which hung rhinoceroses upside down to check if it harmed them (it didn't), research which found that the obesity of a country's politicians may be a good indicator of that country's corruption, and a study which found a beard can protect you if you're punched in the face.

As has become customary with the Ig Nobels, the prizes were handed out by real Nobel laureates. The winners got a trophy they had to assemble themselves from a PDF print-out and a cash prize in the form of a counterfeit 10 trillion dollar Zimbabwean banknote.

The organiser is Marc Abrahams, editor of the "Annals of Improbable Research".

(Photo: Screenshot of the 'Cat Lady' winning her Ig Nobel. Credit: Improbable Research)

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