The prize honors unusual or seemingly bizarre research that “makes people laugh … and then think.” This year’s awards honored, for example, research on how people react to being told they are intelligent, how alcohol may aid foreign language speaking, and the physics of pasta sauce clumping.
The award was created by Marc Abrahams and takes a humorous, sometimes satirical approach, but with serious goals: to promote public interest in science, make research more accessible, and highlight the relevance of even “strange” research. Marc Abrahams is the editor and co-founder of the Annals of Improbable Research and former editor-in-chief of the Journal of Irreproducible Results.
Nobel laureates regularly present the ten Ig Nobel Prizes and the winners present their research, often in highly entertaining ways. This year the 35th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony was held at Boston University, MA, USA, on September 18. The prizes come with a cash award of 10 trillion dollars, though they are Zimbabwean dollars from a time of extreme inflation. The ceremony also includes the traditional paper airplane toss.
The Winners
LITERATURE PRIZE
The late Dr. William B. Bean as awarded “for persistently recording and analyzing the rate of growth of one of his fingernails over a period of 35 years” [1-6].
PSYCHOLOGY PRIZE
Marcin Zajenkowski and Gilles Gignac were awarded “for investigating what happens when you tell narcissists — or anyone else — that they are intelligent” [7].
Marcin Zajenkowski, University of Warsaw, Poland, and Gilles E. Gignac, The University of Western Australia, Perth, found that positive IQ feedback increased self-assessed intelligence and narcissistic tendencies, particularly the sense of uniqueness, whereas negative feedback had the opposite effect [7]. This is important because it shows that beliefs about intelligence are influenced by external feedback and intertwine with narcissistic tendencies.
NUTRITION PRIZE
Daniele Dendi, Gabriel H. Segniagbeto, Roger Meek, and Luca Luiselli were awarded “for studying the extent to which a certain kind of lizard chooses to eat certain kinds of pizza” [8].
PEDIATRICS PRIZE
Julie Mennella and Gary Beauchamp were awarded “for studying what a nursing baby experiences when the baby’s mother eats garlic” [9].
BIOLOGY PRIZE
Tomoki Kojima, Kazato Oishi, Yasushi Matsubara, Yuki Uchiyama, Yoshihiko Fukushima, Naoto Aoki, Say Sato, Tatsuaki Masuda, Junichi Ueda, Hiroyuki Hirooka, and Katsutoshi Kino were awarded “for their experiments to learn whether cows painted with zebra-like striping can avoid being bitten by flies” [10].
This prize builds on research (by a team of scientists in Hungary, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland) that was honored with the 2016 Ig Nobel Physics Prize
CHEMISTRY PRIZE
Rotem Naftalovich, Daniel Naftalovich, and Frank Greenway were awarded “for experiments to test whether eating Teflon or polytetrafluoroethylene is a good way to increase food volume and hence satiety without increasing calorie content” [11,12].
PEACE PRIZE
Fritz Renner, Inge Kersbergen, Matt Field, and Jessica Werthmann were awarded “for showing that drinking alcohol sometimes improves a person’s ability to speak in a foreign language” [13].
ENGINEERING DESIGN PRIZE
Vikash Kumar and Sarthak Mittal were awarded “for analyzing, from an engineering design perspective, how foul-smelling shoes affect the good experience of using a shoe-rack” [14].
AVIATION PRIZE
Francisco Sánchez, Mariana Melcón, Carmi Korine, and Berry Pinshow were awarded “for studying whether ingesting alcohol can impair bats’ ability to fly and also their ability to echolocate” [15].
Fritz Renner, Maastricht University, the Netherlands, Inge Kersbergen and Matt Field, University of Liverpool and UK Centre for Tobacco and Alcohol Studies, Liverpool, UK, and Jessica Werthmann, King’s College London, UK and University of Freiburg, Germany, showed that a low dose of alcohol improved the pronunciation of a foreign language in people who have recently learned that language, as rated by native speakers. Participants’ self-assessments, however, did not change. This suggests alcohol may enhance actual but not perceived performance in recently learned languages. At least for five German speakers who had recently learned Dutch.
PHYSICS PRIZE
Giacomo Bartolucci, Daniel Maria Busiello, Matteo Ciarchi, Alberto Corticelli, Ivan Di Terlizzi, Fabrizio Olmeda, Davide Revignas, and Vincenzo Maria Schimmenti were awarded “for discoveries about the physics of pasta sauce, especially the phase transition that can lead to clumping, which can be a cause of unpleasantness” [16].
