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IG Nobel Prize Winners 2025

163 points| JeremyTheo | 5 months ago |improbable.com

47 comments

order

the_af|5 months ago

Some are funny, but not ridiculous.

For example,

> for their experiments to learn whether cows painted with zebra-like striping can avoid being bitten by flies.

This isn't absurd. It is currently thought that the stripes are NOT for camouflage, since simulated predator vision (such as lions) cannot resolve them. It is believed that one reason for the stripes could be to act as a deterrent against flies (how exactly, not sure).

In this sense, testing whether it works on cows isn't absurd!

more_corn|5 months ago

The great thing about this award is that it’s often real and beneficial science.

The study debunking blue zones won, but it was some of the best science I’ve ever seen. (Removing false knowledge is more important than adding new knowledge)

Turns out the Mediterranean diet doesn’t help you live to a hundred, there was just a lot of pension fraud in Italy.

Turns out best predictor of Japanese centenarians is if the local records hall was destroyed in World War Two (because the records were replaced by non native speaking records clerks)

Delk|5 months ago

Of course Ig Nobel prizes aren't necessarily intended only for absurd or ridiculous research. Their stated purpose is to honour achievements that "make people laugh, then think".

Sometimes that means the achievement (or "achievement") is something genuinely absurd. Other times it's not.

shireboy|5 months ago

Ig Nobel has been around a while. I wonder if there is an opportunity for them to add a feature whereby they (and donors) could _sponsor_ research in areas that would be considered candidates. Research that would otherwise be too trivial or arcane to be funded.

cs702|5 months ago

The winner for Psychology made me think, for a moment, about HN: "Telling people they are intelligent correlates with the feeling of narcissistic uniqueness: The influence of IQ feedback on temporary state narcissism," by Marcin Zajenkowski and Gilles E. Gignac. Link to paper: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016028962... . The entire list is hilarious, and also makes you think. Go read the whole thing!

Esophagus4|5 months ago

Oh boy… this is going to be a tough pill for me to swallow…

amelius|5 months ago

> Go read the whole thing!

No, if you're looking for a cure go read something about, say, quantum physics instead.

timthorn|5 months ago

If you're in the London area at the end of October, the Royal Institution is hosting a special event where "Ig Nobel Prize winners will gather on stage to ask each other questions about their work"

https://www.rigb.org/whats-on/ig-nobels-face-face

huflungdung|5 months ago

> bonjour ca va?

> > me not speaking a word of french

> > consumes alcohol

> > ca va bien merci et tu?

usrnm|5 months ago

> Fritz Renner, Inge Kersbergen, Matt Field, and Jessica Werthmann, for showing that drinking alcohol sometimes improves a person’s ability to speak in a foreign language.

I thought it was common knowledge?

Delk|5 months ago

I thought it was common knowledge that it makes you feel like you could speak a foreign language better. I don't think it's that obvious that the improvement would be objective or that others around you would feel the same way about you.

(And of course there's a Ballmer peak in any case.)

magneticnorth|5 months ago

Lots of science is "common knowledge"! This is one of those things that I'm glad to see confirmed in a study.

RickJWagner|5 months ago

Of course! It also makes you wittier, taller, and better looking. Everybody knows that.

kijin|5 months ago

But now you can put it on wikipedia and cite a proper double-blinded study!

pointlessone|5 months ago

Does this count as evidence for Ballmer Peak?

qwertytyyuu|5 months ago

test whether eating Teflon is a good way to increase food volume and hence satiety without increasing calorie content. …

zdragnar|5 months ago

Oh wow, I thought you were proposing a silly experiment, but that was the chemistry winner...

moi2388|5 months ago

Yeah, I don’t understand how this study was deemed ethical, let alone win.

belter|5 months ago

They should add Avi Loeb PhD powered obsession with the exploding traffic of alien probes crossing our Solar System....

Maybe the Galactic Council just opened a new discount shuttle route over Class 4 Civilizations areas like us: (Non-Fusion, Non-Warp and apparently Non-Skeptical...)

eulgro|5 months ago

I wonder if the guy ingesting Teflon to replace food heard about PFAS...?

owisd|5 months ago

Teflon itself is mostly harmless, it’s the byproducts from manufacturing people are more concerned with (PFOA, etc)

aeve890|5 months ago

Right? That was the most weird and dystopic shit in the list. They even filed have a patent!