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I think it is worth noting that Australians didn’t only do well in the Nobel Prizes this year. All praise, of course, to Barry J. Marshall and J. Robin Warren, who received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, “for their discovery of the bacterium Helicobacter pylori and its role in gastritis and peptic ulcer disease”.

Australians also did well in the Ig Nobels this year, claiming:

• The Ig Nobel Prize in Physics: John Mainstone and the late Thomas Parnell of the University of Queensland, Australia, for patiently conducting an experiment that began in the year 1927 — in which a glob of congealed black tar has been slowly, slowly dripping through a funnel, at a rate of approximately one drop every nine years; and
• The Ig Nobel Prize in Biology: Benjamin Smith of the University of Adelaide, Australia and the University of Toronto, Canada and the Firmenich perfume company, Geneva, Switzerland, and ChemComm Enterprises, Archamps, France; Craig Williams of James Cook University and the University of South Australia; Michael Tyler of the University of Adelaide; Brian Williams of the University of Adelaide; and Yoji Hayasaka of the Australian Wine Research Institute; for painstakingly smelling and cataloging the peculiar odors produced by 131 different species of frogs when the frogs were feeling stressed

At two prizes, Australians were second only to the Americans (with three). Honourable mention also to the New Zealander for holding up their end of the Australasian triumph:

• Ig Nobel Prize in Agricultural History: James Watson of Massey University, New Zealand, for his scholarly study, “The Significance of Mr. Richard Buckley’s Exploding Trousers.”