- October 4, 2010 • 4:00 pm PDT
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The Ig Nobel awards were announced last week. For those of you who don't know, the Ig Nobel awards are given out by the Institute of Improbable Research for "for achievements that first make people laugh, then make them think." In other words, they're for the silliest sounding scientific papers of the year. The awards ceremony itself is held at Harvard and all awards are presented by real Nobel Prize winners. Here are this year's winners.

1
Could Charging People for Uneaten Food in Restaurants Help Us Stop Wasting It?
2
Should Teachers View Their Students as Customers?
3
New Research Says Parenting Makes You Happy—If You're a Dad
4
Facebook Doesn't Need Your Money; Invest in Africa Instead
5
'Know That You Will Screw Up': Real Talk for New Graduates
today's top stories from our friends at TresSugar

Now you can rent an hour with all kinds of experts: world-class economists, a "Darwinian dating coach," or pro poker players.

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See the winner of our garden design contest. What features impressed the chef at the Puerto Rican hotel?
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Have you thought about the problems with our prison system? I have. And so has Mark Kleiman, a professor at UCLA's public policy...

The artist Akin Bilgic is fundraising on Kickstarter to put up mirrors with inspirational messages on them all over San Francisco.

Ryan Garcia is cleaning snow off cars, donating to charity, and befriending veterans one day at a time in pursuit of a better world.
What happens when one man attempts to find five strangers and offer each one a random act of kindness?
For all you aspiring producers out there, have a go at this: Click over to this website and download some whale songs. Remix them, and win an...
Jonathan Harris chronicles an Inupiat whale hunt in 3,214 photos. In the process he may have reinvented how we tell stories.

A mysterious whale has been singing on its own frequency for more than a decade. Why?
The International Whaling Commission announced today that they have drafted a proposal that could ease restrictions on whaling in the Southern...
The last thing that supporters of a promising renewable energy source want is a technology that harms wildlife. So before wave energy buoys...

In an animated short called Song of the Spindle, Seattle-based illustrator Drew Christie presents the similarities between a human and a whale.
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If you look closely, you can almost see the whale smiling.
Now it's time for the Nobel Prizes you are interested in. Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk was awarded the prize for Literature today, ruining what...
Fred Kavli is finding-and funding-scientists who are solving the most complex puzzles in the universe.