2008 Ig Nobel Prizes

It's that time of year again. I love the Ig Nobels. For those of you in the dark: The Ig Nobel Prizes are a parody of the Nobel Prizes and are given each year in early October — around the time the recipients of the genuine Nobel Prizes are announced — for ten achievements that "first make people laugh, and then make them think."
The 2008 Ig Nobel winners, awarded Thursday at Harvard University by the Annals of Improbable Research magazine (italics mine):

NUTRITION: Massimiliano Zampini and Charles Spence for demonstrating that food tastes better when it sounds better.

I like my food to be dead and silent before I ingest.

PEACE: The Swiss Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology and the citizens of Switzerland for adopting the legal principle that plants have dignity.

If I live in Switzerland and forget to water my plant, is that an offense?

ARCHAEOLOGY: Astolfo Gomes de Mello Araujo and Jose Carlos Marcelino for showing armadillos can scramble the contents of an archaeological dig.

They love to dig, even without PhD's.

BIOLOGY: Marie-Christine Cadiergues, Christel Joubert and Michel Franc for discovering that fleas that live on a dog can jump higher than fleas that live on a cat.

When he says "Jump", you ask "How High?"

MEDICINE: Dan Ariely for demonstrating that expensive fake medicine is more effective than cheap fake medicine.

That probably explains why homeopathy is so expensive.

COGNITIVE SCIENCE: Toshiyuki Nakagaki, Hiroyasu Yamada, Ryo Kobayashi, Atsushi Tero, Akio Ishiguro and Agota Toth for discovering that slime molds can solve puzzles.

Judging by the names of the researchers are that Sudoku puzzles perhaps?

ECONOMICS: Geoffrey Miller, Joshua Tyber and Brent Jordan for discovering that exotic dancers earn more when at peak fertility.

I think this paper involved some long nights of research.

PHYSICS: Dorian Raymer and Douglas Smith for proving that heaps of string or hair will inevitably tangle.

Were they working on STRING THEORY? -zing!-

CHEMISTRY: Sheree Umpierre, Joseph Hill and Deborah Anderson for discovering that Coca-Cola is an effective spermicide, and C.Y. Hong, C.C. Shieh, P. Wu and B.N. Chiang for proving it is not.

I knew coke cleaned the pipes, but who would have thought someone would take it literally?

LITERATURE: David Sims for his study "You Bastard: A Narrative Exploration of the Experience of Indignation within Organizations."

I have nothing more to add.

Source: Annals of Improbable Research.