一项涉及训练鸽子驾驶炸弹的第二次世界大战项目赢得了今年的诺贝尔和平奖。

搞笑诺贝尔奖由科学幽默杂志《不可思议的研究年鉴》每年颁发一次，旨在表彰那些“让人发笑，然后思考”的不寻常的研究领域。

A Second World War project which involved training pigeons to pilot bombs has won this year’s spoof Nobel peace prize.

一项涉及训练鸽子驾驶炸弹的第二次世界大战项目赢得了今年的诺贝尔和平奖。

The Ig Nobel gongs – awarded annually by the science humour magazine the Annals of Improbable Research – celebrate unusual areas of research that “make people laugh, then think”.

搞笑诺贝尔奖由科学幽默杂志《不可思议的研究年鉴》每年颁发一次，旨在表彰那些“让人发笑，然后思考”的不寻常的研究领域。

Professor Burrhus Frederic Skinner, a psychologist at the University of Minnesota in the US, received the posthumous gong for his work on Project Pigeon, where he was able to teach pigeons to guide missiles with some success.

美国明尼苏达大学心理学家伯鲁斯·弗雷德里克·斯金纳教授因其在鸽子计划中的工作而获得追授奖，他在该计划中成功地教鸽子引导导弹。

But the project never took flight because of scepticism from the US military and government officials.

但由于美国军方和政府官员的怀疑，该项目从未启动。

However, Prof Skinner stood by the research, writing in a summary of the project published in 1960: “Call it a crackpot idea if you will. It is one in which I have never lost faith.”

然而，斯金纳教授支持这项研究，并在 1960 年发表的该项目摘要中写道：“如果你愿意的话，可以称其为疯狂的想法。这是我从未失去信心的一件事。”

The anatomy prize went to a team of scientists in France who wanted to investigate whether hair on the heads of most people in the Northern Hemisphere swirled in the same direction – clockwise or anticlockwise – as those from the Southern Hemisphere.

解剖学奖颁给了法国的一个科学家小组，他们想要调查北半球大多数人头上的头发是否与南半球人的头发旋转方向相同（顺时针或逆时针）。

Study author Khonsari Roman, professor of maxillofacial surgery at the Necker-Enfants Malades Hospital in Paris, said: “As a whole, clockwise whorl are considerably more common all over the world.

该研究的作者、巴黎 Necker-Enfants Malades 医院颌面外科教授 Khonsari Roman 说：“总体而言，顺时针螺纹在世界各地更为常见。

“Nevertheless, counter-clockwise whorls seem to be more prevalent in the Southern Hemisphere.”

“尽管如此，逆时针旋转似乎在南半球更为普遍。”

He said there is may be an “unknown mechanism” that leads to clockwise whorls in general but the team does not yet know why people in the Southern Hemisphere are more likely to have anticlockwise swirls.

他说，可能存在一种“未知的机制”导致总体上顺时针旋转，但研究小组还不知道为什么南半球的人们更有可能出现逆时针旋转。

The chemistry award was won by a research team who used used a lab technique to separate drunk and sober worms, while US-based scientists Fordyce Ely and William E Petersen were awarded the biology prize for exploding a paper bag next to a cat standing on the back of a cow with aim to understand more about how and when cows spew their milk.

化学奖由一个研究小组获得，他们使用实验室技术分离醉酒和清醒的蠕虫，而美国科学家福代斯·伊利和威廉·E·彼得森则因在站在猫旁边的纸袋爆炸而获得生物学奖。牛的背部，旨在更多地了解奶牛如何以及何时喷奶。

The two found that cows temporarily stopped ejecting milk when frightened.

两人发现，奶牛在受到惊吓时会暂时停止喷奶。

An international team of scientists led by academics in Germany picked up the prize for probability, which involved more than 350,000 coin-flipping experiments totalling 650 hours and using 44 different currencies.

由德国学者领导的国际科学家团队获得了概率奖，该团队涉及超过 350,000 次抛硬币实验，总计 650 小时，使用 44 种不同的货币。

The team found that when people flip a coin it “wobbles” in the air, making it more likely to land on the same side it started.

