List of Ig Nobel Prize winners

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A parody of the Nobel Prizes, the Ig Nobel Prizes are awarded each year in mid-September, around the time the recipients of the genuine Nobel Prizes are announced, for ten achievements that "first make people laugh, and then make them think". Commenting on the 2006 awards, Marc Abrahams, editor of Annals of Improbable Research and co-sponsor of the awards, said that "[t]he prizes are intended to celebrate the unusual, honor the imaginative, and spur people's interest in science, medicine, and technology".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> All prizes are awarded for real achievements, except for three in 1991 and one in 1994, due to an erroneous press release.Template:Horizontal TOC

1991

The awards were presented on October 3. Each winner received a medal shaped like a frying pan that makes noise when shaken and Cambridge parking passes that are valid from 3 a.m. – 4 a.m. the day after Christmas.<ref name="Maugh-2021">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

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Apocryphal achievements

The first nomination also featured three fictional recipients for fictional achievements.<ref>Ig Nobel prizes debut Template:Webarchive, The Tech</ref>

  • Interdisciplinary Research: Josiah S. Carberry of Brown University for his work in psychoceramics, the study of "cracked pots".<ref name="Maugh-2021" />
  • Pedestrian Technology: Paul DeFanti, "wizard of structures and crusader for public safety, for his invention of the Buckybonnet, a geodesic fashion structure that pedestrians wear to protect their heads and preserve their composure".
  • Physics: Thomas Kyle, for his discovery of "the heaviest element in the universe, Administratium".

1992

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  • Art: Presented jointly to Jim Knowlton for his anatomy poster "Penises of the Animal Kingdom," and to the U.S. National Endowment for the Arts for encouraging Mr. Knowlton to extend his work in the form of a pop-up book.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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  • Biology: Dr Cecil Jacobson, relentlessly generous sperm donor and prolific patriarch of sperm banking, for devising a simple, single-handed method of "quality control".
  • Chemistry: Ivette Bassa, constructor of colourful colloids, for her role in the crowning achievement of 20th century chemistry, the synthesis of bright blue Jell-O.
  • Economics: The investors of Lloyd's of London, heirs to 300 years of dull prudent management, for their bold attempt to ensure disaster by refusing to pay for their company's losses.
  • Literature: Yuri Struchkov,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> unstoppable author from the Institute of Organoelement Compounds<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> in Moscow, for the 948 scientific papers he published between the years 1981 and 1990, averaging more than one every 3.9 days.

  • Medicine: F. Kanda, E. Yagi, M. Fukuda, K. Nakajima, T. Ohta, and O. Nakata of the Shiseido Research Center in Yokohama, for their pioneering research study "Elucidation of Chemical Compounds Responsible for Foot Malodour," especially for their conclusion that people who think they have foot odor do, and those who don't, don't.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Nutrition: The utilizers of SPAM, "courageous consumers of canned comestibles", for 54 years of undiscriminating digestion.
  • Peace: Daryl Gates, former police chief of the City of Los Angeles, for his uniquely compelling methods of "bringing people together".
  • Physics: David Chorley and Doug Bower, "lions of low-energy physics", for their circular contributions to field theory based on the geometrical destruction of English crops.

1993

  • Biology: Presented jointly to Paul Williams Jr. of the Oregon State Health Division and Kenneth W. Newel of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, "bold biological detectives", for their pioneering study, "Salmonella Excretion in Joy-Riding Pigs".<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Chemistry: Presented jointly to James and Gaines Campbell of Lookout Mountain, Tennessee, "dedicated deliverers of fragrance", for inventing scent strips, the odious method by which perfume is applied to magazine pages.
  • Consumer Engineering: Presented to Ron Popeil, incessant inventor and perpetual pitchman of late night television, for redefining the industrial revolution with such devices as the Veg-O-Matic, the Pocket Fisherman, Mr. Microphone, and the Inside-the-Shell Egg Scrambler.
  • Economics: Presented to Ravi Batra of Southern Methodist University, shrewd economist and best-selling author of The Great Depression of 1990 (Template:ISBN) and Surviving the Great Depression of 1990, (Template:ISBN) for selling enough copies of his books to single-handedly prevent worldwide economic collapse.
  • Literature: Presented to T. Morrison, E. Topol, R. Califf, F. Van de Werf, P. W. Armstrong, and their 972 co-authors,<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> for publishing a medical research paper which has one hundred times as many authors as pages. The authors are from the following countries: Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Spain, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
  • Mathematics: Presented to Robert W. Faid of Greenville, South Carolina, "farsighted and faithful seer of statistics", for calculating the exact odds (710,609,175,188,282,000 to 1) that Mikhail Gorbachev is the Antichrist.<ref>Robert W Faid. 1988. Gorbachev! Has the Real Antichrist Come? Tulsa, Okla : Victory House Publishers. Template:ISBN</ref>
  • Medicine: Presented to James F. Nolan, Thomas J. Stillwell, and John P. Sands, Jr., "medical men of mercy", for their painstaking research report, "Acute Management of the Zipper-Entrapped Penis".<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Peace: The Pepsi-Cola Company of the Philippines, for sponsoring a contest to create a millionaire, and then announcing the wrong winning number, thereby inciting and uniting 800,000 riotously expectant winners, and bringing many warring factions together for the first time in their nation's history.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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1994

