Ramesh Balasubramaniam, Professor of Human Kinetics at the University of Ottawa, has been named the winner of the IgNobel Award, which is a spoof of the Nobel Prize and is given for offbeat scientific discoveries.

Balasubramaniam won the award, instituted by the science humor magazine Annals of Improbable Research, for his study on ‘Coordination Modes in the Multisegmental Dynamics of Hula-Hooping.’ On being nominated for the award that celebrates the lighter side of science, the scientist was quoted as saying in The Times of India that he felt “fantastic” at receiving an award that “makes you think and laugh too. It’s a way of popularizing science.” Referring to the work which won him the IgNobel Prize, Balasubramanian said, tongue in cheek, that it is “an scholarly analysis of the bodily movements necessary to keep a hula-hoop in motion.”

“India has a very long tradition in science –– and humor. We are a nation of famous physicists like C.V. Raman and Home Bhabha. Science can have a long term contribution. And Indians can see the lighter side of serious things too,” he added.

(Compiled from a press release and news dispatches by Charles Isaac)