Research into a "gay bomb" that makes enemy troops "sexually irresistible" to each other and how to treat jetlag in hamsters is among the list of Ig Nobel awards winners this year.
The award, which celebrates humorous scientific research, has been an annual affair and is organised by the Annals of Improbable Research magazine, with Nobel prize winners often handing out the awards.
This year's ten winners include also a study into the health consequences of swallowing a sword, an examination as to how bedsheets become wrinkled and a patented device that catches bank robbers by dropping a net over them.
The prize in the "peace" category went to an US air force lab that looked into how to provoke widespread homosexual behaviour among enemy, while the "chemistry" award was snapped by a Japanese researcher who outlined the means of extracting vanilla flavouring from cow manure.