By Cristina Merrill: Subscribe to Cristina's RSS feed
September 29, 2011 9:13 PM EDT
Scientists claimed Ig Nobel Prizes Thursday, including a duo for their research on beetles that mated with beer bottles.
Darryl Gwynne of the University of Toronto and his Australian colleague, David Rentz, claimed the coveted prize- a periodic table on a table- for their 1983 paper "Beetles on the Bottle: Male Buprestids Mistake Stubbies for Females."
The paper was published in the journal of the Entomological Society of Australia and in Antenna.
The award was one of several at the 21st First Annual Ig Nobel Prize award ceremony, which took place Thursday evening at Harvard University's Sanders Theater. The Ig Nobels are meant to entertain and to encourage scientific pursuits and come on the eve of the Nobel Prizes to be awarded next week.
"Chemistry" was the theme of the night, and the Master of Ceremonies was Annals of Improbable Research (AIR) editor Marc Abrahams.
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There were several musical numbers throughout the night, as well as a tribute to the late "Nobel Stud" William Lipscombe. Scientists were honored for their work in topics such as wasabi spray, turtle yawning, and Coca-Cola as a spermicide (note: only regular and diet coke work).
Gwynne and Rentz were tickled to receive their award after so many years. They came to the stage prepared to give Ms. Sweetie Poo candy in case she became bored. She did and they did.
"I'm honored, I think," Gwynne said in a statement. "The awards make people think, and they're a bit of a laugh. Really, we've been sitting here by the phone for the past 20 plus years waiting for the call. Why did it take them so long?"
Gwynne and Rentz were conducting field work in Western Australia when they came upon several beer bottles with male Australian jewel beetles crawling all over them.
There were also beer cans and wine bottles lying around, but these beetles had eyes only for the bottles.
"It was clear the beetles were trying to mate with the bottles," Gwynne said.
The beer bottles, known as "stubbies" in Australian vernacular, resemble "super female" jewel beetles, Gwynne said. The bottles had an orange and brown color and reflected light in a similar manner to a female jewel beetle.
The male beetles found the stubbies so attractive they ignored the female beetles and attempted to mate with the beer bottles until they were eaten, removed, or died trying.
The researchers noticed another unusual thing about these beer bottles.
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