The Nobel Prize’s quirky cousin, Ig Nobel, puts wacky science on spotlight

Cockroach milk, 3D printing nozzles out of a mosquito’s proboscis, optimal nose-blowing, and scientific kissing might seem like something straight out of a fever dream, but these are real scientific research very much recognised by the Ig Nobel Prize, a satirical parody of the prestigious Nobel Prize.  

Unconventional scientific studies recognised

Ten awards were given at this year’s Ig Nobel Prize:

• The Chemistry Prize was awarded to a study about milk produced by a particular cockroach species, Diploptera punctata, which is used to feed its unborn babies. The milk contains three times more energy than cow’s milk.

• The Technology Prize was awarded for research about making ultra-fine 3D printing nozzles using mosquito proboscis, a technique which the researchers called “necroprinting.”

• The Medical Award posthumously recognized Tokuji Umino for his research on how to blow your nose correctly, which found that it is best to “operate on the left and right nostrils separately, blow hard after moderate inhalation, and keep the action for a relatively long time.”

• The Biomechanics Prize was awarded to a study about evolutionary kissing, which gave a brand-new definition for the action as “a non-confrontational interaction involving directed, intraspecific mouth-to-mouth contact, accompanied by some movement of the lips/mouthparts, with no food transfer.”

• The Physics Prize was awarded to a new type of splash-proof urinal given the name “Nautilus.”

• The Peace Prize was awarded to a study which confirms that people like making friends with others who are mean to the people they hate.

• The Economics Prize went to a study which found that higher social classes are more likely to behave rudely, like taking candies prepared for children.

• The Olfaction Prize was awarded to a study which found out that parents’ evaluation of their children’s smell decreases as the children grow older, regardless of gender.

• The Soil Science Prize was awarded to a study involving 1,000 underwear buried across 25 countries and digging them up two months later to find which has the greatest biological activity.

• Meanwhile, the Biology Prize was awarded to a study which involved gently stepping on venomous snakes to find when they are more likely to attack humans. The answer was: during daytime, higher temperatures, smaller snakes are more likely to attack, and stepping on the head gives the highest probability of being bitten.

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First step: Laugh. Second step: Think

The Ig Nobel Prize, which aims is to “honour achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think,” had the theme “fungi” for its 36th edition.

During the ceremony, the audience threw paper airplanes at the award recipients as the latter received trophies which look like a human foot with mushrooms.

The Ig Nobel is organised by the magazine Annals of Improbable Research.

Ig Nobel is a pun on the word “ignoble,” which, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, means “of low birth or common origin,” signifying a lower rank or status.

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