The Science That Makes You Laugh First and Think Second

The 2026 Ig Nobel Prizes, awarded on 3 September in Zürich, honoured research showing babies smell good to parents but teenagers do not, cockroach milk proteins with three times the energy of cow's milk, and the aerodynamics of blowing your nose.

By the UISC BD Editorial Desk · United Information Service Center · Published 13 September 2026 · 4-minute read

The Ig Nobel Prizes, organised by the magazine Improbable Research, celebrate genuine scientific studies that "make people laugh, then think". The 36th ceremony took place on Thursday 3 September 2026 at the Kongresshaus Zürich in Switzerland, introducing ten new winners.

Some of This Year's Winners

Olfaction Prize. Ilona Croy, Tomasz Frackowiak, Thomas Hummel and Agnieszka Sorokowska, for collecting evidence that babies smell wonderful to their parents, but teenagers do not. Parents everywhere will feel vindicated.

Chemistry Prize. An international team including Sanchari Banerjee, Leonard Chavas and Subramanian Ramaswamy, for discovering that milk proteins from a species of live-bearing cockroach pack about three times as much energy as milk proteins from cows.

Medicine Prize. Awarded posthumously to the late ear, nose and throat specialist Tokuji Unno, for his 1977 study "How to Blow the Nose — An Aerodynamic Study of the Nose Blowing".

Physics Prize. For research into how to design urinals that do not splash — a problem with obvious everyday benefits.

Technology Prize. For using mosquito mouthparts as nozzles for 3D printing, a technique its authors called "necroprinting".

Economics Prize. Paul K. Piff and colleagues, for a study finding that drivers of expensive, late-model cars were more likely to cut off other vehicles at a busy four-way junction.

Why the Ig Nobels Matter

Behind the laughs, most winning studies are careful research published in real journals. Some have practical uses — better sanitation design, new manufacturing methods, insights into nutrition. Others help explain everyday human behaviour.

The prizes also do something serious for science: they get people talking about research who might never read a journal paper.

A Reminder About How Science Works

Questions that seem trivial often lead somewhere unexpected. The study of how fluids behave — from a nose blow to a splash — connects to some of the deepest problems in mathematics, as this month's Navier–Stokes debate shows.

For more science that inspires rather than alarms, see Chandra's image of colliding galaxies and progress toward a single-dose malaria treatment.

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• NASA Internships 2027: Who Can Apply, Deadlines and How to Stand Out

Sources

• "Research into nose-blowing, candy stealing and splash-free urinals wins big at 2026 Ig Nobel awards," CNN — cnn.com
• "2026 Ig Nobel Prizes," Chemical & Engineering News — cen.acs.org
• "The 36th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony," Improbable Research — improbable.com