On Thursday, the ceremony for the 33rd annual edition of the Ig Nobel Prizes took place, rewarding scientists “for achievements that first make people laugh, then make them think.” Below is a summary of this year’s some award-winning research projects.

Licking rocks and reanimating (赋予新的生命) spiders

Geologist Jan Zalasiewicz took home the chemistry and geology prize for a 2017 essay explaining why scientists sometimes lick rocks. It’s “part of the geologist’s armory (法宝) of tried-and-much-tested techniques used to help survive in the field,” he writes in the essay “Eating Fossils”. Wetting the surface of a fossil or rock allows mineral particles and textures to stand out. Zalasiewicz was “bemused” to find out he won the award, because he didn’t think he would win the award.

Researchers who experimented with using dead spiders as a gripping mechanism (机械装置) received the mechanical engineering award. They found that spiders’ legs, which extend using hydraulic (液压的) pressure, can be manually opened from their natural, closed state by applying pressure. “The gripper is capable of grasping objects with irregular geometries and up to 130 percent of its own mass,” the authors write in the study, published last year in Advanced Science.

Smart toilets, nose hairs and electric chopsticks

The public health prize honored the invention of the Stanford toilet by urologist Seung-min Park, which studies human waste for signs of illness using a range of technologies — from cameras to motion sensors to medical sensors.

The medicine prize went to researchers who counted the nose hairs of dead bodies. People with alopecia (秃头症), or hair loss, can lose their nose hair, and the scientists want to learn how this impacted their health.

Researchers won the nutrition prize for attempting to make food tastier with electrified chopsticks and straws. “The taste of food can be changed immediately and reversibly (可逆地) by electrical stimulation, and this is something that has been difficult to achieve with conventional ingredients,” recipient Hiromi Nakamura tells the Guardian.

1.The Ig Nobel Prizes are for________________achievements.

A educational and romantic

B humorous and educational

C romantic and ridiculous

D meaningful and serious

解析：选B。B细节理解题。根据第一段第一句“rewarding scientists ‘for achievements that first make people laugh, then make them think.’”可知，“搞笑诺贝尔奖”致力于回顾“先让人发笑，后让人思考”的研究，因此它是奖励幽默且有教育意义的成就。故选B。

2.What does the underlined word “bemused” mean?

A Loyal.

B Cruel.

C Confused.

D Miserable.

解析：选C。C词义猜测题。根据划线部分后面的“because he didn’t think he would win the award.”可知，他从未想过自己会得奖，因此当他得知自己获奖时感到困惑/莫名其妙。故选C。

3.Which of the following statements is TRUE according to the passage?

A The public health prize honored the Stanford toilet by Jan Zalasiewicz.

B The spider can grasp objects up to 13 times of its own mass.

C Researchers who counted the nose hairs of dead bodies got the medicine prize.

D Researchers won the nutrition prize for reanimating spiders.

解析：选C。C细节理解题。根据第五段第一句的“The medicine prize went to researchers who counted the nose hairs of dead bodies.”可知，医学奖颁给了利用尸体研究两个鼻孔中的毛发数量是否相同的研究人员。故选C。

4.What type of writing is this text?

A A news report.

B A play review.

C A research article.

D An advertisement.

解析：选A。A推理判断题。本文主要向我们介绍了2023年“搞笑诺贝尔奖”揭晓的相关情况，属于新闻报道。故选A。