  • Biology: Presented to W. Brian Sweeney, Brian Krafte-Jacobs, Jeffrey W. Britton, and Wayne Hansen, for their breakthrough study, "The Constipated Serviceman: Prevalence Among Deployed US Troops," and especially for their numerical analysis of bowel movement frequency.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Chemistry: Presented to Texas State Senator Bob Glasgow, writer of logical legislation, for sponsoring the 1989 drug control law which makes it illegal to purchase beakers, flasks, test tubes, or other laboratory glassware without a permit.
  • Economics: Presented to Juan Pablo Dávila of Chile, "tireless trader of financial futures" and former employee of the state-owned company Codelco, for accidentally instructing his computer to "buy" when he meant "sell". He subsequently attempted to recoup his losses by making increasingly unprofitable trades that ultimately lost 0.5 percent of Chile's gross national product. Davila's relentless achievement inspired his countrymen to coin a new verb, "davilar", meaning "to botch things up royally".
  • Entomology: Presented to Robert A. Lopez of Westport, NY, "valiant veterinarian and friend of all creatures great and small", for his series of experiments in obtaining ear mites from cats, inserting them into his own ear, and carefully observing and analyzing the results.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Literature: Presented to L. Ron Hubbard, ardent author of science fiction and founding father of Scientology, for his crackling Good Book, Dianetics, which is highly profitable to humankind, or to a portion thereof.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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  • Mathematics: Presented to The Southern Baptist Church of Alabama, mathematical measurers of morality, for their county-by-county estimate of how many Alabama citizens will go to Hell if they don't repent.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
  • Medicine: Two prizes. First, to Patient X, formerly of the US Marine Corps, valiant victim of a venomous bite from his pet rattlesnake, for his determined use of electroshock therapy. At his own insistence, automobile spark plug wires were attached to his lip, and the car engine revved to 3,000 rpm for five minutes. Second, to Dr. Richard C. Dart of the Rocky Mountain Poison Center and Dr. Richard A. Gustafson of the University of Arizona Health Sciences Center, who referenced Patient X in their well-grounded medical report, "Failure of Electric Shock Treatment for Rattlesnake Envenomation."<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Peace: Presented to John Hagelin of Maharishi University and The Institute of Science, Technology and Public Policy, for his experimental conclusion that 4,000 trained meditators caused a 24 percent decrease in violent crime in Washington, D.C.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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No longer officially listed

  • Physics: Presented to the Japanese Meteorological Agency, for its seven-year study of whether earthquakes are caused by catfish wiggling their tails. This winner is not officially listed, as it was based on what turned out to be erroneous press accounts.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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1995

The ceremony took place on 6 October 1995.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}Template:Cbignore</ref>

1996

File:The 6th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony.webm The ceremony took place on 3 October 1996.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}Template:Cbignore</ref>

1997

The ceremony took place on 9 October 1997.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

1998

The ceremony took place on 8 October 1998.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

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1999

The ceremony took place on 30 September 1999.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

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2000

The ceremony took place on 5 October 2000.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

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2001

The ceremony took place on 4 October 2001.

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> of McGill University, Canada, for his impactful medical report "Injuries Due to Falling Coconuts".<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

2002

The ceremony took place on 3 October 2002.

2003

The ceremony took place on 2 October 2003.

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  • Economics: Presented to Karl Schwärzler and the nation of Liechtenstein, for making it possible to rent the entire country for corporate conventions, weddings, bar mitzvahs, and other gatherings.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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  • Engineering: Presented to John Paul Stapp, Edward A. Murphy, Jr., and George Nichols, for jointly giving birth in 1949 to Murphy's Law, the basic engineering principle that "If there are two or more ways to do something, and one of those ways can result in a catastrophe, someone will do it" (or, in other words: "If anything can go wrong, it will").
  • Interdisciplinary Research: Presented to Stefano Ghirlanda, Liselotte Jansson, and Magnus Enquis of Stockholm University, for their inevitable report "Chickens Prefer Beautiful Humans."<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Literature: Presented to John Trinkaus of the Zicklin School of Business, New York City, for meticulously collecting data and publishing more than 80 detailed academic reports about things that annoyed him, such as:
    • What percentage of young people wear baseball caps with the peak facing to the rear rather than to the front;
    • What percentage of pedestrians wear sport shoes that are white rather than some other color;
    • What percentage of swimmers swim laps in the shallow end of a pool rather than the deep end;
    • What percentage of automobile drivers almost, but not completely, come to a stop at one particular stop-sign;
    • What percentage of commuters carry attaché cases;
    • What percentage of shoppers exceed the number of items permitted in a supermarket's express checkout lane;
    • What percentage of students dislike the taste of Brussels sprouts.
  • Medicine: Presented to Eleanor Maguire, David Gadian, Ingrid Johnsrude, Catriona Good, John Ashburner, Richard Frackowiak, and Christopher Frith of University College London, for presenting evidence that the hippocampi of London taxi drivers are more highly developed than those of their fellow citizens.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Peace: Presented to Lal Bihari, of Uttar Pradesh, India, for a triple accomplishment: First, for leading an active life even though he has been declared legally dead; second, for waging a lively posthumous campaign against bureaucratic inertia and greedy relatives; and third, for creating the Association of Dead People. Lal Bihari overcame the handicap of being dead, and managed to obtain a passport from the Indian government so that he could travel to Harvard to accept his Prize. However, the U.S. government refused to allow him into the country.Template:Citation needed His friend Madhu Kapoor therefore came to the Ig Nobel Ceremony and accepted the Prize on behalf of Lal Bihari. Several weeks later, the Prize was presented to Lal Bihari himself in a special ceremony in India.
  • Physics: Presented to Jack Harvey, John Culvenor, Warren Payne, Steve Cowley, Michael Lawrance, David Stuart, and Robyn Williams of Australia, for their irresistible report "An analysis of the forces required to drag sheep over various surfaces".<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Psychology: Presented to Gian Vittorio Caprara and Claudio Barbaranelli of the University of Rome La Sapienza, and to Philip Zimbardo of Stanford University, for their discerning report "Politicians' Uniquely Simple Personalities".<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

2004

The ceremony took place on 30 September 2004.

