WHAT: The Ig Nobel Prize honours individuals whose achievements in science cannot or should not be reproduced. 10 prizes are given to people who have done remarkably bizarre things in science over the previous year. WHY: The 'Igs' are intended to celebrate the unusual, honour the imaginative and shine a spotlight onto the weird corners of laboratories around the world. PAST WINNERS: Peter Fong's experiment in which he fed Prozac to clams on the basis that if they chilled out more they'd taste better. Harold Hillman's report on 'The Possible Pain Experienced during Execution by Different Methods'...

The Nobel Prize recognizes the world’s most talented and innovative minds. Unfortunately, not all of the hopeful thinkers and academics around the globe can become Nobel laureates, but some are lucky enough to win the Ig Nobel Prize instead.Drawn from the world’s wackiest actual research, The Ig Nobel Prizesdemonstrates the extreme measures that people will take in the quest for knowledge, and pays tribute to those individuals whose achievements cannot—or should not—be reproduced. Recent Ig Nobel honorees include: • The professor who proved that toast falls buttered side down more often than not • The Southern Baptist Church of Alabama which devised a formula to determine how many Alabamans will go to hell • The founder of the amusement park known as “Stalin World” Featuring these endeavors and many more, The Ig Nobel Prizesis an entertaining exhibition of brains and determination.

Murphy's Law is one of the most well-recognized statements of philosophy known to man. Tipped off by his next door neighbor that Murphy may have worked at Edwards Air Force Base, and that the Law may have come into being after a rocket sled experiment went awry, author Nick T. Spark beings a Quixotic quest to learn the truth. His attempts to pin down the mysterious origins of The Law and to answer the eternal question, "Who was Murphy and what is the true meaning of Murphy's Law?" are both amusing and relevatory. Read it, and find out why everything you ever thought you knew about Murphy's Law -- is wrong.

Takes a humorous look at science and research, discussing studies involving the mickymouse gene, the effects of peanut butter on the rotation of the earth, fifty ways to love your liver, and failure of electric shock treatment for rattlesnake envenomation.

The Journal of Irreproducible Results is the magazine that has stood for years as the definitive parody of scholarly and scientific journals everywhere. This anthology collects its greatest moments. Selection of the Library of Science Book and the Book-of-the-Month Science Book clubs. 81,000 copies in print.

"A masterly book" —Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of The Black Swan "A classic" —Simon Kuper, Financial Times An economist explains five laws that confirm our worst fears: stupid people can and do rule the world Throughout history, a powerful force has hindered the growth of human welfare and happiness. It is more powerful than the Mafia or the military. It has global catastrophic effects and can be found anywhere from the world's most powerful boardrooms to your local bar. It is human stupidity. Carlo M. Cipolla, noted professor of economic history at the UC Berkeley, created this vitally important book in order to detect and neutralize its threat. Both hilarious and dead serious, it will leave you better equipped to confront political realities, unreasonable colleagues, or your next dinner with your in-laws. The Laws: 1. Everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals among us. 2. The probability that a certain person is stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person. 3. A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person while deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses themselves. 4. Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid individuals. 5. A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person.

From the Big Bang to the evolution of humans and the resignation of Richard Nixon, A Brief History of Time is a highly irreverent, historically entertaining, and scientifically correct overview of the most important cosmic milestones since the beginning of time. From learning how to make a star with Martha Stewart ("I love stars because they provide an opportunity to be so wonderfully creative with such simple ingredients") to a classic potboiler account of the first instance of molecular reproduction ("It was a dark and stormy tide pool"), to the unhappily-ever-after fairy tale of Shelly Shrew and her dinosaur friends ("Once upon a time, on a warm June day about 65 million years ago, while Shelley Shrew was sleeping under a big green leaf on an island near the Yucatan Peninsula in what is now Mexico, a comet hit her on the head and killed her instantly"), Eric Schulman offers readers a whizbang collection of the universe's greatest hits. Unique, funny, and educational, A Brief(er) History of Time is the perfect book for readers who want to know what's been going on for the past 15 billion years, but don't have a lot of time.