After 35 years in the USA, the Ig Nobel Prize ceremony is moving to Europe. This coming September 3, the 36th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony will take place in Zurich, Switzerland. TICKETS will go on sale Tuesday, May 12, 2026, at 10 am (CET), here at http://www.improbable.com [NOTE: We will have a big […]
Upasana Sarraju’s new book called Unruly: The Ig Nobel Prizes and The Science That Refuses to Behave dives into, swims and surfs through a universe (our universe, in fact) full of unexpected science. Published by India Penguin [ISBN 9780143470403], the book’s official debut date is February 28, 2026. Here’s how Sarraju describes the book: After […]
Every day people send us research reports that intrigue them. A few of these reports may be beyond the understanding of anyone in addition to the people who wrote them. S.G. Bershadsky send us a copy of a report that may be in that category. Bershadsky attemped to understand or interpret or describe that report. […]
Video of two shows on the 2026 Ig Nobel EuroTour: Lund University Lund University, in Lund, Sweden, with Minna Lyons (2014 Ig Nobel Prize winner, for amassing evidence that people who habitually stay up late are, on average, more self-admiring, more manipulative, and more psychopathic than people who habitually arise early in the morning.) Marie […]
The word “really”, expressed forcefully, was the crux of a long-running comedy routine more than a decade ago, on the American TV program Saturday Night Live. A recent study takes a really good look at the equivalent word in the Mandarin Chinese language. The study is: “Stance-taking and (inter)subjective roles of Mandarin zhende (ma/a),” Shuang […]
Some children especially, and some adults especially especially, love to find a way to pronounce names so that those names sound “naughty” (vulgar) — which makes those children and adults (and their friends) laugh and laugh and laugh. The beetle whose official scientific name is Ceratoderus fukuii is an example of this. The second word […]