It has been suggested that the study of this phenomenon has had major political consequences. Following the sensational stranding of a Soviet submarine deep inside Swedish waters on 27 October 1981, the Swedish navy initiated a large-scale campaign to guard Swedish territorial waters from the perceived threat of infiltration by foreign submarines, despite the Soviets consistently asserting that the stranding had occurred due to navigational errors. The "submarine hunts", which lasted throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, have been a heavily debated issue in Sweden, as to whether or not there ever was any factual substance to the claims of Soviet infiltration. One widely reported piece of "evidence" were several sound recordings of what the Swedish navy suspected to be foreign submarines. Oceanographers and marine biologists were invited to study the recordings and would eventually find that the sounds heard were most probably produced not by submarines, but in fact were the noises made when herring passed gas. In a reportage by the Swedish science magazine "Vetenskapens värld" ("World of science") televised on 16 April 2012, it's suggested that these findings were important in putting an end to the costly "submarine hunts" which had continued for more than a decade, with Ig Nobel laureate Håkan Westerberg guessing that this would have saved Swedish tax payers hundreds of millions in SEK.<ref name=Staff>Aired 16 April 2012. "SVT Vetenskapens Värld: "Ig Nobel" Template:Webarchive" (in Swedish). SVT.</ref>

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2005

The ceremony took place on 6 October 2005.

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  • Economics: Gauri Nanda of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for inventing Clocky, an alarm clock that runs away and hides, repeatedly, thus ensuring that people get out of bed, and thus theoretically adding many productive hours to the workday.
  • Fluid Dynamics: Presented jointly to Victor Benno Meyer-Rochow of International University Bremen, Germany and the University of Oulu, Finland; and József Gál of Loránd Eötvös University, Hungary, for using basic principles of physics to calculate the pressure that builds up inside a penguin, as detailed in their report "Pressures Produced When Penguins Poo—Calculations on Avian Defecation".<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Literature: Presented to the Internet entrepreneurs of Nigeria, for creating and then using e-mail to distribute a bold series of short stories, thus introducing millions of readers to a cast of rich characters—General Sani Abacha, Mrs. Mariam Sanni Abacha, Barrister Jon A Mbeki Esq., and others—each of whom requires just a small amount of expense money so as to obtain access to the great wealth to which they are entitled and which they would like to share with the kind person who assists them. (See advance fee fraud.)
  • Medicine: Gregg A. Miller of Oak Grove, Missouri, for inventing Neuticles—artificial replacement testicles for dogs, which are available in three sizes, and three degrees of firmness.
  • Nutrition: Dr. Yoshiro Nakamatsu of Tokyo, Japan, for photographing and retrospectively analyzing every meal he has consumed during a period of 34 years (and counting).
  • Peace: Presented jointly to Claire Rind and Peter Simmons of University of Newcastle, in the UK, for electrically monitoring the activity of a brain cell in a locust while that locust was watching selected highlights from the movie Star Wars.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Physics: Presented jointly to John Mainstone and Thomas Parnell of the University of Queensland, Australia, for patiently conducting the so-called pitch drop experiment that began in the year 1927—in which a glob of congealed black tar pitch has been slowly dripping through a funnel, at a rate of approximately one drop every nine years.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

2006

The ceremony took place on 5 October 2006.

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2007

The ceremony took place on 4 October 2007.

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2008

The ceremony took place on 2 October 2008.<ref name="2008 main">Improbable Research Retrieved on 3 October 2008.</ref>

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2009

The ceremony took place on 1 October 2009.

  • Biology: Fumiaki Taguchi, Song Guofu, and Zhang Guanglei of Kitasato University Graduate School of Medical Sciences in Sagamihara, Japan, for demonstrating that kitchen refuse can be reduced more than 90% in mass by using bacteria extracted from the feces of giant pandas.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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2010

The ceremony took place on 30 September 2010.

2011

The ceremony took place on 29 September 2011.

  • Biology: Darryl Gwynne and David Rentz of the University of Western Australia for discovering that certain kinds of beetle mate with certain kinds of Australian beer bottles.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Chemistry: Makoto Imai, Naoki Urushihata, Hideki Tanemura, Yukinobu Tajima, Hideaki Goto, Koichiro Mizoguchi and Junichi Murakami for determining the ideal density of airborne wasabi (pungent horseradish) to awaken sleeping people in case of a fire or other emergency, and for applying this knowledge to invent the wasabi alarm.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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  • Literature: John Perry of Stanford University for his Theory of Structured Procrastination, which states: "To be a high achiever, always work on something important, using it as a way to avoid doing something that's even more important."<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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  • Mathematics: Dorothy Martin of the U.S. (who predicted the world would end in 1954), Pat Robertson of the U.S. (who predicted the world would end in 1982), Elizabeth Clare Prophet of the U.S. (who predicted the world would end in 1990), Lee Jang Rim of Korea (who predicted the world would end in 1992), Credonia Mwerinde of Uganda (who predicted the world would end in 1999), and Harold Camping of the U.S. (who originally predicted the world would end on 6 September 1994, and later predicted that the world would end on 21 May 2011, which preceded his final prediction on 21 October 2011), for teaching the world to be careful when making mathematical assumptions and calculations.
  • Medicine: Mirjam Tuk, Debra Trampe and Luk Warlop,<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> and jointly to Matthew Lewis, Peter Snyder, Robert Feldman, Robert Pietrzak, David Darby and Paul Maruff for demonstrating that people make better decisions about some kinds of things: but worse decisions about other kinds of things: when they have a strong urge to urinate.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Peace: Arturas Zuokas, the mayor of Vilnius, Lithuania, for demonstrating that the problem of illegally parked luxury cars can be solved by running them over with a tank.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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  • Public safety: John Senders of the University of Toronto, Canada, for conducting a series of safety experiments in which a person drives an automobile on a major highway while a visor repeatedly flaps down over their face, blinding them.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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2012

The ceremony took place on 20 September 2012.

