The 2025 Ig Nobel Prizes will be awarded at the 35th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony, on Thursday evening, September 18, 2025. Ten new winners will be honored for doing things that make people LAUGH, then THINK. TICKETS TICKETS TICKETS to attend the ceremony will go on sale on MONDAY, AUGUST 4, at 9:00 am […]
We are looking for a new Miss Sweetie Poo, for this year’s Ig Nobel Prize ceremony. The 35th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony will happen on Thursday evening, September 18, 2025, at Boston University. Miss Sweetie Poo is our time enforcer — she helps the speakers keep their speeches brief and delightful. She informs […]
Jimmy Liao, who was awarded the 2024 Ig Nobel Physics Prize, for for demonstrating and explaining the swimming abilities of a dead trout, did this TED Talk about some of his experience. It’s titled “What studying fish teaches me about human life”: His Ig-winning research studies are: “Neuromuscular Control of Trout Swimming in a Vortex […]
Tom Lehrer died a few days ago. For many of us involved in any way with science or math (or many other things, too!), his songs were and are a deep and lasting and gleefully sharp influence. [The photo here shows Tom and a bunch of us having coffee about twenty years ago. One […]
Computer availability all too often has been limited to humans. This study is one of several attempts by various people to remedy that limitation: “Touchscreen Tasks for Cognitive Testing in Domestic Goats (Capra hircus): A Pilot Study Using Odd-Item Search Training,” Jie Gao, Yumi Yamanashi, and Masayuki Tanaka, Animals, vol. 15, no. 14, 2025, article […]
When a dog pants, it generally pants at a particular frequency. This study explains that that frequency is practical, and further, that “The impracticality of panting at other frequencies is shown by calculation.” The study is: “Mechanical Aspects of Panting in Dogs,” Eugene C. Crawford Jr., Journal of Applied Physiology, vol. 17, no. 2, March […]