Research — on any and all subjects — that makes people LAUGH, then THINK.
Happy Halloween. We suggest you recite this paper to any guests who may come seeking thrills: “The Predatory Behavior of the Ogre-Faced Spider Dinopis longipes F. Cambridge (Araneae: Dinopidae),” Michael H. Robinson and Barbara Robinson, American Midland Naturalist, 1971, pp. 85-96.
Electrified chopsticks, soup bowls, and other eating implements can make bland food taste much saltier — much tastier. The technology was honored with the 2023 Ig Nobel Nutrition Prize. The prize, awarded to Homei Miyashita and Hiromi Nakamura, for their experiments to determine how electrified chopsticks and drinking straws can change the taste of food. […]
Dr. Seung-min Park was awarded the 2023 Ig Nobel Public Health Prize for inventing the Stanford Toilet, a device that uses a variety of technologies — including a urinalysis dipstick test strip, a computer vision system for defecation analysis, an anal-print sensor paired with an identification camera, and a telecommunications link — to monitor and […]
The University of Michigan proudly announces the good news about Ig Nobel Prize winners David Dunning [pictured here] and Justin Kruger: Announcement of the New (2023) Prize Dave Dunning Wins the Society of Experimental Social Psychology (SESP) Scientific Impact Award Dr. David Dunning has won the Society of Experimental Social Psychology (SESP) Scientific Impact Award. According […]
This week’s Feedback column (that I write) in New Scientist magazine has four segments. Here are bits of each of them: Under footage — The green-and-white sign you see here is plastered on the floor of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, Massachusetts. It says: “MAINTAIN 6 FEET THANK YOU”.Upon inquiry, Feedback was told that no, the sign is […]
We invite you to join us at the Ig Nobel Show at Imperial College London, UK, on Saturday November 18, 2023. This resumes the long series of annual events that was interrupted by the pandemic. Marc Abrahams and several Ig Nobel Prize winners will talk about the prizes, and answer questions. Featuring: 2023 Literature Prize winner Akira O’Connor (the sensations […]
This week’s Feedback column (that I write) in New Scientist magazine has four segments. Here are bits of each of them: A frothy matter — A report called “Beer foam is a carrier of aroma” may be the crushing blow beer foam aroma sceptics – if there are any – feared…. Hierarchy of dog needs — … Maslow’s […]
We invite you to join us at a new event — Ig Nobel Face-to-Face. This is a companion to the Ig Nobel Prize ceremony that happened in September. Most of the new Ig Nobel Prize winners will be there. They will ask each other questions about their work. And you will get a chance to […]
The Journal of Food Science has a nice essay today (October 16, 2023) about the Ig Nobel Prizes. We take the liberty of reproducing it here: EDITORIAL Ig Nobel awards This month’s topic will be a little different, although I promise to bring the discussion back to peer review next month, as we look back […]
Nature Physics has a nice essay today about the Ig Nobel Prizes. We take the liberty of reproducing it here: Editorial Published: 11 October 2023 Levity and gravity Nature Physics, volume 19, page 1375 (2023) The Ig Nobel Prize celebrates research that makes us first laugh and then think. We look at some of this year’s not so […]