ZURICH — What happens when scientists turn seemingly bizarre questions into serious research? You get the 2026 Ig Nobel Prizes—an annual celebration of scientific work designed to make people laugh first, then think.
This year’s awards featured research into splash-free urinals, buried underwear, cockroach milk, nose-blowing, kissing, snake bites and even mosquito body parts as 3D-printing nozzles.
The 2026 ceremony was held on September 3 in Zurich, Switzerland, marking the first time in the awards’ 35-year history that the ceremony was staged outside the United States. The event was organized by Annals of Improbable Research, which created the awards in 1991.
The organizers describe the prizes as honoring achievements that “make people LAUGH, then THINK.”
And this year’s winners certainly delivered.
The physics prize: A urinal designed to stop splashback
One of the most attention-grabbing awards went to Randy Hurd, Zhao Pan, Tadd Truscott and Kaveeshan Thurairajah for their theoretical and experimental work on designing a splash-free urinal.
Their research examined what happens when a liquid stream hits a surface at different angles. The team found that keeping the stream’s impact angle below roughly 30 degrees can dramatically reduce splashback.
They subsequently developed curved urinal designs intended to maintain that low-impact angle for users of different heights.
The research is more than a bathroom joke. Reducing splashback could potentially improve cleanliness and accessibility in public restrooms. Ars Technica reported that the team’s prototype produced no observed splash in its simulated testing, while conventional designs generated substantially more splashback.
Soil science gets an unusual makeover—with underwear
Perhaps the strangest-looking experiment involved 1,000 pairs of cotton underwear.
Researchers Franz Bender, Marcel van der Heijden, Atlant Bieri and Pia Viviani received the Soil Science Ig Nobel for burying underwear in more than 25 countries and later digging it up to examine how extensively it had decomposed.
But there was a serious scientific purpose behind the unusual experiment.
The project, known as “Proof by Underpants,” used the decomposition of cotton fabric as an indicator of biological activity in soil. Researchers found significant differences between locations, with private gardens generally showing faster decomposition than lawns, while agricultural fields and meadows fell between them.
The underlying idea is straightforward: the more active the organisms living in soil, the faster they break down organic material.
Researchers say land use was the strongest factor influencing decomposition, making the humble pair of underwear a surprisingly useful tool for communicating differences in soil health.
Cockroach milk takes home the Chemistry prize
If splash-free toilets and buried underwear weren’t unusual enough, the Chemistry prize went to research involving cockroach milk.
Scientists studied milk proteins produced by the viviparous cockroach Diploptera punctata, a species that nourishes its developing young with a milk-like substance.
The researchers found that crystals formed from these milk proteins can contain more than three times the energy of an equivalent amount of cow’s milk, owing to the densely packed structure of the crystals.
That does not mean cockroach milk is about to replace dairy milk.
Instead, the research focused on understanding the molecular structure of the unusual protein crystals and what makes them such an energy-dense form of nourishment.
Scientists also tackled the science of kissing
The Biomechanics prize went to Matilda Brindle, Catherine Talbot and Stuart West for developing a scientific definition of kissing and investigating its evolutionary history.
Their work examined oral-to-oral contact across species and suggested that kissing-like behavior has a much deeper evolutionary history than many people might expect.
Nature reported that the researchers traced the behavior back approximately 21.5 million years to the common ancestor of today’s great apes and humans.
The researchers also concluded that the behavior is not uniquely human, with kissing-like interactions documented in several animal groups.
Mosquitoes become microscopic 3D-printing tools
The Technology prize went to researchers who found an unexpected use for mosquito proboscises.
The team developed what it called “necroprinting,” using mosquito mouthparts as extremely fine nozzles for 3D printing.
According to Nature and Ars Technica, the approach achieved printing resolutions of roughly 18 to 22 microns, potentially demonstrating how biological structures could inspire inexpensive precision-manufacturing technologies.
The concept may sound bizarre, but the underlying principle is serious: biological structures can possess highly specialized properties that engineers may be able to adapt for technological applications.
A scientific look at blowing your nose
The Medicine Ig Nobel went to the late Tokuji Unno for a study titled How to Blow the Nose — An Aerodynamic Study of the Nose Blowing.
The research examined the mechanics of nose-blowing and the movement of air and mucus through the nasal passages.
It was originally published decades ago, but its unusual subject matter earned it a place among this year’s winners.
Other winners were just as unconventional
The remaining awards included research examining whether people from higher social classes are more likely to engage in certain unethical behaviors, how people perceive the smell of babies versus teenagers, why some people value friends who are hostile toward their enemies, and what causes venomous snakes to bite.
The Biology prize involved experiments examining how different parts of venomous snakes’ bodies respond when stepped on, while the Peace prize explored people’s preferences for friends who are unpleasant toward people they dislike.
Why the Ig Nobels matter
Despite the comedy surrounding the ceremony, the Ig Nobel Prizes aren’t simply a collection of joke experiments.
Many of the winning studies address legitimate scientific questions that might otherwise struggle to attract public attention.
Soil health, fluid dynamics, evolutionary biology, biomechanics and precision manufacturing are all serious fields. The awards simply approach them through questions that are unusual enough to capture people’s curiosity.
That is the central idea behind the Ig Nobels: research doesn’t have to look conventional to be scientifically valuable.
The ceremony itself embraces that philosophy, featuring paper airplanes, unusual demonstrations, miniature performances and the famously brief “24/7” lectures, in which researchers explain their work in extremely limited time.
Why did the ceremony leave the U.S.?
The move to Zurich was another major development this year.
The Ig Nobel ceremony had been held in the United States for 35 years, but organizers moved it to Europe amid concerns about international researchers and visitors traveling to the U.S.
Ig Nobel founder Marc Abrahams told the Associated Press that organizers did not believe they could responsibly ask international winners and journalists to travel to the U.S. under the circumstances.
The organizers have indicated that future ceremonies will continue in Europe, with Antwerp, Belgium, scheduled to host the 2027 event.
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