to honour achievements that make people laugh and then make them think (11. 840)

The laureates of the Ig Noble Prize (see previously) have been announced in a competition organised by the scientific humorist society Annals of Improbable Research since 1991 and hosted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who arrange the ceremony with awards in ten categories, celebrating the best in unusual or seemingly trivial studies, presented by their Noble-winning counterparts. The botany prize was awarded to a team of researchers that found that the leaves of the parasitic chameleon vine (Boquila trifoliolata) will imitate an artificial host plant in order to blend in. Building on the effects of the placebo and the nocebo, the award for medicine went to an experiment demonstrating that fake drugs with painful side effects can be more effective than real treatments with none, and as has been widely reported, the prize in demographics was awarded for research that helped debunk some of the mystique of the so called Blue Zones, areas famous for having supercentenarians, also excel in bad record keeping.