The 33rd First Annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony will happen entirely online on Thursday, September 14, 2023. The webcast begins at 6 pm (U.S. eastern time) and will be available for viewing on the ceremony page. Ten new Ig Nobel Prize winners will be introduced. Each has done something that makes people LAUGH, then THINK.
Nit-picking Robinson Crusoe; Wrong cocktail; Baby radar; Much-lettered
This week’s Feedback column (that I write) in New Scientist magazine has four segments. Here are bits of each of them: Nit-picking literature — Little things bother some people. Elizabeth Kowaleski Wallace wonders why little things failed to bother Robinson Crusoe, the hero of Daniel Defoe’s 1719 novel, who spent 28 years documenting his plight as a castaway […]
How a Leak Can Stop Itself
Willfully or not, some leaks can under certain circumstances stop themselves. This study explores that notion: “How a Leak Can Stop Itself,” Caroline D. Tally, Heather E. Kurtz, Rose B. Tchuenkam, and Katharine E. Jensen, arXiv:2202.02644, 2023. The authors explain: We often consider how to stop a leak, but here we ask a different question: […]
Texting & falling, Many-Lettered, Autophagy for all, Jarring, Pleasing
This week’s Feedback column (that I write) in New Scientist magazine has five segments. Here are bits of each of them: Down, with texting — Want to guess what might happen if someone walks while texting? If you prefer a formally educated guess to an autodidactic supposition, Paulo Pelicioni and his colleagues at the University of New […]