  • Acoustics: Japanese researchers Kazutaka Kurihara and Koji Tsukada for creating the SpeechJammer, a machine that disrupts a person's speech by making them hear their own spoken words at a very slight delay.<ref>Template:Cite arXiv</ref>
  • Anatomy: Frans de Waal and Jennifer Pokorny, of Emory University, for discovering that chimpanzees can identify other chimpanzees individually by seeing photographs of their anogenital regions (their behinds).<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Chemistry: Swedish environmental engineer Johan Pettersson, for solving the puzzle of why, in certain new houses in the town of Anderslöv, Sweden, people's hair turned green. Water pipes connected to these houses lacked coatings, so hot water left in the pipes overnight peeled copper from them, leading to very high copper levels in the water.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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  • Fluid Dynamics: UC Santa Barbara researchers Rouslan Krechetnikov and Hans Mayer for studying the dynamics of liquid sloshing, to learn what happens when a person walks while carrying a cup of coffee.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Literature: The US Government General Accountability Office, for issuing a report about reports about reports that recommends the preparation of a report about the report about reports about reports.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Medicine: Emmanuel Ben-Soussan and Michel Antonietti, of Athens and Paris, for advising doctors who perform colonoscopies how to minimize the chance that their patients will explode.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Neuroscience: Craig Bennett (UC Santa Barbara), Abigail Baird (Vassar), Michael Miller (UC Santa Barbara), and George Wolford (Dartmouth), for demonstrating that brain researchers, by using complicated instruments and simple statistics, can see meaningful brain activity anywhere, even in a dead salmon.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Peace: The SKN Company, for converting old Russian ammunition into new diamonds.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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2013

The ceremony took place on 12 September 2013.

  • Archaeology: Brian Crandall and Peter Stahl of Binghamton University for parboiling a dead shrew, and then swallowing the shrew without chewing, and then carefully examining everything excreted during subsequent days—all so they could see which bones would dissolve inside the human digestive system, and which bones would not.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Biology/Astronomy: Marie Dacke, Emily Baird, Marcus Byrne, Clarke Scholtz, and Eric Warrant, from institutions in Sweden and South Africa, for discovering that when dung beetles get lost, they can navigate their way home by looking at the Milky Way.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Chemistry: Japanese researchers Shinsuke Imai, Nobuaki Tsuge, Muneaki Tomotake, Yoshiaki Nagatome, Toshiyuki Nagata, and Hidehiko Kumagai, for discovering that the biochemical process by which onions make people cry is even more complicated than scientists previously realized.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Medicine: Japanese researchers Masateru Uchiyama, Xiangyuan Jin, Qi Zhang, Toshihito Hirai, Atsushi Amano, Hisashi Bashuda, and Masanori Niimi, for assessing the effect of listening to opera on mice which have had heart transplant operations.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Peace: Alexander Lukashenko, president of Belarus, for making it illegal to applaud in public, and to the Belarus State Police, for arresting a one-armed man for applauding.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Probability: Bert Tolkamp, Marie Haskell, Fritha Langford, David Roberts, and Colin Morgan, for making two related discoveries: First, that the longer a cow has been lying down, the more likely that cow will soon stand up; and second, that once a cow stands up, you cannot easily predict how soon that cow will lie down again.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Physics: Alberto Minetti, Yuri Ivanenko, Germana Cappellini, Nadia Dominici, and Francesco Lacquaniti, from Italy and Spain, for discovering that some people would be physically capable of running across the surface of a pond—if those people and that pond were on the moon.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Psychology: Researchers based in Grenoble, Columbus, and Paris, Laurent Bègue, Brad Bushman, Oulmann Zerhouni, Baptiste Subra, and Medhi Ourabah, for confirming, by experiment, that people who think they are drunk also think they are attractive.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Public Health: Mahidol University researchers Kasian Bhanganada, Tu Chayavatana, Chumporn Pongnumkul, Anunt Tonmukayakul, Piyasakol Sakolsatayadorn, Krit Komaratal, and Henry Wilde, for the medical techniques described in their report "Surgical Management of an Epidemic of Penile Amputations in Siam"—techniques which they recommend, except in cases where the amputated penis had been partially eaten by a duck.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Safety Engineering: The late Gustano Pizzo, for inventing an electro-mechanical system to trap airplane hijackers—the system drops a hijacker through trap doors, seals them into a package, then drops the encapsulated hijacker through the airplane's specially-installed bomb bay doors, whence they parachute to earth, where police, having been alerted by radio, await the hijacker's arrival. (Template:US patent)

2014

The ceremony took place on 18 September 2014.

  • Arctic on Science: University of Oslo researchers Eigil Reimers and Sindre Eftestøl, for testing how reindeer react to seeing humans who are disguised as polar bears.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Art: Marina de Tommaso, Michele Sardaro, and Paolo Livrea, of the University of Bari, for measuring the relative pain people suffer while looking at an ugly painting, rather than a pretty painting, while being shot [in the hand] by a powerful laser beam.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Biology: Vlastimil Hart, Petra Nováková, Erich Pascal Malkemper, Sabine Begall, Vladimír Hanzal, Miloš Ježek, Tomáš Kušta, Veronika Němcová, Jana Adámková, Kateřina Benediktová, Jaroslav Červený and Hynek Burda, mostly of the Czech University of Life Sciences, for carefully documenting that when dogs defecate and urinate, they prefer to align their body axis with Earth's north–south geomagnetic field lines.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Economics: ISTAT: the Italian government's National Institute of Statistics, for including revenue from illegal drug sales, prostitution, smuggling, etc., in GDP reporting, in order to meet an EU regulatory mandate.<ref name="istat">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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  • Medicine: Ian Humphreys, Sonal Saraiya, Walter Belenky and James Dworkin, from institutions in Michigan, for treating "uncontrollable" nosebleeds, using the method of nasal-packing-with-strips-of-cured-pork.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Neuroscience: Chinese and Canadian researchers Jiangang Liu, Jun Li, Lu Feng, Ling Li, Shubham Bose, Jie Tian, and Kang Lee, for trying to understand what happens in the brains of people who see the face of Jesus in a piece of toast.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Nutrition: From the Institute of Agrifood Research and Technology in Spain, Raquel Rubio, Anna Jofré, Belén Martín, Teresa Aymerich, and Margarita Garriga, for their study titled "Characterization of Lactic Acid Bacteria Isolated from Infant Faeces as Potential Probiotic Starter Cultures for Fermented Sausages."<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Physics: Kitasato University team Kiyoshi Mabuchi, Kensei Tanaka, Daichi Uchijima and Rina Sakai, for measuring the amount of friction between a shoe and a banana skin, and between a banana skin and the floor, when a person steps on a banana skin that's on the floor.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Psychology: Peter K. Jonason of University of Western Sydney and Amy Jones and Minna Lyons of Liverpool Hope University for amassing evidence that people who habitually stay up late are, on average, more self-admiring, more manipulative, and more psychopathic than people who habitually arise early in the morning.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name="ag_night_owl">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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2015

The ceremony took place on 17 September 2015.

