Stunning Scientific Breakthroughs That Could Change Your Life. Or Not.

I never miss the Ig Nobel Awards ceremonies. Well, okay, I never miss reading about them. Getting to the Ig Nobels (which are held at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts) would require a passport. My passport expired years ago, and border guards get surly if you offer them cookies instead of proper documentation.

This year’s Ig Nobel ceremony was held on September 12 (a big shout-out to Improbable Research for making these events so wildly successful—and to the actual Nobel Laureates who award the prizes every year). 

The Ig Nobel organizers culled through over 9,000 nominations, and here are this year’s 10 worthy winners:

*Karen Pryor and Theresa McKeon won the Ig Nobel Medical Education Prize for proving that a popular animal-training technique—called “clicker training”—is also an extremely effective way to train orthopedic surgeons. 

*A whole slew of enthusiastic biologists—led by Ling-Jun Kong of Singapore—won the Ig Nobel Biology Prize for discovering that dead magnetized cockroaches behave differently than live magnetized cockroaches.

*In somewhat disturbing news, two French researchers (Roger Mieusset and Bourras Bengoudifa) won the Ig Nobel Anatomy Prize for discovering that the right and left testicles of naked postmen are not identical in temperature. 

*The Ig Nobel Medicine Prize was snagged by Silvano Gallus, a researcher who published three studies showing that pizza may protect against cancer and heart disease—as long as that pizza is made and eaten in Italy. I’m not saying he’s biased, but it’s worth noting that Gallus is Italian. 

*A Japanese scientist, Shigeru Watanabe, won the Ig Nobel Chemistry Prize for measuring the total daily output of saliva of 5-year-old children. 

*Hate changing diapers? Iman Farahbakhsh has invented—and patented—a diaper-changing machine that actually works for human infants. He won the Ig Nobel Engineering Prize for this achievement. 

*A father and son team—Andreas and Timothy Voss—won the Ig Nobel Economics Prize for proving that the most worrisome form of currency (if you have an aversion to diarrhea) is the Romanian Leu, which is manufactured from materials that somehow allow the growth and spread of drug-resistant Staphylococcus, E. coli and Enterocci bacteria.

*Cowhage is a rather obnoxious plant that causes intense itching if you touch its spiky little pods. Incredibly, a team of seven researchers won the Ig Nobel Peace Prize for rubbing volunteers with this vile plant and then asking them to describe how pleasurable it felt to scratch their own itches. 

*A German psychologist (Fritz Strack) won the Ig Nobel Psychology Prize for, well, arguing with himself. In his first study, he reported that people feel happier when they fake-smile. In his second study, he stated that he’d been wrong and they don’t.

*Wombats are the only mammals that produce cube-shaped poop, and a brave researcher (Patricia Yang) recently peeked up wombat bums in order to determine how this rare, square poop is formed. For her efforts, Yang was awarded the Ig Nobel Physics Prize.

Note: This isn’t Yang’s first brush with fame. She also won the 2015 Ig Nobel Physics Prize for proving that most mammals empty their bladders in 21 seconds (plus or minus 13 seconds).

The 30th annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony is scheduled for September, 2020. The tickets—all 1,100 of them—will go on sale in July, and they’re expected to sell out fast. If you have a scientific mind—and possibly a passport—this is a can’t-miss event.