BOSTON, MA (AP)-- Scientists who found that sticking cured pork up your nose can stop an uncontrollable nosebleed and owning a cat can be hazardous to your mental health are among this year's winners of the Ig Nobel prize.
The annual awards for sometimes silly, sometimes surprising scientific discoveries were handed out Thursday at Harvard University by the Annals of Improbable Research magazine.
As has become the custom, real Nobel laureates handed out the prizes, and winners were given a maximum of 60 seconds to deliver their acceptance speech.
Some of this year's other winners include scientists who studied whether banana peels are really as slippery as cartoons have led us to believe, and biologists who wondered whether humans dressed to resemble polar bears can frighten reindeer.