The 2025 Ig Nobel prizes, which honor quirky but genuinely published research, were held outside the United States for the first time since the ceremony began, after founder Marc Abrahams cited safety concerns for international guests visiting the US. This year's fungus-themed event kept its trademark paper-plane openings, banana-suited timekeepers enforcing 60-second speeches, and 24/7 lectures, while handing out awards including a posthumous medicine prize for nose-blowing aerodynamics research and an economics prize on wealth and candy-jar theft.
nature.com
· 2026-09-09
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.
wired.com
· 2026-09-08
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.
arstechnica.com
· 2026-09-03
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