‘Beer Goggle’ study wins award

The team behind a study into the “Beer Goggles” effect has been award an Ig Nobel prize.

The team from France and the US won the Ig Nobel award for Psychology by proving that the beer goggles effect also makes the drinker think that he/she is more attractive.

The study was entitled: “Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder” and was one of 10 awards given out at Harvard University.

Brad Bushman of Ohio State University and one of the co-authors of the study explained to the BBC: “People have long observed that drunk people think others are more attractive but ours is the first study to find that drinking makes people think they are more attractive themselves.

“If you become drunk and think you are really attractive it might influence your thoughts and behaviour towards others. It illustrates that in human memory, the link between alcohol and attractiveness is pretty strong.”

The Ig Nobel awards are a light-hearted spoof of the Nobel Awards. Winners have a minute to explain their study without being booed off stage by an eight year old girl.

Other prizes and winners this year included the Peace Prize for Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko (pictured), for making public applause illegal and the state police for arresting a one-armed man for the offence.

The Probability Prize was won by a Dutch/British team for observing that when a cow has been lying down for a long time it will likely stand up again soon and that once standing it is very hard to predict when it will lie down again.

A Japanese team won the Chemistry Prize for proving that the biochemical reaction that makes people cry when cutting onions is more complex than previously thought and a combined European team won the Physics Prize for proving that some people could walk on water – if they were on the Moon.

Other prizes were won for showing that lost dung beetles can navigate by the stars, the effect listening to opera had on mice which had had a heart transplant and how the bones of shrews dissolve in the human digestive system.

Finally, a team from Thailand won the Public Health Prize for medical techniques required in penile re-attachment after amputations (most common cause: jealous wives) – except if the penis in question had been partially eaten by a duck.