  • Biology: Bruno Grossi, Omar Larach, Mauricio Canals, Rodrigo A. Vásquez, José Iriarte-Díaz, of Chicago and Santiago, for observing that when you attach a weighted stick to the rear end of a chicken, the chicken then walks in a manner similar to that in which dinosaurs are thought to have walked.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Chemistry: Researchers from UC Irvine and Australia, Callum Ormonde and Colin Raston, and Tom Yuan, Stephan Kudlacek, Sameeran Kunche, Joshua N. Smith, William A. Brown, Kaitlin Pugliese, Tivoli Olsen, Mariam Iftikhar, Gregory Weiss, for inventing a chemical recipe to partially un-boil an egg.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Diagnostic Medicine: Diallah Karim, Anthony Harnden, Nigel D'Souza, Andrew Huang, Abdel Kader Allouni, Helen Ashdown, Richard J. Stevens, and Simon Kreckler, of the University of Oxford and Stoke Mandeville Hospital, for determining that acute appendicitis can be accurately diagnosed by the amount of pain evident when the patient is driven over speed bumps.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Economics: The Bangkok Metropolitan Police, for offering to pay police officers extra cash if they refuse to take bribes.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
  • Literature: Dutch researchers Mark Dingemanse, Francisco Torreira, and Nick J. Enfield, for discovering that the word "huh?" (or its equivalent) seems to exist in every human language — and for not being quite sure why.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Management: Gennaro Bernile of Singapore Management University, Vineet Bhagwat of the University of Oregon, and P. Raghavendra Rau of the University of Cambridge, for discovering that many business leaders developed in childhood a fondness for risk-taking, when they experienced natural disasters (such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, and wildfires) that — for them—had no dire personal consequences.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Mathematics: University of Vienna researchers Elisabeth Oberzaucher and Karl Grammer, for trying to use mathematical techniques to determine whether and how Moulay Ismail, the Alawi sultan of Morocco, managed, during the years from 1697 through 1727, to father 888 children.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Medicine: Awarded jointly to two groups: Hajime Kimata of Satou Hospital in Japan; and to Jaroslava Durdiaková, Peter Celec, Natália Kamodyová, Tatiana Sedláčková, Gabriela Repiská, Barbara Sviežená, and Gabriel Minárik, of Comenius University, for experiments to study the biomedical benefits or biomedical consequences of intense kissing (and other intimate, interpersonal activities).<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Physics: Patricia Yang, David Hu, Jonathan Pham, and Jerome Choo, of Georgia Tech, for testing the biological principle that nearly all mammals empty their bladders in about 21 seconds (plus or minus 13 seconds).<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Physiology and Entomology: Awarded jointly to two individuals: Justin Schmidt of the Southwestern Biological Institute in Tucson, for painstakingly creating the Schmidt sting pain index, which rates the relative pain people feel when stung by various insects;<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> and to Michael L. Smith of Cornell University for carefully arranging for honey bees to sting him repeatedly on 25 different locations on his body, to learn which locations are the least painful (the skull, middle toe tip, and upper arm) and which are the most painful (the nostril, upper lip, and penis shaft).<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

2016

The ceremony took place on 22 September 2016.

2017

The ceremony took place on 14 September 2017.<ref name="Ig Nobel-2006">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

  • Physics: Marc-Antoine Fardin of University of León for using fluid dynamics to probe the question "Can a Cat Be Both a Solid and a Liquid?"<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Peace: Milo Puhan, Alex Suarez, Christian Lo Cascio, Alfred Zahn, Markus Heitz, and Otto Braendli of the University of Zurich for demonstrating that regular playing of a didgeridoo is an effective treatment for obstructive sleep apnoea and snoring.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Economics: Matthew Rockloff and Nancy Greer of Central Queensland University for their experiments to see how contact with a live crocodile affects a person's willingness to gamble.<ref>Template:Cite journalTemplate:Dead link</ref>
  • Anatomy: British physician James Heathcote for his medical research study "Why Do Old Men Have Big Ears?"<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Biology: Kazunori Yoshizawa, Rodrigo Ferreira, Yoshitaka Kamimura, and Charles Lienhard, for their discovery of a female penis, and a male vagina, in a cave insect.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Fluid Dynamics: Jiwon Han, high school student Gangwon Province, South Korea, for studying the dynamics of liquid-sloshing to learn what happens when a person walks backwards while carrying a cup of coffee.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Nutrition: Fernanda Ito, Enrico Bernard, and Rodrigo Torres, for the first scientific report of human blood in the diet of the hairy-legged vampire bat.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Medicine: University of Lyon researchers Jean-Pierre Royet, David Meunier, Nicolas Torquet, Anne-Marie Mouly and Tao Jiang, for using advanced brain-scanning technology to measure the extent to which some people are disgusted by cheese.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Cognition: Matteo Martini, Ilaria Bufalari, Maria Antonietta Stazi, and Salvatore Maria Aglioti, for demonstrating that many identical twins cannot tell each other apart visually.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Obstetrics: At Institut Marquès and the University of Barcelona, researchers Marisa López-Teijón, Álex García-Faura, Alberto Prats-Galino, and Luis Pallarés Aniorte, for showing that a developing human fetus responds more strongly to music that is played electromechanically inside the mother's vagina than to music that is played electromechanically on the mother's belly.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Fetal Acoustic Stimulation Device, patent ES2546919B1, granted 29 September 2015 to Luis y Pallarés Aniorte and Maria Luisa López-Teijón Pérez.</ref>

