US military's 'gay bomb' wins tongue-in-cheek award

From New Scientist:

 

Military wins Ig Nobel peace prize for 'gay bomb'

05 October 2007

Jeff Hecht

 

US military plans to create a weapon that would put a new twist on the slogan "make love, not war" were among the many off-beat ideas honoured at the 2007 Ig Nobel awards. A study of jet-lagged hamsters, some "bottomless" soup bowls, and an in-depth examination of sword-swallowing also earned prizes.

The tongue-in-cheek awards are organised by the humorous scientific journal the Annals of Improbable Research for research achievements "that make people laugh – then think". The ceremony, held at Harvard University, is traditionally attended by several real Nobel laureates, including one who swept paper airplanes from the stage for several years before receiving the Nobel prize in Physics.

The Ig Nobel peace prize went to the US Air Force's Wright Laboratory in Ohio for its 1994 plan to develop a weapon that would make enemy soldiers sexually irresistible to one another, an idea later dubbed the "gay bomb".

Details of the scheme were uncovered in a declassified document (pdf) that suggests a strong aphrodisiac would be "completely non-lethal" but could be seriously disruptive "especially if the chemical also caused homosexual behaviour."

Other ideas put forward in the document include chemical weapons that would attract angry or aggressive bugs, or that would give enemy troops "severe and lasting halitosis", thus making it hard for them to blend in with civilians...

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