1998 Ig Nobel Biology Prize — The prize was awarded to Peter Fong of Gettysburg College, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, for contributing to the happiness of clams by giving them Prozac. The research is documented in the study “Induction and Potentiation of Parturition in Fingernail Clams (Sphaerium striatinum) by Selective Serotonin Re-Uptake Inhibitors (SSRIs),” Peter F. Fong, Peter T. Huminski, and Lynette M. D’urso, Journal of Experimental Zoology, vol. 280, 1998, pp. 260-264. Here’s a limerick about it:
There’s a simile, pithy and snappy.
It’s wrong. Sometimes bivalves feel crappy.
But help’s on the way.
Give it Prozac today
To make a clam really feel happy.
That’s an excerpt from the Ig Nobel Limericks column in the special WATER issue (vol. 29, no. 2) of the magazine. The limericks are created by our limerick laureate, Martin Eiger.