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IgNobel Prizes live webcast

What is the Ig Nobel Prize?

"It's the sort of science that makes you laugh and learn," says Dr Karl Kruszelnicki, who won an Ig Nobel Prize in 2002 for his research about bellybutton fluff.

"The philosophy behind the prizes is research that cannot or should not be done," he says.

The Ig Nobel prizes — that's short for 'improbable research' — celebrate unusual and imaginative research to spur people's interest in science, technology and medicine as well as non-science categories such as literature and economics.