Research on big ears, crocodile gambling wins Ig Nobels

BOSTON -- Scientists who discovered old men really do have big ears, playing the didgeridoo helps relieve sleep apnea, and handling crocodiles can influence gambling decisions are among this year's recipients of the Ig Nobel, the prize for absurd scientific achievement.

The 27th annual awards were announced Thursday at Harvard University. The ceremony featured a traditional barrage of paper airplanes, a world premiere opera and real Nobel laureates handing out the 10 prizes.

"It's a strange honor to have, but I am thrilled," Dr. James Heathcote told The Associated Press.

A British physician, Heathcote won the Ig Nobel for anatomy for his big-ear research.

The awards are sponsored by the science humor magazine Annals of Improbable Research, the Harvard-Radcliffe Science Fiction Association and the Harvard-Radcliffe Society of Physics Students.

This year's winners -- who each received $10 trillion cash prizes in virtually worthless Zimbabwean money -- also included scientists who used fluid dynamics to determine whether cats are solid or liquid; researchers who tried to figure out why some people are disgusted by cheese; and psychologists who found many identical twins cannot tell themselves apart in visual images.

Heathcote, whose study on ear size was published in the prestigious British Medical Journal in 1995, was inspired when he and several other general practitioners were discussing how they could do more research.

When he asked why old men have such big ears, half his colleagues agreed with his observation; the others scoffed.

For his study, Heathcote measured the ear length of more than 200 patients and discovered not only do old men have big ears, but ears grow about 2 millimeters per decade after age 30.

Dr. Milo Puhan's Ig Nobel peace prize-winning discovery is a godsend for anyone who lives with an unbearably loud snorer. He found playing the didgeridoo -- that tubular Australian aboriginal instrument that emits a deep, rhythmic drone -- helps relieve sleep apnea.

Puhan, director of the Institute for Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Prevention at the University of Zurich in Switzerland, studied didgeridoo playing after a patient with mild sleep apnea became convinced it helped him.

The economics prize went to a pair of Australians who found if you want to limit your gambling losses, don't have a close encounter with a crocodile before hitting the casino.

Matthew Rockloff, head of the Population Research Laboratory at Central Queensland University in Bundaberg, and research assistant Nancy Greer plunked a 3-foot saltwater crocodile -- its mouth safely taped -- into the arms of people about to gamble and watched what happened.

The excitement caused by handling a dangerous reptile caused people with pre-existing problems to "gamble higher amounts, which over the long term will lead to greater gambling losses," Rockloff said in an email.