2018

The ceremony took place on 13 September 2018.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

  • Medicine: Marc Mitchell and David Wartinger, for using roller coaster rides to try to hasten the passage of kidney stones.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Anthropology: Tomas Persson, Gabriela-Alina Sauciuc, and Elainie Madsen, of Lund University for collecting evidence, in a zoo, that chimpanzees imitate humans about as often, and about as well, as humans imitate chimpanzees.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Biology: Paul Becher, Sebastien Lebreton, Erika Wallin, Erik Hedenström, Felipe Borrero-Echeverry, Marie Bengtsson, Volker Jörger, and Peter Witzgall, of Sweden, Germany, and Colombia, for demonstrating that wine experts can reliably identify, by smell, the presence of a single fruit fly in a glass of wine.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Chemistry: Paula Romão, Adília Alarcão and the late César Viana, of Portugal, for measuring the degree to which human saliva is a good cleaning agent for dirty surfaces.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Medical Education: Japanese physician Akira Horiuchi for the medical report "Colonoscopy in the Sitting Position: Lessons Learned From Self-Colonoscopy."<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Literature: Thea Blackler, Rafael Gomez, Vesna Popovic and M. Helen Thompson of Queensland University of Technology, for documenting that most people who use complicated products do not read the instruction manual.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Nutrition: James Cole of the University of Brighton for calculating that the caloric intake from a human-cannibalism diet is significantly lower than the caloric intake from most other traditional meat diets.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Peace: University of Valencia researchers Francisco Alonso, Cristina Esteban, Andrea Serge, Maria-Luisa Ballestar, Jaime Sanmartín, Constanza Calatayud, and Beatriz Alamar, for measuring the frequency, motivation, and effects of shouting and cursing while driving an automobile.<ref>"La Justicia en el Tráfico: Conocimiento y Valoración de la Población Española" ["Justice in Traffic: Knowledge and Valuation of the Spanish Population")], F. Alonso, J. Sanmartín, C. Calatayud, C. Esteban, B. Alamar, and M. L. Ballestar, Cuadernos de Reflexión Attitudes, 2005. doi:?</ref>
  • Reproductive Medicine: John Barry, Bruce Blank, and Michel Boileau of the University of Oregon for using postage stamps to test whether the male sexual organ is functioning properly—as described in their study "Nocturnal Penile Tumescence Monitoring With Stamps."<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Economics: Lindie Hanyu Liang, Douglas Brown, Huiwen Lian, Samuel Hanig, D. Lance Ferris, and Lisa Keeping, from Waterloo, Lexington, and East Lansing, investigating whether it is effective for employees to use voodoo dolls to retaliate against abusive bosses.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

2019

File:The 29th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony (2019).webm The ceremony took place on 12 September 2019.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

  • Medicine: Mario Negri Institute researcher Silvano Gallus and colleagues, for collecting evidence that pizza might protect against illness and death, if the pizza is made and eaten in Italy.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Medical Education: Karen Pryor and Theresa McKeon, of TAGteach in Norton, Massachusetts, for using a simple animal-training technique—called "clicker training"—to train surgeons to perform orthopedic surgery.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Biology: Singapore and Gdańsk researchers Ling-Jun Kong, Herbert Crepaz, Agnieszka Górecka, Aleksandra Urbanek, Rainer Dumke, and Tomasz Paterek, for discovering that dead magnetized cockroaches demagnetize slower than living magnetized cockroaches.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Anatomy: Roger Mieusset and Bourras Bengoudifa in Toulouse, France for measuring scrotal temperature asymmetry in naked and clothed postmen in France.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Chemistry: Shigeru Watanabe, Mineko Ohnishi, Kaori Imai, Eiji Kawano, and Seiji Igarashi, for estimating the total saliva volume produced per day by a typical five-year-old child.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Engineering: Iman Farahbakhsh of Azad University for inventing a diaper-changing machine for use on human infants.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref>

2020

The ceremony took place on 17 September 2020 and was webcast.<ref name=ig2020>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

  • Acoustics: University of Vienna biologist Stephan Reber, and researchers Takeshi Nishimura, Judith Janisch, Mark Robertson, and Tecumseh Fitch, for inducing a female Chinese alligator to bellow in an airtight chamber filled with helium-enriched air.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Economics: Christopher Watkins, Juan David Leongómez, Jeanne Bovet, Agnieszka Żelaźniewicz, Max Korbmacher, Marco Antônio Corrêa Varella, Ana Maria Fernandez, Danielle Wagstaff, and Samuela Bolgan, for trying to quantify the relationship between different countries' national income inequality and the average amount of mouth-to-mouth kissing.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Entomology: Richard Vetter of UC Riverside for finding evidence that many entomologists are afraid of spiders (which are not insects, which entomologists study).<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Management: Xi Guang'an, Mo Tianxiang, Yang Kangsheng, Yang Guangsheng, and Ling Xiansi, five professional hitmen in Guangxi, China, who managed a contract for a hit job (a murder performed for money) in the following way: After accepting payment to perform the murder, Xi Guang'an then instead subcontracted the task to Mo Tianxiang, who then instead subcontracted the task to Yang Kangsheng, who then instead subcontracted the task to Yang Guangsheng, who then instead subcontracted the task to Ling Xiansi, with each subsequently enlisted hitman receiving a smaller percentage of the fee, and nobody actually performing a murder.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

2021

The 31st First Annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony took place on Thursday, 9 September 2021 and was webcast.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}Template:Cbignore</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

