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Researchers from France and the US scooped up the Ig Nobel prize this week after confirming the "beer goggle effect" - which is when people think they are more attractive after drinking alcohol.

The Ig Nobel Prize, one of the silliest awards in science, gave the "Psychology Prize" for the researchers behind the beer-goggles study at the annual Ig Nobel ceremony on Thursday. The parody of the real Nobel Prizes has been paying tribute to "science that makes you laugh, then makes you think" since 1991.

The prize ceremony took place at Harvard University where prize recipients were given just 60 seconds to give a thank you speech before getting booed off by an impatient 8-year-old girl.

The researchers behind the "beer goggles" released a research paper with a title that sums up the findings:  "Beauty Is in the Eye of the Beer Holder: People Who Think They Are Drunk Also Think They Are Attractive." The researchers said they did not conduct their experiments on people who had consumed beer, but instead grapefruit-grenadine cordials instead of beer.

The experimental subjects - 86 French men - were told they were participating in a taste test for a new kind of beverage. Some were told the drink was non-alcoholic. Others were given drinks with a slight bit of alcohol added to the surface and the rim, and then told that the beverage packed as much punch as five or six shots of vodka.

Other winners of the Ig Nobel Prize included a patent for trapping and ejecting airplane hijackers and a UK team scooped an Ig for observing that a cow is more likely to stand up the longer it has been lying down.