On Thursday night, October 2, 2003, the "13th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony" was held in the hallowed, ivy-covered halls of Harvard University.  Among the winners were Australian physicists Jack Harvey, John Culvenor, and several colleagues, who were honored for their paper, "An Analysis of the Forces Required to Drag Sheep over Various Surfaces," published in the journal, Applied Ergonomics.  Also honored was Eleanor Maguire and her colleagues from University College London, whose paper, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, demonstrated that the brains of London taxi drivers are more highly developed than those of their fellow citizens.  The audience hooted, hollered, threw paper airplanes, and acted in a generally undignified manner befitting the occasion.

The Ig Nobel Prizes, which in recent years have begun to gain worldwide publicity, may ultimately become an antidote to the scientists' image described above.  They are, however, just the tip of the iceberg.  The web has hundreds of sites with jokes, cartoons, spoofs, satires, and funny-but-true stories involving scientists and engineers.  Check out the samples below.  They are guaranteed to make you laugh (or your money back).

The Annals of Improbable Research.  Official site of the journal that awards the Ig Nobel Prizes.  Developed by Marc Abrahams, editor of the journal, this is the mother of all science humor sites.

Science Humor Webring.  The ring has 46 members.  A few of the sites are also linked from this page; most are not. Links are annotated.

Psychology Humor.  You don't have to be a behavioral scientist to enjoy most of these jokes and spoofs--but it doesn't hurt.

Shashi's Science Humor.  Four presumably true stories and several jokes.  Pretty funny stuff, especially if you know a little physics.

Donald Simanek's Science Humor Site.  Documents and links, mostly about science.  A number of Simanek's original documents are very funny.

Science Humor. 169 "human selected" links (but no annotations, unfortunately).

Dihydrogen Monoxide Research Division. Information on the controversy surrounding this substance. (DHMO is more commonly known as H₂O.)  A very well done spoof.

Molecules With Silly or Unusual Names.  Ever hear of "Moronic Acid" or "Curious Chloride"?  They are real molecules.  You can find their chemical formulas here.

Computer Science Humor.  Some very funny stuff for anyone who uses a computer.  Scroll down to 
"Computer Analogies for Human Behaviors/Attributes" and "Microsoft and Brand Wars."

Why is the Sky Blue?  Wrong answers to this and other common questions.  A veritable fount of scientific misinformation.

Science Jokes.  Mostly involving physics and math.  A few are somewhat obscure; most are not.  Caution:  some are really corny.

Science and Technology Humor.  A collection of links, many of which are not found on other science humor sites.

Dark Sky Glasses.  A unique solution to the problem of light pollution (subject of another popular Teich's Tidbit).

Humor Related to A New Kind of Science.  It helps to have read the book by Stephen Wolfram (or at least the reviews).

Eric Shulman's Science Humor.  Shulman, author of A Briefer History of Time,  is a prolific satirist.  This site includes links to many of his writings (most of which were published in the Annals of Improbable Research).

Ask Dr. Science!  Dr. Science knows more than you do.  Satire from the Duck's Breath Radio Theater.