Are cats liquid? Can a live crocodile influence gamblers? Do old men have big ears? Ig Nobel winners solve science mysteries

Scientists who discovered that old men really do have big ears, that playing the didgeridoo helps relieve sleep apnoea and that handling crocodiles can influence gambling decisions are among this year’s recipients of the Ig Nobel, the prize for absurd scientific achievement.

The 27th annual awards were announced Thursday at Harvard University. The ceremony featured a traditional barrage of paper aeroplanes, a world premiere opera and real Nobel laureates handing out the 10 prizes.

“It’s a strange honour to have, but I am thrilled,” Dr James Heathcote said. A British physician, Heathcote won the Ig Nobel for anatomy for his big-ear research.

The awards are sponsored by the science humour magazine Annals of Improbable Research, the Harvard-Radcliffe Science Fiction Association and the Harvard-Radcliffe Society of Physics Students.

This year’s winners — who each received $10 trillion cash prizes in virtually worthless Zimbabwean money — also included scientists who used fluid dynamics to determine whether cats are solid or liquid; researchers who tried to figure out why some people are disgusted by cheese; and psychologists who found that many identical twins cannot tell themselves apart in visual images.

Heathcote, whose study on ear size was published in the prestigious British Medical Journal in 1995, was inspired when he and several other general practitioners were discussing how they could do more research.

When he asked why old men have such big ears, half his colleagues agreed with his observation; the others scoffed.