The 2026 Ig Nobel Prizes have turned some of science’s strangest questions into headline-making research. This year’s winners investigated cockroach milk, tried to stop urinal splashback, explored why babies smell better to their parents than teenagers, and buried 1,000 pairs of underwear across more than 25 countries.
Presented on September 3 at the 36th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony in Zurich, Switzerland, the awards marked a major milestone: after 35 years of ceremonies in the United States, the event moved to Europe for the first time. Ten prizes were awarded across different areas of science, continuing the Ig Nobel tradition of celebrating achievements that first make people laugh and then make them think.
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What are the 2026 Ig Nobel Prizes and why are these unusual studies winning?
Organized by the Annals of Improbable Research, the Ig Nobel Prizes are deliberately different from conventional scientific awards. They spotlight research that sounds bizarre, hilarious or oddly specific at first — but often reveals a genuinely serious scientific question underneath.
That contrast is exactly what makes the 2026 winners so memorable.
One team wanted to understand what technically qualifies as a kiss. Another investigated whether wealth is associated with unethical behaviour. Scientists examined energy-packed crystals produced by cockroaches, while another researcher studied the aerodynamics of blowing your nose.
Then things get even stranger.
Researchers investigated snake defensive behaviour, designed a splash-free urinal, turned dead mosquitoes into microscopic 3D-printing nozzles, asked parents to rate the smell of children and teenagers, studied why people may want their friends to be vicious toward rivals, and used thousands of pairs of underwear as a way to investigate soil health.
Here’s how the unusual lineup unfolded.
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2026 Ig Nobel Biomechanics Prize: What actually counts as a kiss?
The Biomechanics Ig Nobel Prize went to Matilda Brindle, Catherine Talbot and Stuart West for developing a more precise scientific definition of kissing.
Their study, “A Comparative Approach to Kissing,” defined a kiss as a “non-agonistic interaction involving directed, intraspecific, oral-oral contact with some movement of the lips/mouthparts and no food transfer.”
“non-agonistic interaction involving directed, intraspecific, oral-oral contact with some movement of the lips/mouthparts and no food transfer.”
It sounds like an oddly serious way to define something most people think they already understand. But the researchers used the framework to investigate kissing and similar mouth-to-mouth behaviours across animals, including humans, ants, birds and polar bears.
And the evolutionary implications are where the story becomes much more interesting.
The researchers’ evolutionary analysis found that kissing likely existed in the ancestor of the large apes between approximately 21.5 million and 16.9 million years ago.
That means the behaviour may also have existed among ancient hominins and Neanderthals.
Matilda Brindle said the work was intended to encourage people to think differently about animal behaviour and human evolution. The research team has argued that apparently unusual behaviours can provide useful clues about reproductive strategies, social relationships and the evolutionary history of humans.
So, what looks like a study about kissing is actually asking a much bigger question: how far back does this familiar human behaviour really go?
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2026 Ig Nobel Economics Prize: Does wealth really change how people behave?
The Economics Ig Nobel Prize recognized Paul Piff, Daniel Stancato, Stéphane Côté, Rodolfo Mendoza-Denton and Dacher Keltner for research examining whether social class is associated with unethical behaviour.
Their study, “Higher Social Class Predicts Increased Unethical Behavior,” investigated several forms of behaviour and reported evidence that people from higher social-class backgrounds were more likely to engage in certain unethical actions.
One of the better-known experiments involved participants taking candy that had been designated for children.
The researchers also examined behaviours such as cutting off other drivers and other forms of self-serving conduct.
There is an important timeline detail here: although the study dates back to 2012, its findings remain the basis of the 2026 Ig Nobel Economics award.
In other words, this isn’t newly published research from 2026. Instead, the Ig Nobels are revisiting a study whose findings have remained notable enough to receive this year’s unusual scientific honour.
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2026 Ig Nobel Chemistry Prize: Why cockroach milk is getting so much attention
Few phrases sound more bizarre than “cockroach milk.”
Yet the Chemistry Ig Nobel Prize recognized serious research into the milk-like substance produced by the Pacific beetle cockroach, Diploptera punctata.
