Will the Gas Mask Bra Save Lives?

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (Oct. 2) -- Red alert! Red alert! Some dastardly group has unleashed a deadly gas! Quick, ladies! Undo your bras!

If a doctor who accepted an award at Harvard University on Thursday night had her way, women would go braless as soon as a city was struck by a radioactive bomb or anthrax attack, so that they could use their intimate apparel as a gas mask.

Elena Bodnar, a Ukrainian cardiologist, came to the most prestigious university in America to accept one of its least prestigious honors -- the Ig Nobel.

Every October, shortly before the Nobel Prizes are awarded, Harvard student groups spoof the world's most esteemed honor with their own ceremony. It's a wild evening where genuine Nobel laureates, esteemed researchers and self-described geeks sing, dance and throw paper airplanes in celebration of some of the world's least important -- and most amusing -- academic achievements.

"You have to have a sense of humor about what you do," said Bodnar, who would later pull her patented brassiere -- designed with cups that act as filtration devices -- over the heads of several prominent Nobel winners, including New York Times op-ed columnist Paul Krugman.

There is definitely something funny about every Ig Nobel winner's project. But these people aren't clowns. In fact, many Ig Nobel winners are among the most respected people in their field.

Nevertheless, something they stumbled upon in the course of their research is undeniably funny -- and that makes it Ig Nobel worthy.

"I am a survivor of Chernobyl, and that made me very sensitive to how people survive a catastrophe," Bodnar said hours before the ceremony.

"The average woman isn't going to carry a gas mask with her each day. But the fact is, when you need one, you are going to be caught by surprise."

When the bra unhooks, it actually becomes two gas masks, so the woman who wears one can help a child or a male companion.

"I think my invention will inspire men to treat women better," Bodnar said. "It will also make men appreciate the fact that women have two breasts."

The milk of human kindness certainly inspired the winners of the Ig Nobel for Veterinary Medicine.

Peter Rowlinson and Catherine Douglas of England's Newcastle University accepted an award for showing that cows with names produced one to two pints of milk more than cows that weren't given names.

"Even if a herdsman gave a cow a number instead of a name, that cow just seemed to be more agitated around milking time," said Rowlinson, who studied the "kinding" behavior of more than 500 dairy farmers.

"It just seems that cows with names are happier cows."

An Ig Nobel winner often supplies information that everyone wants to know -- not because it makes the world a better place, just because it's fun to know.

Stephan Bolliger and a team of forensic researchers from the University of Bern in Switzerland determined that you can inflict more pain when you smack someone over the head with an empty bottle of beer, rather than a full one.

Bolliger's team studied bottles that were released from a drop tower to determine the amount of energy required to break the glass.

"As someone who frequently acts as an expert witness in criminal trials, my work is certainly pertinent to my field," he said.

Of course, the unintended consequences of Bolliger's work are undeniable. And he accepted his Ig Nobel Peace Prize by smashing a bottle against his skull, much to the crowd's delight.

"I guess if you have to get into a fight, you stand a much better chance of winning if you wait until you finish your drink."

Along with Krugman, nine other Nobel winners sat on stage, throwing paper planes and sharing in the madness. They included: Rich Roberts (physiology/medicine, 1993), Sheldon Glashow (physics, 1979), Wolfgang Ketterle (physics, 2001), Dudley Herschbach (chemistry, 1986), Roy Glauber (physics, 2005), Orhan Pamuk (literature, 2006), Frank Wilczek (physics, 2004), William Lipscomb (chemistry, 1976) and Martin Chalfie (chemistry, 2008).

Chalfie was the prize in the annual "Win-a-Date-With-a-Nobel-Laureate" contest.

The event was produced by the Annals of Improbable Research, which has coordinated the prizes for nearly two decades, along with several Harvard student organizations.

"If you didn't win an Ig Nobel, better luck next year," said AIR editor Marc Abrahams. "And if you did win an Ig Nobel . . . better luck next year."

CHEMISTRY: Javier Morales, Miguel Apatiga and Victor Castano for creating diamonds out of tequila.

ECONOMICS: Executives of four Icelandic banks for showing how tiny banks can become huge banks, and then become tiny banks again.

MEDICINE: Donald Unger for cracking just the knuckles on his left hand for 60 years to see if knuckle cracking contributes to arthritis.

PHYSICS: Katherine Whitcome, Liza Shapiro and Daniel Lieberman for figuring out why pregnant women don't tip over.

LITERATURE: The Irish national police for issuing 50 tickets to one Prawo Jazdy, which in Polish means "driver's license."

MATHEMATICS: Gideon Gono and the Zimbabwean Reserve Bank for printing bank notes in denominations from 1 cent to $100 trillion.

BIOLOGY: Fumiaki Taguchi, Song Guofu and Zhang Guanglei for demonstrating that bacteria in panda poop can help reduce kitchen waste by 90 percent.