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. [NOTE: We will have a big celebration event in Boston, three weeks after […]
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 […]
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 ant whose official scientific name is Ceratoderus fukuii is an example of this. The second word […]
Serendipity and the Ig Nobel Prize — Tonight I, the American founder of the Ig Nobel Prizes, was having dinner with two Dutch Ig Nobel Prize winners (Ida Sabelis and Kees Moeliker) in an Italian Restaurant in the city of Essen, Germany (where we and another Ig winner are doing a show tomorrow night, Friday, […]
There are many twists in the story of how Joanne Mikl estimated the inertial properties of athletes who do somersaults. Mikl explains some of them, in this study: “Methods Of Estimating Athlete Inertial Properties And Their Implications For The Study Of Somersaults,” Joanne Mikl, ISBS-Conference Proceedings Archive, vol. 1, no. 1. 2013.
The growth of human hair in nude mice has been studied more than the growth of mouse hair in nude humans. This study reports some of the early work about the first of those categories: “The Growth of Human Hair in Nude Mice,” Dominique Van Neste, Dermatologic Clinics, vol. 14, no. 4, 1996, pp. 609-617. […]