  • Biology: Swedish researchers Susanne Schötz, Robert Eklund and Joost van de Weijer for analyzing variations in purring, chirping, chattering, trilling, tweedling, murmuring, meowing, moaning, squeaking, hissing, yowling, howling, growling, and other modes of cat–human communication.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Ecology: University of Valencia researchers Leila Satari, Alba Guillén, Àngela Vidal-Verdú, and Manuel Porcar, for using genetic analysis to identify the different species of bacteria that reside in wads of discarded chewing gum stuck on pavements in various countries.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Chemistry: Jörg Wicker, Nicolas Krauter, Bettina Derstroff, Christof Stönner, Efstratios Bourtsoukidis, Achim Edtbauer, Jochen Wulf, Thomas Klüpfel, Stefan Kramer, and Jonathan Williams, for chemically analyzing the air inside movie theaters, to test whether the odours produced by an audience reliably indicate the levels of violence, sex, antisocial behavior, drug use, and profanity in the movie the audience is watching.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Economics: Pavlo Blavatskyy, of Montpellier Business School, for discovering that the obesity of a country's politicians may be a good indicator of that country's corruption perception.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Medicine: Olcay Cem Bulut, Dare Oladokun, Burkard Lippert, and Ralph Hohenberger, for demonstrating that sexual orgasms can be as effective as decongestant medicines at improving nasal breathing.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Peace: Ethan Beseris, Steven Naleway, and David Carrier, of the University of Utah, for testing the hypothesis that humans evolved beards to protect themselves from punches to the face.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Physics: Alessandro Corbetta, Jasper Meeusen, Chung-min Lee, Roberto Benzi, and Federico Toschi, for conducting experiments to learn why pedestrians do not constantly collide with other pedestrians.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Kinetics: Hisashi Murakami, Claudio Feliciani, Yuta Nishiyama, and Katsuhiro Nishinari, of the University of Tokyo and Nagaoka University, for conducting experiments to learn how mutual anticipation can contribute to self-organization in crowds.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Entomology: Naval Air Station Jacksonville researchers John Mulrennan Jr, Roger Grothaus, Charles Hammond, and Jay Lamdin, for their research study "A New Method of Cockroach Control on Submarines".<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Transportation: Robin Radcliffe, Mark Jago, Peter Morkel, Estelle Morkel, Pierre du Preez, Piet Beytell, Birgit Kotting, Bakker Manuel, Jan Hendrik du Preez, Michele Miller, Julia Felippe, Stephen Parry, and Robin Gleed, for determining by experiment whether it is safer to transport an airborne rhinoceros upside-down.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

2022

The 32nd First Annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony took place on Thursday, 15 September 2022, and was presented in a webcast format.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

  • Applied Cardiology: Leiden University researchers Eliska Prochazkova, Elio Sjak-Shie, Friederike Behrens, Daniel Lindh (University of Birmingham), and Mariska Kret, for seeking and finding evidence that when new romantic partners meet for the first time, and feel attracted to each other, their heart rates synchronize.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Literature: Eric Martínez, Francis Mollica, and Edward Gibson, of MIT and University of Edinburgh, for analyzing what makes legal documents unnecessarily difficult to understand.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Biology: University of São Paulo researchers Solimary García-Hernández and Glauco Machado, for studying whether and how constipation affects the mating prospects of scorpions.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Medicine: Medical University of Warsaw researchers Marcin Jasiński, Martyna Maciejewska, Anna Brodziak, Michał Górka, Kamila Skwierawska, Wiesław Jędrzejczak, Agnieszka Tomaszewska, Grzegorz Basak, and Emilian Snarski, for showing that when patients undergo some forms of toxic chemotherapy, they suffer fewer harmful side effects when ice cream replaces one traditional component of the procedure.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Engineering: Japanese researchers Gen Matsuzaki, Kazuo Ohuchi, Masaru Uehara, Yoshiyuki Ueno, and Goro Imura, for trying to discover the most efficient way for people to use their fingers when turning a knob.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref>

  • Art History: Peter de Smet of The Hague and Nicholas Hellmuth of Culver City, California, for their study "A Multidisciplinary Approach to Ritual Enema Scenes on Ancient Maya Pottery."<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Physics: Frank Fish, Zhi-Ming Yuan, Minglu Chen, Laibing Jia, Chunyan Ji, and Atilla Incecik, of Zhenjiang and Glasgow, for trying to understand how ducklings manage to swim in formation.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Peace: Junhui Wu, Szabolcs Számadó, Pat Barclay, Bianca Beersma, Terence Dores Cruz, Sergio Lo Iacono, Annika Nieper, Kim Peters, Wojtek Przepiorka, Leo Tiokhin and Paul Van Lange, for developing an algorithm to help gossipers decide when to tell the truth and when to lie.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Economics: University of Catania researchers Alessandro Pluchino, Alessio Emanuele Biondo, and Andrea Rapisarda, for explaining, mathematically, why success most often goes not to the most talented people, but instead to the luckiest.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Safety Engineering: Magnus Gens of KTH Royal Institute of Technology for developing a moose crash test dummy.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

2023

The 33rd First Annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony took place on Thursday, 14 September 2023, and was presented in webcast.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

|CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

  • Medicine: UC Irvine researchers Christine Pham, Bobak Hedayati, Kiana Hashemi, Ella Csuka, Tiana Mamaghani, Margit Juhasz, Jamie Wikenheiser, and Natasha Mesinkovska, for using cadavers to explore whether there is an equal number of hairs in each of a person's two nostrils.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Mechanical Engineering: Te Faye Yap, Zhen Liu, Anoop Rajappan, Trevor Shimokusu, and Daniel Preston, of Rice University, for re-animating dead spiders to use as mechanical gripping tools.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Public Health: Stanford University's Seung-min Park, for inventing the Stanford Toilet, a device that uses a variety of technologies such as dipstick test strip for urine, a computer vision system for defecation analysis, an anal-print sensor paired with an identification camera, and a telecommunications link that can analyze the substances that humans excrete.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Physics: Bieito Fernández Castro, Marian Peña, Enrique Nogueira, Miguel Gilcoto, Esperanza Broullón, Antonio Comesaña, Damien Bouffard, Alberto C. Naveira Garabato, and Beatriz Mouriño-Carballido, for measuring the extent to which ocean-water mixing is affected by the sexual activity of anchovy fishes.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Education: Katy Tam, Cyanea Poon, Victoria Hui, Wijnand van Tilburg, Christy Wong, Vivian Kwong, Gigi Yuen, and Christian Chan, for carefully studying the boredom of teachers and students.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Communication: María José Torres-Prioris, Diana López-Barroso, Estela Càmara, Sol Fittipaldi, Lucas Sedeño, Agustín Ibáñez, Marcelo Berthier, and Adolfo García, of Spain and Argentina, for studying the mental activities of people who are experts at speaking backward.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Psychology: Stanley Milgram of Yale, Lawrence Bickman, and Leonard Berkowitz of University of Wisconsin for experiments on a city street to see how many passersby stop to look upward when they see strangers looking upward.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

