Mediocrity has its rewards

Associated Press

BOSTON — If airtight underwear someday makes its way onto the shelves of America’s department stores, thank Buck Weimer.

Seven years ago, the Pueblo, Colo., therapist, came up with the idea of "Under-Ease" skivvies, complete with a flatulence filter.

Weimer, 62, and a dozen other researchers, inventors and scientists received the 2001 Ig Nobel Prize Thursday night for their unique, occasionally head-scratching contributions to the world.

Weimer stresses that Under-Ease is a serious medical product.

"While we appreciate the humor, and get a lot of that, we recognize that it’s a medical product, and it’s for people in need," he said. "We believe we’re certainly fulfilling a service here."

Nobel Prize winners — recipients of the world’s most coveted award for distinguished and groundbreaking discoveries — bestow the awards.

"There are many prizes in the world for people who are the best at something. … There are a few prizes for the worst things. But most people are somewhere in between, and there’s nothing for them," said Marc Abrahams, editor of the Annals of Improbable Research, the humor science magazine and host of the awards. "That’s why there’s the Ig Nobel Prizes. It’s for the great muddle in the middle, where most of us are, most of the time."

On the Net: www.improbable.com

The awards

Some past Ig Nobel Prize winners by category, and a description of their work:

Medicine: Peter Barss, McGill University. For the report “Injuries Due to Falling Coconuts,” published in The Journal of Trauma in 1984.

Economics: Joel Slemrod of the University of Michigan Business School, and Wojciech Kopczuk of University of British Columbia. For their conclusion that people find a way to postpone their deaths if that qualifies them for a lower inheritance tax rate.

Literature: John Richards, Boston, England, founder of The Apostrophe Protection Society. For his efforts to protect, promote and defend the differences between plural and possessive.

Astrophysics: Jack and Rexella Van Impe of Jack Van Impe Ministries, Rochester Hills, Mich. For their discovery that black holes fulfill all the technical requirements to be the location of Hell.

Peace: Viliumas Malinauskas of Grutas, Lithuania, for creating the amusement park known as Stalin World.

Public health: Chittaranjan Andrade and B.S. Srihari of the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Bangalore, India. For the discovery that nose picking is common among adolescents.