Aussie researcher Dr Saul Newman has nabbed a notable prize for debunking the existence of ‘blue zones’ – areas across the world where locals are said to have their sh*t together, living for ages, like Okinawa in Japan and Sardinia in Italy. The Ig Nobel Prizes are a bit unconventional – they celebrate achievements that first make people laugh, then make them think… And Newman’s research, which looked at 80% of all documented supercentenarians (that’s people over 110yo) throughout the 20th and 21st Centuries, found a lot of the stats were dodgy or made up. “I discovered that the oldest man in the world had 3 birthdays and no birth certificate,” Newman said. He’s faced hurdles in getting his research peer-reviewed and published, but the prize could see his findings shake up global demographic studies.