G. Bartolucci, Universitat de Barcelona, Spain, D. M. Busiello, and D. Revignas, Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems, Dresden, Germany and University of Padova, Italy, M. Ciarchi, A. Corticelli, I. Di Terlizzi, and V. M. Schimmenti, Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems, F. Olmeda, Institute of Science and Technology Austria, Klosterneuberg, analyzed the phase behavior of Cacio e pepe sauce: a traditional Italian dish made with pasta, pecorino cheese, and pepper. They found starch concentration to be the main factor for stability: below 1% it caused clumping. Cheese-to-water ratio and stabilizers such as trisodium citrate also strongly influenced texture. At the end of their paper they present a scientifically optimized recipe for consistently smooth sauce.
References
[1] William B. Bean, A Note on Fingernail Growth, Journal of Investigative Dermatology 1953, 20(1), 27-31. https://doi.org/10.1038/jid.1953.5
[2] William B. Bean, A Discourse on Nail Growth and Unusual Fingernails, Transactions of the American Clinical and Climatological Association 1962, 74, 152-167.
[3] William B. Bean, Nail Growth. Twenty-Five Years’ Observation, Archives of Internal Medicine 1968, 122(4), 359-361. https://doi.org/10.1001/archinte.1968.00300090069016
[4] William B. Bean, Nail Growth: 30 Years of Observation, Archives of Internal Medicine 1974, 134(3), 497-502. https://doi.org/10.1001/archinte.1974.00320210107015
[5] William B. Bean, Some Notes of an Aging Nail Watcher, International Journal of Dermatology 1976, 15(3), 225-230. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-4362.1976.tb00696.x
[6] William B. Bean, Nail Growth. Thirty-Five Years of Observation, Archives of Internal Medicine 1980, 140(1), 73-76. https://doi.org/10.1001/archinte.1980.00330130075019
[7] Marcin Zajenkowski, Gilles E. Gignac, Telling People They Are Intelligent Correlates with the Feeling of Narcissistic Uniqueness: The Influence of IQ Feedback on Temporary State Narcissism, Intelligence 2021, 89, 101595. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2021.101595
[8] Daniele Dendi, Gabriel H. Segniagbeto, Roger Meek, Luca Luiselli, Opportunistic Foraging Strategy of Rainbow Lizards at a Seaside Resort in Togo, African Journal of Ecology 2023, 61(1), 226-227. https://doi.org/10.1111/aje.13100
[9] Julie A. Mennella and Gary K. Beauchamp, Maternal Diet Alters the Sensory Qualities of Human Milk and the Nursling’s Behavior, Pediatrics 1991, 88(4), 737-744.
[10] Tomoki Kojima, Kazato Oishi, Yasushi Matsubara, Yuki Uchiyama, Yoshihiko Fukushima, Naoto Aoki, Say Sato, Tatsuaki Masuda, Junichi Ueda, Hiroyuki Hirooka, Katsutoshi Kino, Cows Painted with Zebra-Like Striping Can Avoid Biting Fly Attack, PLoS ONE 2019, 14(10), 2019, e0223447. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0223447
[11] Rotem Naftalovich, Daniel Naftalovich, Frank L. Greenway, Polytetrafluoroethylene Ingestion as a Way to Increase Food Volume and Hence Satiety Without Increasing Calorie Content, Journal of Diabetes Science and Technology 2016, 10(4), 971–976. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1932296815626726
[12] Rotem Naftalovich, Daniel Naftalovich, Use of Nondigestible Nonfibrous Volumizer of Meal Content as a Method for Increasing Feeling of Satiety, U.S. Patent 9,924,736, issued March 27, 2018.
[13] Fritz Renner, Inge Kersbergen, Matt Field, Jessica Werthmann, Dutch Courage? Effects of Acute Alcohol Consumption on Self-Ratings and Observer Ratings of Foreign Language Skills, Journal of Psychopharmacology 2018, 32(1), 116-122. https://doi.org/10.1177/0269881117735687
[14] Vikash Kumar, Sarthak Mittal, Smelly Shoes — An Opportunity for Shoe Rack Re-Design, Ergonomics for Improved Productivity: Proceedings of HWWE 2017, Vol. 2, Springer, Singapore, 2022. 287-293. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-2229-8_33
[15] Francisco Sánchez, Mariana Melcón, Carmi Korine, Berry Pinshow, Ethanol Ingestion Affects Flight Performance and Echolocation in Egyptian Fruit Bats, Behavioural Processes 2010, 84(2), 555-558. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.beproc.2010.02.006
[16] Giacomo Bartolucci, Daniel Maria Busiello, Matteo Ciarchi, Alberto Corticelli, Ivan Di Terlizzi, Fabrizio Olmeda, Davide Revignas, Vincenzo Maria Schimmenti, Phase Behavior of Cacio and Pepe Sauce, Physics of Fluids 2025, 37, 044122. https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0255841
- Webpage with the Winners
- Webcast of this Year’s Ceremony, YouTube September 8, 2025.
