Stealing Candy From Children, Splash-Proof Urinals and Buried Panties, Oh My! Here Are the Winners of the 2026 Ig Nobel Prizes

You’re probably familiar with the Nobel Prizes, some of the most prestigious awards. While the world eagerly awaits who will earn those prizes this year, some researchers are currently celebrating the winners of playful—yet still scholarly—parody awards: the Ig Nobel Prizes, which were announced on September 3. Organized by the company Improbable Research, the spoof awards were designed to “honor achievements so surprising that they make people laugh, then think,” per their website.

Winning work highlighted during the 36th annual award ceremony included hilarious research on the aerodynamics of nose blowing, gently stepping on venomous snakes, confirming that teenagers do indeed smell worse than babies and other side-splitting scientific undertakings. Here are the projects that won the ten categories of the 2026 Ig Nobel Prizes. While kissing might sound like an easy dynamic to describe, the winners of the Ig Nobel Biomechanics Prize came up with a precise definition: “a non-agonistic interaction involving directed, intraspecific, oral-oral contact with some movement of the lips/mouthparts and no food transfer.” The explanation was included in a study published in the January 2026 issue of the journal Evolution and Human Behavior.

If this award helps spark more curiosity about this sort of question, then that’s a pretty wonderful outcome.” Underwear buried to test soil quality and urinals scientifically designed to prevent splashing were among the projects honoured as the Ig Nobel prizes again put a spotlight on the quirky side of science. https://t.co/IOLqUt70Wy pic.twitter.com/6dNfyvhKY3 An older study—with more alarming findings—won the Ig Nobel Economics Prize. In 2012, researchers reported that higher-class individuals are more likely to engage in unethical behaviors, like taking candy meant for children. Wealthier individuals were also more likely to lie at work and cheat during games.

The recipients of the Ig Nobel Chemistry Prize, however, conducted research concerning much smaller individuals: cockroaches. In a 2016 study, scientists found that milk proteins from a species of cockroach that gives live birth carry three times as much energy as milk proteins from cows. Speaking of bodily fluids, research on nose-blowing won the Ig Nobel Medicine Prize.

A study published in 1977 investigated the aerodynamics of clearing your nostrils and determined that the best technique involves a moderate inhalation followed by a powerful blow, reports the Japan Times’ Spencer Landers. What’s more, each nostril should be blown individually. This year’s Ig Nobel Prize award ceremony took place in Zurich, Switzerland, and marked the first time it was held outside of the United States.

The decision was made after almost half of last year’s winners chose not to attend the ceremony at Boston University over concerns about traveling to the U.S. The Ig Nobel Biology Prize, however, involves an action most people want to avoid: stepping on a venomous snake. Scientists gently put their feet on different areas of venomous snakes under various conditions to figure out what triggers the slithering creatures to bite humans.