The 36th Ig Nobel Prize ceremony was held in Zurich, Switzerland, honoring scientific research that first prompts a laugh and then makes people think, according to CNN. This year's winners included studies on stealing children's candy, nasal mucus, urinal splashes and the use of mosquitoes in 3D printing.
One of the honored studies examined the behavior of venomous snakes. Researchers carefully stepped on different parts of the animals' bodies to determine what provokes them to bite humans.
The economics prize went to researchers who found evidence that people from higher social classes are more likely to steal candy from children's stockpiles and engage in other unethical behavior.
The chemistry prize was awarded for a study of cockroach milk, which researchers found contains three times more energy than cow's milk. In the medical category, the prize recognized a study titled "How to Blow Your Nose: An Aerodynamic Study of Nose-Blowing."
Kissing study and an Oxford biologist's view
The biomechanics award went to researchers behind a study on the evolutionary history of kissing. Matilda Brindle, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Oxford and a co-author of the study, told CNN why this kind of fundamental research matters.
She said curiosity for its own sake is fundamental to how science moves forward. Applied science is extremely important, she added, but it would be a great loss to stop observing the world around us and asking why.
Splash-free urinals and 'necroprinting'
The physics prize went to researchers behind a urinal design engineered not to create splashes. An even more unusual honor, the technology prize, was given for a study that used a mosquito's proboscis as a nozzle for 3D printing, a process the researchers called "necroprinting."
The Ig Nobel Prizes are a parody of the Nobel Prizes, celebrating research that seems trivial or odd on the surface but often carries a genuine scientific point underneath.
Last year's winners
UNIAN reported that the 2025 Ig Nobel Prizes honored a similar run of unusual studies unlikely to have much practical use but that generated interest and smiles. Those included experiments with cows painted like zebras to repel flies, tests of lizards' taste preferences for pizza, and research into how alcohol affects people's ability to speak foreign languages.
