Ig Nobel Awards : Vanilla Fragrance from cow dung?

Ewww...this is the first word that came to my mind when I read this news article. Extracting vanilla essence and flavour from cow dung..ugghh....who would even thinking of trying to research on something like this? Oh well someone did and actually won an Ig Nobel award for it too! Geez..don't people have anything interesting to do?

Just an hour ago I read Swati's post on food with lovely picture of an ice cream sundae and was drooling all over it. And now I get to read this article on this stupid, idiotic discovery by some Japanese person..

On 4^th October the Ig Nobel Chemistry Prize was awarded to Mayu Yamamoto, a former researcher at the International Medical Centre of Japan. Yamamoto earned herself the prestigious prize by developing a way to extract a vanilla fragrance and flavour from cow dung – a creation she named vanillin. As a bonus to the prize, Toscanini’s Ice Cream, based in Massachusetts, invented a new flavour to honour her – Yum-A-Moto Vanilla Twist.

Yikes! I will definitely never eat an ice cream in Japan. I know there's simply no chance of me ever going but still writing it out will make the ugghness out of my mind go away to some extent. I just hope no one gets adventurous in India and starts making this so called vanilla essence here knowing the free availability of cow dung from our very own "Gau maata!"