This year’s winners in full:

Biology: A study documenting the sexual behavior of fruit bats, showing that they engage in fellatio to extend the period of intercourse. (Winners: Libiao Zhang, Min Tan, Guangjian Zhu, Jianping Ye, Tiyu Hong, Shanyi Zhou, Shuyi Zhang and Gareth Jones)

Chemistry: A 2000 experiment involving deliberately releasing oil and gas off the coast of Norway to simulate an accidental underwater rupture, research that has become particularly relevant this year. (Winners: Eric Adams of MIT, Scott Socolofsky of Texas A&M University, Stephen Masutani of the University of Hawaii, and BP)

Economics: “The executives and directors of Goldman Sachs, AIG, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, and Magnetar for creating and promoting new ways to invest money — ways that maximize financial gain and minimize financial risk for the world economy, or for a portion thereof.”

Engineering: A technique using a remote control helicopter to collect whale mucus. (Winners: Karina Acevedo-Whitehouse, Agnes Rocha-Gosselin and Diane Gendron.)

Management: A mathematical study showing that organizations could improve efficiency by promoting staff at random. (Winners: Alessandro Pluchino, Andrea Rapisarda, and Cesare Garofalo.)

Medicine: A study showing that the thrills of a rollercoaster could ease asthma. (Winners: Simon Rietveld and Ilja van Beest.

Peace: A study showing that swearing out loud helps people decrease their perceived pain. (Winners: Richard Stephens, John Atkins, and Andrew Kingston)

Physics: A study showing that wearing socks on the outside of shoes makes you less likely to fall over on icy days. (Winners: Lianne Parkin, Sheila Williams, and Patricia Priest)

Public Health: A 1967 study showing that beards are bad news in labs because they attract microbes. (Winners: Manuel S. Barbeito, Charles T. Mathews, and Larry A. Taylor)

Transportation: A study of the expansion of slime mold to find the most efficient way of expanding a railroad network. (Winners: Atsushi Tero, Seiji Takagi, Tetsu Saigusa, Kentaro Ito, Dan P. Bebber, Mark D. Fricker, Kenji Yumiki, Ryo Kobayashi, Toshiyuki Nakagaki)