Ig Nobel end to navel gazing

SYDNEY -- An Australian study on the qualities of navel fluff has come out tops in an international contest for dubious contributions to science, news reports said yesterday.

The winner of this year's Ig Nobel Prize for pointless academic papers was written by Sydney University research fellow Dr Karl Kruszelnicki.

Kruszelnicki was presented the honour in Boston earlier this week.

"It's a great honour," Kruszelnicki said. "It introduces people to the idea that science is fun." Kruszelnicki surveyed 4799 people, of whom 66 percent admitted to finding belly-button lint (BBL) when they searched for it.

He found a slight correlation between skin colour and BBL colour with darker skinned people having darker lint.

There was no correlation between skin type and BBL but a clear link between the colour of clothing and BBL.

A third of respondents confirmed this link, with blue being the predominant colour for BBL.

"But we really can't explain why some people consistently have BBL in a colour that is not present in their clothing," Kruszelnicki said. Another finding was that the quantity of BBL increased with age. -- Sapa-DPA