Here Are Your 2018 Ig Nobel Prize Winners

Ars Technica: Here are your 2018 Ig Nobel Prize winners

The 2018 awards honor research on cursing while driving and cannibalistic calories.

Ever wondered why so many people don't read instruction manuals, or how many calories are in the human body? Or whether stabbing a voodoo doll representing your horrible boss with pins could help reduce workplace tension? The winners of this year's Ig Nobel Prizes have got you covered. These and other unusual research topics were honored tonight in a ceremony at Harvard University's Sanders Theater.

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WNU Editor: Never a dull moment at this event.

This Year's Ig Nobel Prize: Fruit Bat Fellatio, Whale Snot, And More Weird Science

From Popular Science:

The Ig Nobel Prize studies are not a joke, but that's not to say you won't laugh.

If the MacArthur "Genius" Grants announced earlier this week were too staid for you, the Ig Nobel Prize (now in its 20th year--here's last year's coverage) might be the scientific awards presentation for you. The Ig Nobels aren't a joke; every winning study has a legitimate scientific purpose and execution, making real discoveries and solving real problems. But they're also all chosen for their ability to "make you laugh and then make you think." This year's winners include remote-controlled whale snot retrieval, the benefits of roller coaster riding on asthma sufferers, and our own personal favorite which you may remember: transit planning by slime mold

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Best Of The Ig Nobel Prizes 2010

From New Scientist:

Are the Ig Nobels losing their edge? The venue for this year's ceremony honouring science that "makes you laugh, then makes you think" was Harvard's Sanders Theater – a splendidly sober Victorian building that's housed many dignified graduations and historic lectures. The capacity audience was permitted to throw paper airplanes only during two designated intervals, rather than whenever the fancy took them. And the first cash prizes in the awards' 20-year history raised the ugly suspicion that the Ig Nobels will become yet another awards ceremony that's all about money.

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Why Tequila Is A Girl's Best Friend

Miss Sweetie Poo with Javier Morales (right) and Miguel Apatiga at the 2009 Ig Nobel prize ceremony. Photograph: Eric Workman

From The Guardian:

The discovery that he could make diamonds from Mexico's favourite tipple changed this physicist's life.

Ever since our research was first published, people who hear about it for the first time just can't help laughing. Well, the fact is that most sane people would not dream of trying to turn cheap tequila into diamonds. In fact, at most of the scientific conferences I have attended, the first response to the reading of any paper on the topic is laughter, and a lot of it. But then the audience quietens down. There is no doubt that this research makes people laugh … and then think.

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Why Don’t Pregnant Women Tip Over? Ask An Ig Noble Winner.

Photo: Fumiaki Taguchi, professor emeritus at the graduate school of medical sciences in Kitasato University, makes a speech during the Ig Noble awards ceremony at Harvard University's historic Sanders Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on Oct. 1. Taguchi is among this year's winners of the Ig Nobel Prize for developing a method to cut kitchen refuse using bacteria derived from giant panda feces.

From The Christian Science Monitor:

At Harvard University, a select group of researchers receive their Ig Noble awards.

It’s October again, which means it’s time for the Ig Nobles – a set of prizes awarded to discoveries “that cannot, or should not, be reproduced.” The Ig Nobels were dished out last night at Sanders Theater, on the campus of Harvard University, and the awards, which cover categories ranging from physics to physiology, appear to have gone to the appropriate “innovators.”

Here’s the full list of winners, courtesy of the Associated Press:

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Best Of The Ig Nobel Prizes 2009

Surely there is more than one use for a bra?
(Image: Jessica Peterson/Getty)

From New Scientist:

Why don't pregnant women topple over? Do cows notice kindness? Does cracking your knuckles bring on arthritis? And is there more than one use for a bra? These questions and more inspired the research rewarded at the Ig Nobels, which were handed out on Thursday at Harvard University in a ceremony organised by the Annals of Improbable Research.

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Top 10 Ig Nobels: The Best of Science's Strangest Prize

From Popular Mechanics:

A large portion of scientific research remains forever off the public radar. A select few studies deliver results that reverberate in the scientific community and make their way to textbooks. Then there are those research efforts that, as one group puts it, represent "achievements that cannot or should not be reproduced." Every year the Annals of Improbable Research highlights this last group with the Ig Nobel, an award for the top engineering solutions, science products and peer-reviewed papers that, according to the editors, "make you laugh, then make you think." We looked back at 18 years of the prizes to bring you our 10 favorite Ig Nobels of all time.

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Smart Slime, Ovulating Strippers Among 2008 Ig Nobels

Opera singers perform at Thursday's Ig Nobel Prize awards, given for laughable (but scientifically sound) research. This year's event honored scientists who had studied strippers and slime, among other topics. (Photograph by Josh Reynolds/AP -- National Geographic)

From The National Geographic:

Some fake drugs are better than others, armadillos are assaulting our history, and slime mold is smarter than we think—these and other offbeat scientific triumphs were honored Thursday night at the 2008 Ig Nobel Prize ceremony.

The prizes celebrate "achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think."

More than 1,200 people attended a raucous affair at Harvard University, dubbed the "18th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony" in honor of this year's theme—redundancy.

William Lipscomb, who had won the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1976, dispensed prizes to the ten honorees. He himself was the prize in the Win a Date With a Nobel Laureate contest.

The gala is thrown every year by the science/humor journal Annals of Improbable Research (AIR).

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