Imagine if you had to hit your head against the wall dozens of times just to get a meal. Sore, isn't it? That is exactly what a woodpecker does. No matter how nany times it pecks at a tree in one day, it seems that it never siffers any ill effects like headaches. It is woodpeckers' thick head bones that protect their heads from the impact of the blows. For explaining that, Ivan Roy Schwab won the 2006 Ig Nobel Prize for Ornithology.

The Ig Nobel Prizes are organized by the Annals of Improbable Research. It is an American magazine that celebrates the funny side of science. Each year, ten winners are awarded prizes in honor of "achievements that first make people laugh and then make them think." Winners receive no money, but many of them are titling to attend the ceremony at their expense-perhaps for an award that is presented by a genuine Nobel laureate. A lot of award-inning research, like Schwab-s, can seem so strange and unusual that it is hardly noticed at first. However, no matter how improbable the research seems, you may find it inspiring and amusing.

With the idea of these awards in mind, you may be more interested in Bian Wansink's research. In 2007, he took home the Nutrition Prize for looking into the visual influence on appetite. In his experiment, he used specially designed bowls that secretly refilled themselves with soup while people were eating. Not knowing about this, these people kept eating from the "bottomless bowls." They never felt full because they thought that the bowls were not empty yet. The result of the experiment showed that the people in this experiment ate 73 percent more suop than normal. Based on these result, Wansink stated that people eat with their eyes instead of their stomachs.

In addition, Chuang-Ye Hong, a Tainese professor, and his research team won the 2008 Chemistry Prize for discovering that Coke cannot be used to avoid pregnancy. This honor was shared with three American doctors, whose experiment two years before Hong's had shown a contrary result. The opposing results are caused by different ways of experimenting. Which side is right, however, is not the most important. The share of this award reflects one central idea of these prizes. That is why Marc Abrahams, one of the founders, said, "If you win one, it signifies to one and all that you have done something."