The Ig Nobel Prizes, awarded annually by Improbable Research since 1991, were handed out this year in Zurich to ten offbeat studies. Winners included researchers who crafted a cross-species scientific definition of kissing, a team linking higher social class to unethical behavior, and a chemistry study on the nutritional value of cockroach milk. Other honored work reportedly examined nose-blowing techniques and used buried underwear to gauge soil health.
The developer behind the PJON networking protocol spent two months building TERMy, a natural-language terminal assistant that avoids using large language models entirely. The project began as an attempt to train small transformer models from scratch on aging consumer hardware, including a GTX 1050 Ti and an i7-4790K, but those experiments produced incoherent or unsettling text outputs.
The 2026 Ig Nobel Prizes, which recognize offbeat but scientifically valid research, were awarded for studies including a splash-free urinal design, using mosquito mouthparts to print tiny nozzles, decomposition rates of buried underwear, and the physics of blowing one's nose. For the first time in 35 years, the ceremony left Boston and was held in Zurich, Switzerland, with future events planned for Antwerp in 2027 and returning to Zurich in even-numbered years after.
Researchers at the University of Zurich recruited 1,000 volunteers to bury cotton underpants in soil across Switzerland for two months as part of a citizen science project called 'Proof by Underpants.' After digging them up, scientists measured how much fabric had decomposed to gauge microbial activity and overall soil quality, publishing the results in Plants People Planet.
Apple TV announced a new heist thriller titled '12 12 12,' premiering November 13 with its first two episodes, followed by weekly releases through December 25. The series stars Anthony Mackie as a disgraced FBI agent and Jamie Dornan as a career criminal, structured around three timelines—12 months of planning, 12 hours of the heist, and the 12 days after—centered on a vault robbery beneath Zurich.
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