The Ig Nobel Prizes 2002, announced Thursday, are awarded annually at Harvard
University as a spoof of the Nobel ceremony.
Now in their 12th year, the awards recognize achievements that "cannot or
should not be reproduced." They are given to people who have done remarkably
goofy things -- some of them admirable, some perhaps otherwise.
Medicine: scrotal asymmetry in art. A 1976 scholarly article on "Scrotal
Asymmetry in Man and in Ancient Sculpture." published on Nature by Chris
McManus, a psychology professor from University College London, took top
honors for analyzing the asymmetrical positioning and size of gonads on
antique nude statues in Italian museums. After reviewing 107 sculptures, he
concluded that ancient artists correctly made the right testicle hang higher
than the left, but they incorrectly assumed the lower testicle was larger. In
reality, research shows that a man's right testicle is usually larger, he
says.
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