The time has come for the most absurd scientific award of the year: the IgNobel prize, the recognition of bizarre, imaginative, apparently – but only apparently – useless research, which “first makes you laugh, and then think”. For the 36th edition of the event organized by the magazine “Annals of Improbable Research”, the awards ceremony moved from the USA to Europe, more precisely to Zurich. An unprecedented decision made by the creator and organizer of the IgNobel Marc Abrahams in response to the international tensions caused by the policies of the current American administration, and its continuous attacks on the integrity and independence of the scientific community. However, don’t think that the 2026 IgNobel Prizes have turned into a heavy or serious event. Far from it: the atmosphere was as festive as ever, the prize for the winners was the usual 10 billion dollars in Zimbabwean currency (withdrawn in 2008 due to hyper-inflation and therefore devoid of any monetary value). And the searches crowned during the ceremony are more absurd than ever. Let’s see what it’s about.
Physics of urination
A team of American, Canadian, Chinese and Saudi researchers set out to tackle one of the most pressing problems in men’s restroom design: urinal backsplash, which tends to spread unsanitary droplets of pee onto the hands and clothes of those who use them, and throughout the public restroom environment. Through complex differential equations and in-depth fluid dynamics modeling, scientists designed the theoretical framework for the perfect bounce-proof urinal. An engineering feat that reduces return splash to just 1.4 percent of that of current models. Destined – hopefully – to revolutionize bathrooms around the world, and certainly worthy of this year’s IgNobel prize for physics.
Underpants buried
The soil science prize went to Franz Bender and Marcel van der Heijden, of the University of Zurich, for an experiment that began in Switzerland but soon reached global proportions. The team asked 1,000 volunteers to bury cotton underpants in their garden, and dig them up just two months later to see what had happened to them. The rate of tissue decomposition offered an accurate measure of the health and biological activity of microbes in the soil. A practical demonstration of how underwear can be transformed into a valuable diagnostic tool for agriculture. As word spread, thousands of people from over 25 countries began contacting the Swiss researchers after carrying out the experiment at home. And at that point, awarding the IgNobel became practically mandatory.
What really is a kiss?
On the biomechanics front, Oxford scientist Matilda Brindle and her team have won recognition for formulating a rigorous, scientific definition of kissing. A behavior that is not unique to our species, but rather is extremely widespread in the animal world. How to define it, then, in a non-anthropocentric way? Their work categorized non-aggressive oral interactions in extremely diverse species, including ants, birds, polar bears and humans. An academic formalization that clarifies, without a shadow of a doubt, what we must mean by the word kiss: “non-antagonistic interaction involving direct intraspecific oral contact, with some movements of the tongue or parts of the mouth, and in the absence of food transfer”.
It’s time to milk the cockroaches
Milk is a highly energetic food, designed to provide newborns with everything they need to grow. Cow’s milk is the most common on our tables, but it is not the only one available in the animal world. And if we want to find the most nutritious we have to look very far from the bovine world. The milk cockroach of the species Diploptera punctata in fact it contains three times the energy of cow’s milk, for the same volume. This was confirmed by a team of Indian scientists, in an article published in the magazine IUCrJ which rightfully earned him the 2026 IgNobel Prize for Chemistry.
Aerodynamics of a sneeze
This year’s medicine prize did not go to recent research. It was in fact a memorial prize, won by the Japanese researcher Tokuji Unno for his 1977 investigation entitled “How to Blow the Nose – An Aerodynamic Study of the Nose Blowing”. The research analyzed the dynamics of air flows and the pressure generated inside the nasal cavities during the expulsion of mucus. A fundamental contribution to the biomechanics of daily health that brought the necessary analytical rigor to a gesture taken for granted for too long.
The importance of field research
For biology, João Miguel Alves-Nunes and his team at the Universidade Estadual Paulista in Sao Paulo (Brazil) are ready for anything. It is no coincidence that they repeatedly and with extreme delicacy stepped on various specimens of venomous snakes, at different times and with different temperatures, to understand the exact meteorological and behavioral conditions that push a reptile to launch its bite. A test of patience in the field in which researchers literally put their feet on the line for science. The research was published in Scientific Reports and earned him the 2026 IgNobel for biology.
Necropress is born
For technology, engineer Justin Puma and colleagues from McGill University won the prize by developing a technique called Necroprinting. Researchers have managed to reuse the mouth spine (the proboscis) of dead mosquitoes, transforming it into a very high-precision nozzle for 3D printers. An example of biological recycling that transforms one of the most hated insects in the world into a component for the technologies of the future, and which somehow avenges us for the many annoyances experienced due to their bites.
Every cockroach…
Children always remain children for a parent. But it is difficult to deny that as newborns they are almost always much more pleasant than they are when they become teenagers… if only from an olfactory point of view. However, science, as we know, must demonstrate everything – even the obvious – with the utmost rigor. And so the psychologist Ilona Croy and colleagues from the Technical University of Dresden decided to carry out an experiment, the results of which confirm once and for all that newborns give off a scent considered wonderful by their parents, while as teenagers they begin to stink even to their loved ones. Obviously, the IgNobel prize for the science of smell was not long in coming.
The enemy of my enemy
The 2026 IgNobel Peace Prize went to the authors of a study that documented a subtle and perhaps elusive social dynamic. The study shows that people willingly surround themselves with friends with an aggressive and ruthless nature, as long as this malice is directed exclusively towards people they dislike. An evolutionary strategy that defines the contours of the perfect alliance, described in a study published in Evolution and Human Behavior.
The vices of high society
Finally, the IgNobel prize for economics was won by a group of researchers from the University of California at Berkeley. Paul Piff and colleagues have shown that the richest are more likely to engage in unethical behavior. Among the behaviors studied during the research, the propensity of wealthy individuals to steal sweets intended for children stands out. A result that sheds an ironic and dark light on the behavior of the elite, described in a study published a few years ago in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.