The award went to Sanchari Banerjee, Nathan Coussens, François-Xavier Gallat, Nitish Sathyanarayanan, Jandhyam Srikanth, Koichiro Yagi, James Gray, Stephen Tobe, Barbara Stay, Leonard Chavas and Subramanian Ramaswamy.
Their work investigated the structure of milk proteins produced by the viviparous cockroach.
And this is where the science becomes surprisingly impressive.
The researchers found that the cockroach’s milk proteins form crystals inside developing embryos. A single crystal was estimated to contain more than three times the energy of an equivalent mass of dairy milk.
That statistic naturally raises the obvious question: are humans about to start drinking cockroach milk?
No.
The research does not mean cockroach milk is about to replace cow’s milk or become a conventional beverage.
The significance is primarily biological and biochemical.
Diploptera punctata is unusual among cockroaches because it gives birth to live young and nourishes developing offspring with a milk-like secretion. Researchers used advanced structural biology techniques to examine the protein crystals at atomic resolution.
So the real story isn’t a strange new breakfast drink.
It’s an investigation into an unusual natural system for storing and delivering nutrients.
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2026 Ig Nobel Medicine Prize: The science behind blowing your nose
The Medicine Ig Nobel Prize went posthumously to Japanese physician Tokuji Unno for his study “How to Blow the Nose — An Aerodynamic Study of the Nose Blowing.”
The research was originally published in Japanese in 1977 and examined the aerodynamics involved in blowing one’s nose.
Unno studied the mechanics of the practice and attempted to quantify aspects of nose-blowing in order to provide useful guidance.
The award was accepted on Unno’s behalf by Dr. Miki Takahara, a colleague of the late physician.
At first glance, nose-blowing might seem too ordinary to deserve scientific attention.
But that is precisely the recurring Ig Nobel idea: everyday actions that seem too mundane to study can still contain interesting scientific problems once researchers examine how they actually work.
2026 Ig Nobel Biology Prize has a major caveat: The snakebite study was retracted
The Biology Ig Nobel Prize was officially listed for João Miguel Alves-Nunes, Adriano Fellone, Selma Maria Almeida-Santos, Carlos Roberto de Medeiros, Ivan Sazima and Otavio Augusto Vuolo Marques.
Their study examined defensive behaviour in the Brazilian pit viper Bothrops jararaca.
Researchers attempted to determine what conditions might influence whether a venomous snake bites. The experiments involved controlled stimuli, including gently stepping on different parts of snakes under different temperatures and at different times of day.
But there is a critical scientific and ethical caveat that cannot be separated from the award.
The underlying 2024 paper, “Study of Defensive Behavior of a Venomous Snake as a New Approach to Understand Snakebite,” was retracted by Scientific Reports in February 2025.
The journal said concerns had been raised about the animal work. The Animal Ethics Committee of the Butantan Institute confirmed that the approval granted to the researchers did not cover newborn snakes or the “soft stepping” method used in the research.
The authors disagreed with the retraction.
That distinction matters.
The 2026 Ig Nobel organizers continue to list the study among the year’s winners, but the underlying research carries a formal retraction and associated animal-ethics concerns.
Therefore, the Biology award should not be presented as recognition of a currently valid, unretracted scientific paper.
This is one of the most important details surrounding the 2026 Ig Nobel lineup because the humorous nature of the awards does not erase the scientific status of the research involved.
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2026 Ig Nobel Physics Prize: Scientists finally take on urinal splashback
Now for a problem that anyone who has used a public restroom can probably appreciate.
The Physics Ig Nobel Prize went to Randy Hurd, Zhao Pan, Tadd Truscott and Kaveeshan Thurairajah for their theoretical and experimental attempts to design a splash-free urinal.
Yes, splash-free.
The research examined the physics behind urine hitting a urinal surface and producing droplets that can bounce back toward the user or surrounding floor.
The researchers discovered that splashback can be substantially reduced when the incoming stream strikes a surface at an angle below a critical value of roughly 30 degrees.
