Nutty Nobel for fake dog testicles

GREGG MILLER mortgaged his home and maxed out his credit cards to mass produce his invention — prosthetic testicles for neutered dogs — and has been rewarded with an “alternative” Nobel Prize.

What started 10 years ago with an experiment on an unwitting Rottweiler named Max has turned into a thriving mail-order business. And on Thursday night Miller's efforts earned him a dubious yet strangely coveted honour: the Ig Nobel Prize for medicine.

"Considering my parents thought I was an idiot when I was a kid, this is a great honour," he said. "I wish they were alive to see it."

The Ig Nobels, given at Harvard University by Annals of Improbable Research magazine, celebrate the humorous, creative and odd side of science.

Miller has sold more than 150,000 of his Neuticles, more than doubling his $500,000 (€413,032) investment. The silicone implants come in different sizes, shapes and weights.

The product's website says Neuticles allow a pet "to retain his natural look" and "self-esteem".

This year's other winners include:

PHYSICS: Since 1927, researchers at the University of Queensland in Australia have been tracking a glob of congealed black tar as it drips through a funnel at a rate of one drop every nine years.

CHEMISTRY: An experiment at the University of Minnesota was designed to prove whether people can swim faster or slower in syrup than in water.

LITERATURE: This went to the Nigerians who introduced millions of email users to a "cast of rich characters... each of whom requires just a small amount of expense money so as to obtain access to the great wealth to which they are entitled."