From the science of kissing to splash-free urinals: The 2026 Ig Nobel Prizes

As always, the awards went to research that makes us laugh and think

The Ig Nobel Prizes are a particular favourite of mine. Ig Nobel is a pun on the word ‘ignoble’ and they are announced to coincide with the real and serious Nobel Prizes.

Celebrating achievements that make people laugh before prompting them to think, the annual awards ceremony is always sure to be an entertaining event. It includes miniature operas and 24/7 lectures, in which scientists must explain their research twice: First in 24 seconds and then in just seven words. Winners must also keep their acceptance speeches brief, with a strict 60-second time limit.

The awards ceremony recently took place in September in Zurich, Switzerland. It marks the first time in their 35-year history the Ig Nobel Prizes have been held outside of the US.

According to the organisers, a primary reason for this is the increasingly hostile climate in the US towards science and foreigners.

“Before last year, almost every winner would find a way to travel to the ceremony from around the world,” says Marc Abrahams, who founded the Ig Nobels in 1991. “Last year, of the 10 winners, we ended up with only six of them at the ceremony.”

Four winners did not want to travel to the US, citing safety concerns related to unpredictable immigration and visa protocols introduced by the Trump administration.

Dr Paul Piff (PhD), a social psychologist at the University of California, was the recipient of the prize in the economics category. Along with his colleagues, he conducted a series of experiments to investigate whether wealthy people are more likely to behave badly. The findings suggest that those in higher social classes are indeed more prone to such behaviour, including showing little consideration for other road users, lying in the workplace, and taking treats intended for children.

The researchers discovered that drivers from wealthier backgrounds were more likely to cut off other vehicles at junctions and disregard pedestrians at crossings. They also found that wealthier individuals appeared more inclined to lie at work.

In one experiment, volunteers were left alone with a jar of sweets supposedly intended for children. When the researchers returned, those from higher social classes had taken almost twice as many sweets as their less wealthy counterparts. “The general pattern seems to be that with wealth and rising power, you become less engaged with the needs of others and less burdened by the needs of social relationships,” Dr Piff said. “Taking sweets from children might be the least of our worries, but it’s emblematic of the tendency to prioritise one’s own needs over those of others.”

The biomechanics prize was awarded to a team of researchers from the University of Oxford who studied the evolution of kissing. Dr Matilda Brindle (PhD), an evolutionary biologist, and her colleagues set out to establish a scientific definition of the act itself.

They settled on “non-agonistic interactions involving directed, intraspecific oral-oral contact with some movement of the lips/mouthparts, and no food transfer”. Hardly the most romantic way to think about a pleasurable activity, but I suppose scientific needs must.

This definition enabled the researchers to explore the evolutionary history of kissing in humans and other species. “To understand how a trait has evolved, you can’t just look at it in one species,” said Dr Brindle.

Dr Brindle and her colleagues found that kissing is common among most living great apes and may also have occurred among Neanderthals. They suggest that early humans and Neanderthals may even have kissed each other.

The fact that kissing is not exclusive to modern humans suggests that it may serve an important evolutionary purpose. According to the Oxford researchers, this could include helping individuals choose a mate or facilitating the exchange of beneficial oral microbes.

Meanwhile, a group of students from the University of Waterloo in Canada received the physics prize for designing a urinal that minimises splashing, regardless of the user’s aim. Their research drew inspiration from dogs, who appear to have mastered the ideal angle for urinating while lifting their legs. Using computer modelling, the team identified 30 degrees as the optimal angle for the human urine stream. They then designed a urinal capable of maintaining this angle for men of varying heights.

And the Ig Nobel for medicine went to Japanese researchers for an old study titled ‘How to blow the nose – An aerodynamic study of nose blowing’. Looking to educate people in the art of nose blowing, they measured the speed and force of nose blowing using different methods. The study found that a “big and long nose blow” was the best for avoiding pain and infections.

Who would have thought? A timely and useful Ig Nobel as we face into the winter virus season.