The 2009 Ig Nobel Prizes were awarded yesterday evening in Cambridge, MA. There were awards for the bra that converts quickly to two gas masks, a study of why pregnant women don’t tip over, the award for literature, and other gems.

Ireland’s police won the literature prize from writing more than 50 traffic tickets to a frequent visitor and speeder named ‘Prawo Jazdy’. In Polish, this means ‘driver’s licence.’ Pathologist Stephan Bolliger and colleagues at the University of Bern in Switzerland won for a study they did to determine whether an empty beer bottle does more or less damage to the human skull than a full one in a bar fight.

Donald L. Unger, of Thousand Oaks, California, USA, won the Medicine Prize for investigating a possible cause of arthritis of the fingers – by diligently cracking the knuckles of his left hand (but never cracking the knuckles of his right hand) every day for more than sixty years. Apart from *ouch*, this actually sets a great example – a simple yet elegant experiment that anyone (who happened to have a spare 60 years) could do, yet it still contributes something to science. This doesn’t mean, though, that just anyone repeating an action with their right hand and not their left for years gets a prize. They get glasses and a squint.