In a tradition spanning back to 1991, 10 'Ig Nobel' prizes were awarded at Harvard University, US, just prior to the announcement of this year's Nobels. The so-called Igs recognise achievements that cannot or should not be reproduced but, according to Ig officials, 'celebrate the unusual, honour the imaginative - and spur people's interest in science, medicine, and technology'.

Despite such laudable aims, and the fact that prizes were awarded in front of 1200 spectators by a selection of real Nobel laureates - including two chemists (Dudley Herschbach, 1986; and William Lipscomb, 1976) - this year's Ig Nobel laureates in chemistry shunned the ceremony. The Coca-Cola Company of Great Britain was nominated for, according to the awarding body, 'using advanced technology to convert liquid from the River Thames into Dasani, a transparent form of water, which for precautionary reasons has been made unavailable to consumers'.

Other laureates , who did make it to the awards ceremony, included the winner of the prize for medicine, James Gundlach of Auburn University, Alabama, US, and the winners of the biology prize from centres in Denmark, Sweden, Canada and the UK.

Gundlach co-wrote a paper entitled The effect of country music on suicide (Social Forces, 1992, 71, 211), while the discovery that herrings communicate by farting (Aquatic Living Resources, 2003, 16, 271; Biology Letters, 2003, 271, S95) earned the biologists their laurels.

Bea Perks