2024

The 34th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony took place on Thursday, 12 September 2024, and was held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

  • Anatomy: Marjolaine Willems, Quentin Hennocq, Sara Tunon de Lara, Nicolas Kogane, Vincent Fleury, Romy Rayssiguier, Juan José Cortés Santander, Roberto Requena, Julien Stirnemann, and Roman Hossein Khonsari, for finding that scalp hair whorls are more likely to spiral in a counter-clockwise direction in the Southern Hemisphere compared to the Northern Hemisphere.<ref name="guardian2024"/>
  • Biology: Fordyce Ely and William Petersen, both posthumously awarded for repeatedly exploding paper bags next to a cat that was standing on the back of a cow and finding that it caused the cow to produce less milk.<ref name="guardian2024"/><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Botany: Independent Magna, Utah-based researcher Jacob White and Felipe Yamashita, of the University of Bonn, for finding that certain plants imitate the leaf shape of nearby plastic plants and concluding that "plant vision" is plausible.<ref name="guardian2024">Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Chemistry: Amsterdam team of Tess Heeremans, Antoine Deblais, Daniel Bonn and Sander Woutersen, for their use of chromatography to separate drunk worms from sober worms.<ref name="guardian2024"/><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Demography: Saul Justin Newman, of the University of Oxford, for finding that supercentenarians and extreme age records tend to come from areas with no birth certificates, rampant clerical errors, pension fraud, and short life spans.<ref name="guardian2024"/><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Medicine: Lieven Schenk, Tahmine Fadai and Christian Büchel, for finding that fake medicine that induces painful side-effects can be more effective than fake medicine that does not cause painful side-effects.<ref name="guardian2024"/><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • Peace: B. F. Skinner, posthumously awarded for his study on housing live pigeons inside missiles to guide them to their targets.<ref name="guardian2024"/>
  • Physics: James Liao of the University of Florida for his long-running study on how dead trout can swim.<ref name="guardian2024"/>
  • Physiology: Takanori Takebe, for finding that several mammals can breathe through their anus.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="guardian2024"/>
  • Probability: A team of 50 researchers, mostly Dutch, for performing 350,757 experiments to show that when a coin is flipped, it is slightly more likely to land on the same side as it started.<ref name="guardian2024"/><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

2025

The 35th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony took place on Thursday, 18 September 2025, and was held at Boston University.<ref name="bbc2025">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

  • Aviation: Francisco Sánchez, Mariana Melcón, Carmi Korine, and Berry Pinshow, for "studying whether ingesting alcohol can impair bats' ability to fly and also their ability to echolocate".<ref name="bbc2025" /><ref name="ig20255" />
  • Biology: Tomoki Kojima, Kazato Oishi, Yasushi Matsubara, Yuki Uchiyama, Yoshihiko Fukushima, Naoto Aoki, Say Sato, Tatsuaki Masuda, Junichi Ueda, Hiroyuki Hirooka, and Katsutoshi Kino, for "their experiments to learn whether cows painted with zebra-like striping can avoid being bitten by flies".<ref name="bbc2025" /><ref name="ig20255" />
  • Chemistry: Rotem Naftalovich, Daniel Naftalovich, and Frank Greenway, for "experiments to test whether eating Teflon [a form of plastic more formally called "polytetrafluoroethylene"] is a good way to increase food volume and hence satiety without increasing calorie content".<ref name="bbc2025" /><ref name="ig20255" />
  • Engineering design: Vikash Kumar and Sarthak Mittal, for "analyzing, from an engineering design perspective, how foul-smelling shoes affect the good experience of using a shoe-rack".<ref name="ig20255" />
  • Literature: William B. Bean, for "persistently recording and analyzing the rate of growth of one of his fingernails over a period of 35 years".<ref name="bbc2025" />
  • Nutrition: Daniele Dendi, Gabriel H. Segniagbeto, Roger Meek, and Luca Luiselli, for "studying the extent to which a certain kind of lizard chooses to eat certain kinds of pizza".<ref name="bbc2025" /><ref name="ig20255" />
  • Peace: Fritz Renner, Inge Kersbergen, Matt Field, and Jessica Werthmann, for "showing that drinking alcohol sometimes improves a person's ability to speak in a foreign language".<ref name="bbc2025" /><ref name="ig20255" />
  • Pediatrics: Julie Mennella and Gary Beauchamp, for "studying what a nursing baby experiences when the baby's mother eats garlic".<ref name="ig20255" />
  • Physics: Giacomo Bartolucci, Daniel Maria Busiello, Matteo Ciarchi, Alberto Corticelli, Ivan Di Terlizzi, Fabrizio Olmeda, Davide Revignas, and Vincenzo Maria Schimmenti, for "discoveries about the physics of pasta sauce, especially the phase transition that can lead to clumping, which can be a cause of unpleasantness".<ref name="bbc2025" /><ref name="ig20255" />
  • Psychology: Marcin Zajenkowski and Gilles Gignac, for "investigating what happens when you tell narcissists — or anyone else — that they are intelligent".<ref name="ig20255">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref>

People who received multiple Ig Nobel Prizes

Ig Nobel Prize winners who also received the Nobel Prize

References

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