They then used mathematical modelling and experimental testing to develop alternative urinal shapes designed to keep the stream within that low-splash range.
And the result was surprisingly dramatic.
According to the underlying research, the experimental designs reduced splashback to approximately 1.4% of that produced by a common contemporary commercial urinal under the tested conditions.
What sounds like a joke is therefore a legitimate fluid-dynamics and sanitation problem.
Reducing splashback could mean cleaner public restrooms, less cleaning work and potentially lower resource consumption.
Suddenly, bathroom physics doesn’t sound quite so ridiculous.
2026 Ig Nobel Technology Prize: Dead mosquitoes become microscopic 3D-printing nozzles
The Technology Ig Nobel Prize went to Justin Puma, Zhen Yang, Evan Johnston, Zixin Zhang, Xiaoyi Lan, Lingzhi Zhang, Hongyu Hou, Zixin He, Ali Afify, Megan Creighton, Jianyu Li and Changhong Cao.
Their research introduced “3D necroprinting,” a technique that repurposes female mosquito proboscises as high-resolution nozzles for 3D printing.
The mosquito proboscis naturally has an extremely fine structure, allowing it to function as a tiny dispensing tip.
The researchers reported printing line widths as small as 20 micrometers, outperforming commercially available 36-gauge dispensing tips by roughly 100% in their comparison.
The team demonstrated the technique by printing structures including:
- A honeycomb
- A maple leaf
- Bioscaffolds capable of encapsulating cancer cells
- Bioscaffolds capable of encapsulating red blood cells
The bizarre-sounding technology is actually an example of biohybrid engineering.
The basic idea is fascinating: instead of manufacturing every component from scratch, researchers can incorporate biological materials when their natural physical properties provide useful advantages.
In this case, a mosquito’s anatomy becomes a microscopic engineering tool.
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2026 Ig Nobel Olfaction Prize: Why do babies smell better than teenagers?
Parents may have already suspected the answer.
The Olfaction Ig Nobel Prize recognized Ilona Croy, Tomasz Frackowiak, Thomas Hummel and Agnieszka Sorokowska for research showing that babies tend to smell wonderful to their parents, while teenagers generally receive a much less enthusiastic response.
The study was titled “Babies Smell Wonderful to Their Parents, Teenagers Do Not: An Exploratory Questionnaire Study on Children’s Age and Personal Odor Ratings in a Polish Sample.”
Researchers surveyed 235 parents, who assessed the personal odour of 367 children.
The result was straightforward: perceived odour pleasantness declined as the children’s age increased.
Interestingly, neither the sex of the parent nor the sex of the child significantly affected the relationship.
The researchers suggested that the pleasantness of young children’s body odour could play a role in parent-child bonding and caretaking, with that function becoming less important after puberty.
So, according to this research, the transition from adorable baby smell to teenage body odour may involve more than just a parent’s changing tolerance.
It may also have a biological and social context.
2026 Ig Nobel Peace Prize: Why do people sometimes want vicious friends?
Friendship usually sounds like kindness, loyalty and trust.
But the Peace Ig Nobel Prize-winning research found that people’s preferences can become considerably more complicated when rivals enter the picture.
The award went to Jaimie Arona Krems, Rebecka Hahnel-Peeters, Laureon Merrie, Keelah Williams and Daniel Sznycer.
Their study, “Sometimes We Want Vicious Friends: People Have Nuanced Preferences for How They Want Their Friends to Behave Toward Them Versus Others,” explored whether people actually want their friends to behave identically toward everyone.
Across six studies involving 1,183 participants, including participants from the United States and India, researchers found that people generally preferred friends who were kind and trustworthy toward them.
But there was a twist.
Those preferences could change depending on who the friend was interacting with.
Participants could sometimes prefer friends to behave more negatively toward rivals or people they disliked.
In simpler terms, someone could value a friend’s kindness toward themselves while simultaneously appreciating that friend’s willingness to be hostile toward an enemy.
The researchers argued that friendships exist within wider social networks. Because of that, a friend’s behaviour toward third parties can affect the interests and welfare of the friendship itself.
So the question isn’t simply whether your friend is nice.
