A Bra Gas Mask

The Ig Nobel prizes were announced last week. The prizes are a parody of the Nobel prize and are given for research that "first make people laugh, and then make them think." Here's the public health prize winner:

Elena N. Bodnar, Raphael C. Lee, and Sandra Marijan of Chicago, Illinois, USA, for inventing a brassiere that, in an emergency, can be quickly converted into a pair of gas masks, one for the brassiere wearer and one to be given to some needy bystander.

Veterinary medicine:

Catherine Douglas and Peter Rowlinson of Newcastle University, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, UK, for showing that cows who have names give more milk than cows that are nameless.

And the peace prize:

Stephan Bolliger, Steffen Ross, Lars Oesterhelweg, Michael Thali and Beat Kneubuehl of the University of Bern, Switzerland, for determining by experiment whether it is better to be smashed over the head with a full bottle of beer or with an empty bottle.

(Hat tip: Sager)