Farting Fish and 49 other weird and wonderful scientific discoveries, a new book about Ig Nobel Prize winners, will officially be published (ISBN 9780711298811) on Tuesday, August 19, 2025.
Author Alice Harman and illustrator Sam Wedelich gear it to juvenile readers. That includes at least a piece of everyone’s personality, does it not? Like the Ig Nobel Prizes themselves, the book aims to make people LAUGH, then THINK. The publisher (Happy Yak Publishers) offers this description:
We celebrate 50 of the funniest, silliest and most interesting winners of the Ig Nobel Prize, including:
• the discovery that herrings communicate by farting (and why that almost caused a world war!)
• research into the chemical compounds responsible for smelly feet
• a rigorous analysis of soggy breakfast cereal
• an automatic dog-to-human language translation device
• the invention of fart-proof underwear
• a method of collecting whale snot using remote-control helicopters.
This is the newest in the growing library of books about the Ig Nobel Prizes. Written by many authors, in many languages, in many countries, each book has its own distinctive personality, and lavishes attention on whichever of the Ig Nobel Prize winners most grabs the fancy of that book’s authors. Many Ig Nobel Prize winners (ten new prizes have been awarded every year since 1991) have themselves written books about their own experiences. Many of the books are very much intended at adults, some instead for very young children. Farting Fish is one of the intended most specifically for juveniles (of all ages).
And Soon, the 2025 Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony
The book is especially timely, arriving just a month prior to the 35th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony, which will happen on Thursday, September 18, 2025. Ten new Ig Nobel Prize winners will take the world stage. Each has done something that makes people LAUGH, then THINK. Tickets to attend the ceremony are available now. If you can’t attend the ceremony in person, you can watch the webcast.