Ovulating sopranos or fellating fruit bats – who's gonna win this year's Ig Nobel Prize?

The paper I posted recently about the effects of ovulation on the singing voice – studied in three countries from the perspective of heterosexual males – looks like a good candidate for the year’s least coveted international awards, the Ig Nobel Prizes.

Defined as ‘improbable research (which) makes people laugh and then think’, its recent laureates include a team who perfected a helicopter method of collecting whale snot, another which confirmed ‘the widely held belief that searing relieves pain’ and a third, from the University of Bristol who discovered that Fellatio by Fruit Bats Prolongs Copulation Time.

The 2011 award ceremony at Harvard will be shown online here. Seven genuine Nobel winners will present the awards, following the world premiere of a mini-opera, Chemist in a Coffee Shop.

Ig Nobel Prize Winner Dr. Elena Bodnar demonstrates her invention (abrassiere that can quickly convert into a pair of protective face masks) assisted by Nobel laureates Wolfgang Ketterle (left), Orhan Pamuk, andPaul Krugman (right). Photo credit: Alexey Eliseev, 2009 Ig Nobel Ceremony