Meet the Ig Nobel Prize Winners

▲ Meet the Ig Nobel Prize Winners(arstechnica.com)

86 points by mkl 6 hours ago | 23 comments

▲ D-Coder a few seconds ago | parent | next [-]

This article had me at pneumotachometers (emphasis mine):

> Unno used a pair of pneumotachometers (instruments to measure volume flow of respired gases) in parallel for his experiments to determine the velocity, volume, and time scale of blowing through each side of the nose over 60 trials.

▲ embedding-shape 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Some great winners this time, personal favorite:

> IG NOBEL ECONOMICS PRIZE 2026 [USA, MEXICO, CANADA] Paul Piff, Daniel Stancato, Stéphane Côté, Rodolfo Mendoza-Denton, and Dacher Keltner, for amassing evidence that upper class people are more likely to snatch from a children’s supply of candy, and engage in other kinds of unethical behavior. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 109, no. 11, 2012, pp. 4086-4091. <doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1118373109>

▲ dinfinity 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

It's not really a surprise that less ethical people on average are richer than ethical people. Sad, but logical: they more often choose selfishly and thus amass more money.

This is the correct direction of causation in this case, imho.

▲ underlipton 13 minutes ago | parent [-]

Is it? Wealth is used as a proxy for virtue, and has been for a long time. "Nobility" has two meanings, after all. Why the same word, if not the same root sentiment? Unless one definition was originally meant sarcastically.

	▲	zorked a few seconds ago \| parent [-]
		Is it? `Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven.` This guy is pretty influential in at least half the globe.

▲ VyseofArcadia 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This one feels like it deserves more than just an Ig Nobel.

	▲	Tomte 4 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49567241
	▲	zdragnar 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Far more or far less? The study is so profoundly flawed that it should be in a hall of shame, along with whatever journal published it.

▲ howunfortunate 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I knew immediately this was BS, sure enough, someone already beat me to it with the comment explaining why.

Man, I'm so ashamed of my field (experimental psychology). Maybe ~60% of publications are literally worse than useless (that is, they are outright intentional lies).

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bethekidyouwant 3 hours ago | parent [-]

The damage done will take decades to fix if it can be fixed. No idea why anyone would even bother engaging with (experimental psychology)

	▲	howunfortunate 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		If you have a Ph.D. you can somewhat sort the wheat from the chaff. But it's 100% not worth it for the layman. Better to just ignore it. That's why, even though it's incredibly sad to see, I can hardly begrudge the current administration their "defund anything and everything using keyword search". Since they can't trust the experts, that's really about the best that can be done from their perspective.

▲ varjag 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

A paper am a coauthor of uses an Ig Nobel winning article as a reference. Because in fact it was a serious piece of research with practical implications.

▲ magneticnorth an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It wasn't clear to me in the article, but the best splash-free urinal ("nautilus"), is the tall skinny one second-from-right in the photo.

In addition to having the correct angle to minimize splash, it also fits a wide range of heights and is easier to clean than some of the other designs they tried.

▲ mkl 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The official list is at https://improbable.com/ig/winners/?amp=1#ig2026 but Ars Technica has a lot more detail.

	▲	cfn 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I like that so many of the winners attended the ceremony, one should never take yourself too seriously.

▲ sandworm101 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Are they still using the little girl?

THAT invention deserves its own ignoble category for contribution to public discord.

This: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAnVNXaa5oA

▲ peter_d_sherman 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

>"But this year’s winning team didn’t go the robot route; instead, they adapted a female mosquito proboscis to work as a nozzle in a super-precise 3D printer. [...] The team called the device a “3D necroprinter.” The necroprinter achieved a resolution ranging from 18 to 22 microns, which was two times smaller than the printers using the smallest commercially available metal dispensing tips."

Strangely, this idea has at least a small amount of merit... The idea that an organic, carbon-based structure (in the above case, a mosquito proboscis -- but it could have been a separate, non-living individually 3D printed from organic materials, organic part) would make a good 3D print head with exceedingly fine resolution, is not a terrible idea!

(Note that for the record, I do not endorse killing mosquitos, or any other insect to make 3D print heads, or really, anything else!)

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OneDeuxTriSeiGo an hour ago | parent [-]

FWIW IgNoble award winners aren't inherently bad projects. Some are bad research but the winners tend to be projects that just sound weird or stupid but have legitimately research value.

	▲	adw an hour ago \| parent [-]
		The famous levitating frog guy has the double; one Nobel, one IgNobel.

▲ jmclnx 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

>The 36th ceremony took place on September 3rd in the Congress Center of Zurich, Switzerland, and was hosted by the University of Zurich and ETH Domain, with Abrahams saying that the United States had become "unsafe" for guests.

Another loss for the US thanks to Trump.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ig_Nobel_Prize

Also, every political speech needs a "Miss Sweetie Poo".

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abirch 4 hours ago | parent [-]

The damage done will take decades to fix if it can be fixed. No idea why any other NATO nation would buy any weapons from the USA.

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Loughla 4 hours ago | parent [-]

They buy our weapons because we make a shit ton of them. We're not great at a lot of things, but manufacturing weapons for mass slaughter is up towards the top of our specialties.

	▲	3eb7988a1663 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		This is likely to change. The US has said that previously agreed arms shipments may be now delayed, because the US is cutting in line to restock their own supplies first.