Ig Nobel Prizes Honors Cockroach Milk and Buried Underwear Research at First Ceremony Held Outside the U.S.
Key Takeaways
- •The Ig Nobel Prizes were presented in Zurich, the first time in their 35-year history that the ceremony has taken place outside the United States.
- •The move to Europe was driven by concerns over visa access and guest safety, according to master of ceremonies Marc Abrahams.
- •Ten research teams were honored, including work on cockroach milk, soil health measured with buried underwear, the evolutionary history of kissing, and nose-blowing science.
- •Organizers plan to alternate future ceremonies between Zurich and other European cities, with Antwerp set to host in 2027.
- •The ceremony retained its traditions, with genuine Nobel laureates historically handing out trophies and audience members throwing paper airplanes to open the show.
Ten research teams were honored Thursday at a satirical science awards ceremony hosted outside the United States for the first time, owing to travel concerns.
Ig Nobel prizes, which celebrate unusual and imaginative contributions to science, went to researchers who studied milk from cockroaches and to others who analyzed soil health using underwear. First awarded in 1991, the prizes are traditionally given out alongside genuine Nobel laureates, who hand over the trophies.
The awards, organized by the digital magazine the Annals of Improbable Research, shifted to Europe after 35 years in the United States over concerns about attendees' ability to obtain visas.
At a convention center in Zurich, Switzerland, the winning teams received a custom trophy resembling a cross between a mushroom and a human foot. Honorees included Matilda Brindle and Stuart West of the University of Oxford, along with Catherine F. Talbot of the Florida Institute of Technology, who reconstructed the evolutionary history of kissing, and the late Dr. Tokuji Unno, who investigated the science of blowing one's nose.
Another team buried 1,000 pairs of underwear in more than 25 countries to study how soil critters helped them decompose. Burying cotton garments and tracking their breakdown is a long-standing citizen-science technique used by farmers and researchers as a simple indicator of soil biological activity.
The cockroach milk research, meanwhile, examined the protein-rich crystal structures produced by the Pacific beetle cockroach, the only cockroach species known to feed its young a milk-like substance, work that had earlier drawn scientific attention for its unusual biochemistry.
As per tradition, audience members folded paper airplanes and hurled them toward the stage to kick off the show.
For future ceremonies, organizers plan to alternate between Zurich and other European countries. The 2027 ceremony will be held in the Belgian city of Antwerp. Previous editions took place at Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Boston University, but there are no immediate plans to return to the U.S.
"During the past year, it has become unsafe for our guests to visit the country," Marc Abrahams, master of ceremonies and editor of the magazine, told The Associated Press in an email in March.
The Nobel Prizes, which have no relation to their cheekily named counterpart, will be announced at the start of October.
Associated Press reporter Michael Casey contributed to this report.
