The Ig Nobel Prizes, intended as a tongue-in-cheek alternative to their more formal Scandinavian counterparts, were presented by genuine Nobel prize winners.
Ivan Schwab of the University of California Davis and the late Philip May of the University of California were awarded the ornithology prize for their pioneering work on the ability of the humble woodpecker to avoid head injury.
Three US scientists, Lynn Halpern, Randolph Blake and James Hillenbrand, were awarded the acoustics prize for conducting experiments to learn why people dislike the sound of fingernails scraping on a blackboard.
Wasmia Al-Houty of Kuwait University and Faten Al-Mussalam of the Kuwait Environment Public Authority, took home the nutrition prize for showing that dung beetles are in fact finicky eaters.
And two researchers from Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Research Organisation who worked out how many photos you need to take to ensure that nobody in a group photo has their eyes closed were awarded the maths prize.
Not to be overlooked, Francis Fesmire of the University of Tennessee accepted the medicine Ig Nobel for his report "Termination of Intractable Hiccups with Digital Rectal Massage" while physics laureates Basile Audoly and Sebastien Neukirch of Paris University were honoured for their insights into why dry spaghetti tends to break into more than two pieces.
And while the conclusions of a group of scientists from Valencia University and the University of Illes Balears in Spain were not immediately clear, the judges deemed their study “Ultrasonic Velocity in Cheddar Cheese as Affected by Temperature" worthy of the chemistry prize.
Also honoured for cheese research, Bart Knols from Wageningen Agricultural University in the Netherlands won the biology award for his part in research showing that female malaria mosquito are equally attracted to limburger cheese and human feet.
The winners were given one minute to deliver their acceptance speech, with the time limit strictly policed by an outspoken eight-year-old girl.
One of those unable to attend the ceremony for family reasons was Howard Stapleton of Merthyr Tydfil, Wales, who was awarded the peace prize for inventing an electromechanical teenager repellant.
The device makes an annoying noise designed to be audible to teenagers but not to adults. He later used the same technology to make telephone ringtones that are audible to teenagers but not to their teachers.
The evening traditionally involves members of the audience throwing paper aeroplanes at the stage while Harvard professor Roy Glauber dutifully sweeps up, as he has done for the last 10 years, despite being a Nobel physics laureate.
Organisers say the prizes are designed to "honour achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think."
Former winners include Don Featherstone, creator of the plastic pink flamingo, Kees Moeliker, who reported the first scientifically recorded case of homosexual necrophilia in the mallard duck and Stefano Ghirlanda, co-author of the study "Chickens Prefer Beautiful Humans."