Cockroach Milk, How to Blow Your Nose, and Mosquito Printers: The Ig Nobels of 2026
The 2026 Ig Nobel Prizes honored quirky scientific research, including studies on the definition of kissing, the ethics of the wealthy, and the nutritional value of cockroach milk. These awards celebrate unusual achievements that make people laugh and then think.
Why it matters
It highlights the lighter, often overlooked side of scientific inquiry and encourages public engagement with academic research.
This year the ceremony was held in Zurich, Switzerland, and recognized 10 research projects ranging from an attempt to scientifically define what a kiss is to an experiment that used buried underwear to assess soil health.
Prize in Biomechanics: A Scientific Definition For Kissing
What exactly is a kiss? A group of researchers decided to establish a scientific definition that would apply to all animals, not just humans. They came up with the categorization that a kiss is “a non-agonistic interaction involving directed intraspecific oral-oral contact, with some movement of the lips or oral structures and without the transfer of food.” By this definition, other great ape species are also kissers, so are domestic dogs and cats as well as pigeons, penguins, squirrels, black bears, and tortoises—though not all of these kisses have the same meaning.
Prize in Economics: Having More Money Might Make You a Bad Person
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