It can also be who your friend is nice to — and who they aren’t.
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2026 Ig Nobel Soil Science Prize: Why did scientists bury 1,000 pairs of underwear?
This may be the most visually bizarre experiment of the entire lineup.
The Soil Science Ig Nobel Prize went to Franz Bender, Marcel van der Heijden, Atlant Bieri and Pia Viviani for burying 1,000 identical pairs of cotton underwear in more than 25 countries and digging them up after two months.
But there was a serious scientific purpose behind the underwear.
The experiment was designed as a simple way of assessing biological activity in soil.
Cotton fabric breaks down when exposed to microorganisms and other biological processes. By comparing how much of the underwear had decomposed, researchers and participating citizen scientists could obtain a rough indication of biological activity in different soils.
The project was connected to the broader idea of using easily understood indicators to help people investigate soil health.
Instead of relying exclusively on complicated laboratory measurements, researchers used a familiar object whose deterioration could be observed directly.
The study, “Assessing Soil Health with Underpants,” was published in Science in 2025.
And yes, somewhere out there, 1,000 pairs of underwear became scientific instruments.
The 2026 Ig Nobel ceremony in Zurich was just as bizarre as the research
The awards were presented at Kongresshaus Zürich on September 3, marking the first Ig Nobel ceremony held in Europe after 35 years in the United States.
The event continued the organisation’s long-running tradition of mixing serious scientific recognition with deliberately absurd theatrical elements.
The organisers describe the Ig Nobels as prizes for achievements that make people:
“LAUGH, then THINK.”
The 2026 ceremony delivered exactly that.
Paper airplanes were thrown during the event, musical performances were part of the spectacle, and people dressed as bananas added to the atmosphere.
Scientists also appeared in cockroach costumes, while life-size bananas were reportedly used to keep speeches within the ceremony’s famously strict limits.
The awards were presented with the involvement of genuine Nobel laureates, another long-running feature of the event.
And then there was the prize money.
The University of Zurich’s account of the ceremony noted that the prize money amounted to 10 trillion Zimbabwean dollars, worth approximately CHF 0.05.
That tiny real-world value is perfectly in keeping with an event that has never taken itself too seriously.
2026 Ig Nobel Prize winners at a glance
| Prize | Winner(s) / Researchers | What they studied |
| Biomechanics | Matilda Brindle, Catherine Talbot, Stuart West | A scientific definition and evolutionary history of kissing |
| Economics | Paul Piff, Daniel Stancato, Stéphane Côté, Rodolfo Mendoza-Denton, Dacher Keltner | Social class and unethical behaviour |
| Chemistry | Sanchari Banerjee, Nathan Coussens, François-Xavier Gallat, Nitish Sathyanarayanan, Jandhyam Srikanth, Koichiro Yagi, James Gray, Stephen Tobe, Barbara Stay, Leonard Chavas, Subramanian Ramaswamy | Protein crystals in cockroach milk |
| Medicine | Tokuji Unno | Aerodynamics of blowing the nose |
| Biology | João Miguel Alves-Nunes, Adriano Fellone, Selma Maria Almeida-Santos, Carlos Roberto de Medeiros, Ivan Sazima, Otavio Augusto Vuolo Marques | Defensive behaviour in Brazilian pit vipers |
| Physics | Randy Hurd, Zhao Pan, Tadd Truscott, Kaveeshan Thurairajah | Splash-free urinal design |
| Technology | Justin Puma, Zhen Yang, Evan Johnston, Zixin Zhang, Xiaoyi Lan, Lingzhi Zhang, Hongyu Hou, Zixin He, Ali Afify, Megan Creighton, Jianyu Li, Changhong Cao | Mosquito proboscises as 3D-printing nozzles |
| Olfaction | Ilona Croy, Tomasz Frackowiak, Thomas Hummel, Agnieszka Sorokowska | Children’s body odour and age |
| Peace | Jaimie Arona Krems, Rebecka Hahnel-Peeters, Laureon Merrie, Keelah Williams, Daniel Sznycer | Preferences for friends’ behaviour toward rivals |
| Soil Science | Franz Bender, Marcel van der Heijden, Atlant Bieri, Pia Viviani | Soil health using buried cotton underwear |
Why the strangest 2026 Ig Nobel research still matters
The real appeal of the 2026 Ig Nobel Prizes isn’t simply that the subjects are funny.