研究小组发现，当人们抛硬币时，它会在空中“摇摆”，使其更有可能落在最初的同一面。

Other awards presented at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston, US, on Thursday, included the physiology prize for discovering that many mammals are capable of breathing through their anus and the physics prize for demonstrating the swimming abilities of a dead trout.

周四在美国波士顿麻省理工学院颁发的其他奖项包括因发现许多哺乳动物能够通过肛门呼吸而获得的生理学奖，以及因展示死鳟鱼的游泳能力而获得的物理学奖。

James C Liao, professor of biology at the University of Florida in the US, said in 2004 he discovered that fish swim in a flag like flapping motion when towed behind a cylinder and wanted to see if dead fish did the same.

美国佛罗里达大学生物学教授詹姆斯·C·廖(James C Liao)表示，2004年，他发现鱼被拖在圆柱体后面时会像旗帜一样摆动，想看看死鱼是否也会做同样的事情。

He said: “The dead fish experiment was a quick way to show that just the shape, slime and flexibility of a (dead) fish is enough for it to harness energy to hold position behind the cylinder and even move forward (by accelerating its body against its own drag).”

他说：“死鱼实验是一种快速方法，表明仅（死）鱼的形状、粘液和灵活性就足以使其利用能量保持在圆柱体后面的位置，甚至向前移动（通过加速其身体）对抗其自身的阻力）。”

Prof Liao said that his work could help design better fish passages to help with their migration.

廖教授表示，他的工作可以帮助设计更好的鱼类通道，以帮助它们迁徙。

Speaking about the award, he said: “I feel surprised and honoured that it (the research) has been recognised after all these years.

谈到该奖项，他说：“我感到惊讶和荣幸，它（这项研究）在这么多年之后得到了认可。

“I’m excited for more people to find out about it, because on the surface the experiment sounds ridiculous, but then as you understand it more, the implications of this curiosity-based science discovery are far-ranging and can also improve on things that humans hold dear.”

“我很高兴更多的人能够了解它，因为从表面上看，这个实验听起来很荒谬，但当你了解得更多时，就会发现这个基于好奇心的科学发现的影响是广泛的，而且还可以改善事物人类所珍视的。”

Meanwhile, the demography gong went to Dr Saul Justin Newman, senior research fellow at University College London, who discovered some people with the longest lives hailed from places that had poor recordkeeping.

与此同时，伦敦大学学院高级研究员索尔·贾斯汀·纽曼博士获得了人口学奖，他发现一些寿命最长的人来自记录保存不良的地方。

Dr Newman said he became interested in investigating data on humans who live longer than most after debunking two scientific papers about extreme human ageing.

纽曼博士表示，在揭穿两篇有关人类极端衰老的科学论文后，他开始对研究比大多数人寿命更长的人类数据感兴趣。

He said: “I found that extreme age records appear to be dominantly errors.

他说：“我发现极端年龄记录似乎主要是错误。

“These errors are apparent from unusual patterns in individual cases, scientific studies and entire populations.

“从个别案例、科学研究和整个人群的异常模式来看，这些错误是显而易见的。

“For example, the world’s oldest man, Jiroemon Kimura, has an extraordinary number of biographical anomalies and has three reported birthdays: one that seems to have been forged, one that was a typographic error inserted by demographers, and one that is supposedly real.”

“例如，世界上最长寿的人木村次郎右卫门的传记异常数量惊人，并且有三个报告的生日：一个似乎是伪造的，一个是人口学家插入的印刷错误，还有一个据说是真实的。 ”

Dr Newman said these anomalies are even larger when analysed across populations.

纽曼博士表示，对不同人群进行分析时，这些异常现象甚至更大。

He said: “Reaching extreme ages is predicted by higher rates of poverty, higher rates of old-age poverty, not having a birth certificate, and amazingly, by having fewer 90-plus year olds in a region, that is, the more 90 year-olds there are in a region, the fewer 105-year-olds.”

他说：“达到极端年龄的原因包括更高的贫困率、更高的老年贫困率、没有出生证明，而且令人惊讶的是，一个地区90岁以上的人口较少，也就是说，90岁以上的人口较多。”一个地区的老人越多，105岁的老人越少。”

Dr Newman said many of these people live in regions known as “blue zones” such as Okinawa in Japan,

纽曼博士说，其中许多人生活在被称为“蓝色区域”的地区，例如日本冲绳，