News about the Ig Nobel Prizes — honoring achievements that make people LAUGH, then THINK.
The results in a new medical study bolster the reputations of the nine national leaders who shared the 2020 Ig Nobel Prize for Medical Education. That prize was awarded to Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil, Boris Johnson of the United Kingdom, Narendra Modi of India, Andrés Manuel López Obrador of Mexico, Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus, Donald […]
Several years ago, Dan Drollette interviewed Roy Glauber. Here’s a portion of that interview, published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: “Glauber was one of the youngest scientists in the 1,400-person Los Alamos staff, and afterward he went on to a distinguished career in physics… Glauber was known for his sense of humor, such […]
We invite you to throw paper planes in this year’s Ig Nobel Prize ceremony. Seth Gliksman created this brief invitation video. The video tells what and how: The ceremony — the 33rd First Annual — will happen entirely online, on Thursday evening, September 14, 2023, beginning at 6:0 pm (US eastern time). DEADLINE for submitting […]
Let Madame be your guide:
A few years ago, the TV network NHK again gathered together several Japanese Ig Nobel Prize winners, for a look back at some of their favorite prizes, and a look ahead at some of their hopes and research dreams:
This year’s 24/7 Lecturers are hard at work preparing their lectures for the 33rd First Annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony. These lectures — a complete technical description of a subject in 24 seconds, followed by a clear summary in seven words — demand more skill and thought than the audience may realize. Here is a […]
Eugenie Scott and I had a fun talk, for an online meeting of the Bay Area Skeptics, about the Ig Nobel Prizes. This happened on June 8, 2023. Here’s video:
The Ig Nobel Prize-winning “invisible gorilla” guys have a new book coming out. The book is about con men — about how (1) everyone can get conned, and (2) anyone can learn to not get conned so often. Dan Simons and Chris Chabris‘s new book is called Nobody’s Fool: Why We Get Taken In and […]
ASME, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, is running a quiz about the Ig Nobel Prizes. Here is their introduction: Quiz: The Ig Nobel Prize and Odd Research Not all research is created equal. Try this quiz on the Ig Nobel Prize that calls out what appears to be silly. The Nobel Prize may be […]
Ig Nobel Prize winner Pat Robertson — who predicted that the world would end in 1982 — died today (June 8, 2023), according to numerous news reports. The 2011 Ig Nobel Mathematics Prize was awarded to: Dorothy Martin of the USA (who predicted the world would end in 1954), Pat Robertson of the USA (who […]