B-List

   <http://www.improb.com/ig/ig-top.html>

* What are the Ig Nobel Prizes?
   <http://www.improb.com/ig/what-are.html>
"Every Ig Nobel Prize winner has done something that first makes people LAUGH,
 then makes them THINK."
"The Igs are intended to celebrate the unusual, honor the imaginative -- and
 spur people's interest in science, medicine, and technology."

* This year's winners
   <http://www.improb.com/ig/ig-pastwinners.html#ig2004>
A selection:
  + MEDICINE 
Steven Stack of Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan, USA and James
Gundlach of Auburn University, Auburn, Alabama, USA, for their published
report "The Effect of Country Music on Suicide."
  + PHYSICS
Ramesh Balasubramaniam of the University of Ottawa, and Michael Turvey of the
University of Connecticut and Yale University, for exploring and explaining
the dynamics of hula-hooping.
  + PUBLIC HEALTH
Jillian Clarke of the Chicago High School for Agricultural Sciences, and then
Howard University, for investigating the scientific validity of the Five-
Second Rule about whether it's safe to eat food that's been dropped on
the floor.
  + CHEMISTRY
The Coca-Cola Company of Great Britain, for using advanced technology to convert
liquid from the River Thames into Dasani, a transparent form of water, which
for precautionary reasons has been made unavailable to consumers.
  + ENGINEERING
Donald J. Smith and his father, the late Frank J. Smith, of Orlando Florida,
USA, for patenting the combover (U.S. Patent #4,022,227).
  + PEACE
Daisuke Inoue of Hyogo, Japan, for inventing karaoke, thereby providing an
entirely new way for people to learn to tolerate each other.

BTW The Nobel Foundation is in the process of announcing the winners of the
more widely heralded Nobel Prize for 2004.  For details visit Nobelprize.org:
   <http://nobelprize.org/>