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Kooky Scientists Get Last Laugh

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Bihari eventually convinced a court that an uncle, in line to inherit his land, had bribed a local official to declare him dead. Founding the Association of Dead People, Bihari started a network for victims of family fraud – and launched his post-posthumous political career.

3. Dirty Bird Expert Turns to Head-Banging
Dutch researcher Kees Moeliker shocked the avian world with what he observed at a Rotterdam university. His landmark paper, "The First Case of Homosexual Necrophilia in Mallard Ducks," proved that there really are a lot of sick birds out there – and he is now considered a world-renowned expert in documenting cases of fowl perversion.


"Luckily, my colleagues have a great sense of humor," says Moeliker, who continues as curator of birds at Holland's prestigious Natuurmuseum Rotterdam, noting that another researcher has now observed similar necrophilia in squirrels.

Moeliker is currently examining the tendency of some birds to repeatedly fly into a window, crash and then fly into that same window again and again. It's a vicious circle of apparent self-abuse that he's documenting for his latest study, "Decapitation Behavior in Black Crows," which he also calls, "Head-Banging Bluebirds."

4. Professor of the Mundane Takes on Santa
John Trinkaus, a business professor at New York's Baruch College, is probably among the most prolific – and easily annoyed – academics in America.

The 2003 Ig Nobel winner has published more than 80 reports in journals about aspects of life that irk him, including kids who wear their baseball caps backward, and shoppers who violate the maximum number of items on the supermarket express lane.

Trinkaus has hardly lost his edge. In a recent study, he took on department store Santas and found that they're not so great at spreading holiday cheer. In observing 300 children's faces, he found that 247 looked indifferent, 47 looked hesitant, two seemed happy, one was exhilarated … and three were terrified.

We might assume that the three terrified kids were the ones standing closest to him, and wearing their baseball caps the wrong way.

Buck Wolf is entertainment producer at ABCNEWS.com. "The Wolf Files" is published Tuesdays.

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