It’s that many of these studies become much more interesting once you look beyond their headlines.
Cockroach milk is really a sophisticated investigation into protein crystals and nutrient storage.
Splash-free urinals apply fluid dynamics to an everyday sanitation problem.
Mosquito anatomy becomes a potential engineering component through biohybrid technology.
Buried underwear becomes an accessible tool for investigating soil biology.
Even the kissing research turns a familiar human behaviour into a question about animal behaviour, reproduction, social relationships and human evolution.
The nose-blowing study similarly demonstrates how an everyday action can become a legitimate subject of scientific investigation.
And the teenage-smell study explores a surprisingly complex relationship between body odour, age, parenting and bonding.
The awards are therefore less about declaring that these are the most important scientific discoveries of the year and more about making people stop and look twice at research they might otherwise ignore.
The 2026 Ig Nobels prove that science doesn’t always begin with a serious-looking question
The 2026 Ig Nobel Prizes continue a formula that has made the awards so distinctive: take research that sounds ridiculous at first glance, look more closely, and there is often a serious scientific question underneath the joke.
This year’s winners range from cockroach milk and ancient kissing to teenage body odour, snakebite behaviour, microscopic 3D printing, public-restroom splashback and 1,000 buried pairs of underwear.
Some are genuinely ingenious. Some are deliberately funny. And one — the snakebite study — comes with an especially important warning because the underlying paper was formally retracted and involved unresolved disagreement surrounding animal ethics.
That mixture is precisely what makes the Ig Nobels different.
The awards aren’t asking audiences to laugh instead of thinking.
They’re asking audiences to laugh first — and then take a second look.
Disclaimer and Sources
This article is based on thorough research of the verified information and sources provided for the 2026 Ig Nobel Prizes, including the official Ig Nobel winners and ceremony information, the underlying scientific studies, PubMed records, Scientific Reports’ retraction notice, and the other primary and authoritative sources listed below.
The Ig Nobel Prizes are humorous awards intended to spotlight unusual research. Receiving an Ig Nobel does not mean that a study is equivalent to a Nobel Prize or necessarily represents a new scientific consensus. In the case of the 2026 Biology award, the underlying snakebite paper has been formally retracted and should be treated accordingly.
Sources
- Official 2026 Ig Nobel winners — Improbable Research — Complete official list of the 10 2026 winners and references to the underlying studies.
- Official 2026 Ig Nobel announcement — Improbable Research — Official announcement of the September 3 ceremony and winners.
- Official Ig Nobel ceremony details — Improbable Research — Zurich venue, timing and ceremony information.
- A Comparative Approach to Kissing — Evolution and Human Behavior — Underlying kissing research.
- Cockroach milk protein study — PMC — Primary research on the energy-dense protein crystals in Diploptera punctata.
- Splash-free Urinals — PNAS Nexus — Underlying physics and urinal-design research.
- 3D Necroprinting — PubMed — Primary research using mosquito proboscises as 3D-printing nozzles.
- Babies Smell Wonderful to Their Parents, Teenagers Do Not — Springer Nature — Underlying olfaction study.
- Assessing Soil Health with Underpants — PubMed — Underlying soil-science study.
- Retraction notice for the snakebite study — Scientific Reports — Official retraction and explanation of the animal-ethics concerns.
- Original snakebite paper, now marked retracted — Scientific Reports — Original study and its retracted status.
Disclaimer: The Ig Nobel Prizes are humorous awards intended to spotlight unusual research. Receiving an Ig Nobel does not mean that a study is equivalent to a Nobel Prize or necessarily represents a new scientific consensus. In the case of the 2026 Biology award, the underlying snakebite paper has been formally retracted and should be treated accordingly.
Image Credit for Featured Image: Pham Ngoc Anh on Pexels
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