The Ig Noble awards are to celebrate achievements that "first make people laugh and then make them think". At a ceremony organised by the Annals of Immprobable Research magazine held on 1 October 2009 at Harvard's Sanders theatre, there were the usually "crazy" ideas that actually get you thinking what may be the underlying "truth". 

The winners go on to give lectures during this weekend at MIT. Take a look at previous winners and the magazine website - there must be minutes and minutes of entertainment.

2009 winners were;

Veterinary Medicine Prize

Catherine Douglas and Peter Rowlinson of Newcastle University

They have discovered that cows who have been given names offer up more milk than those with no name.
REFERENCE: "Exploring Stock Managers' Perceptions of the Human-Animal Relationship on Dairy Farms and an Association with Milk Production," Catherine Bertenshaw [Douglas] and Peter Rowlinson, Anthrozoos, vol. 22, no. 1, March 2009, pp. 59-69. DOI: 10.2752/175303708X390473.

Peace Prize

Stephan Bolliger, Steffen Ross, Lars Oesterhelweg, Michael Thali and Beat Kneubuehl of the University of Bern, Switzerland

They experimented with beer bottles - full and empty - to define whether it was better to be hit over the head with a full beer bottle or an empty one during a fight.
REFERENCE: "Are Full or Empty Beer Bottles Sturdier and Does Their Fracture-Threshold Suffice to Break the Human Skull?" Stephan A. Bolliger, Steffen Ross, Lars Oesterhelweg, Michael J. Thali and Beat P. Kneubuehl, Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine, vol. 16, no. 3, April 2009, pp. 138-42. DOI:10.1016/j.jflm.2008.07.013.

Economics Prize

The directors, executives, and auditors of four Icelandic banks - Kaupthing Bank, Landsbanki, Glitnir Bank, and Central Bank of Iceland

For demonstrating that tiny banks can be rapidly transformed into huge banks, and vice versa - and for demonstrating that similar things can be done to an entire national economy.

Chemistry Prize

Javier Morales, Miguel Apátiga, and Victor M. Castaño of Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

Now this is one paper I have to get hold of - the prize was for "for creating diamonds from liquid - specifically from tequila" but I cannot persdonally attest to this yet. Off to Amazon so place an advance order.
REFERENCE: "Growth of Diamond Films from Tequila," Javier Morales, Miguel Apatiga and Victor M. Castano, 2008, arXiv:0806.1485.

Medicine Prize

Donald L. Unger, of Thousand Oaks, California, USA

Investigating an old wives tale (really?) about cracking your knuckles being a cause of arthritis. He cracked the knuckles of his left hand only (not his right) everyday for mor than 60 years.
REFERENCE: "Does Knuckle Cracking Lead to Arthritis of the Fingers?", Donald L. Unger, Arthritis and Rheumatism, vol. 41, no. 5, 1998, pp. 949-50.

Physics Prize

Katherine K. Whitcome of the University of Cincinnati, USA, Daniel E. Lieberman of Harvard University, USA, and Liza J. Shapiro of the University of Texas, USA

For analytically determining why pregnant women don't tip over.
REFERENCE: "Fetal Load and the Evolution of Lumbar Lordosis in Bipedal Hominins," Katherine K. Whitcome, Liza J. Shapiro & Daniel E. Lieberman, Nature, vol. 450, 1075-1078 (December 13, 2007). DOI:10.1038/nature06342.

Literature Prize

Ireland's police service (An Garda Siochana)

They have produced more tha fifty tickets for traffic offences for the highest offender in the country, Prawo Jazdy - a name that means "Driving Licence" in Polish.

Public Health Prize

Elena N. Bodnar, Raphael C. Lee, and Sandra Marijan of Chicago, Illinois, USA

They invented a Bra that, in an emergency, can be converted into a pair of gas masks, one for the brassiere wearer and one to be given to some needy bystander.
REFERENCE: U.S. patent # 7255627, granted August 14, 2007 for a "Garment Device Convertible to One or More Facemasks."

Mathematics Prize

Gideon Gono, governor of Zimbabwe's Reserve Bank

For giving people a simple, everyday way to cope with a wide range of numbers - from very small to very big - by having his bank print bank notes with denominations ranging from one cent ($.01) to one hundred trillion dollars ($100,000,000,000,000).
REFERENCE: Zimbabwe's Casino Economy - Extraordinary Measures for Extraordinary Challenges, Gideon Gono, ZPH Publishers, Harare, 2008, ISBN 978-079-743-679-4.

Biology Prize

Fumiaki Taguchi, Song Guofu, and Zhang Guanglei of Kitasato University Graduate School of Medical Sciences in Sagamihara, Japan

Demonstrating that kitchen refuse can be reduced more than 90% in mass by using bacteria extracted from the feces of giant pandas (always got one handy!).
REFERENCE: "Microbial Treatment of Kitchen Refuse With Enzyme-Producing Thermophilic Bacteria From Giant Panda Feces," Fumiaki Taguchia, Song Guofua, and Zhang Guanglei, Seibutsu-kogaku Kaishi, vol. 79, no 12, 2001, pp. 463-9. [and abstracted in Journal of Bioscience and Bioengineering, vol. 92, no. 6, 2001, p. 602.]