The 2026 Ig Nobel Prize Winners

IG NOBEL BIOMECHANICS PRIZE 2026 [UK, USA]

Matilda Brindle (who also co-authored the study named The Evolution of Masturbation in Birds), Catherine Talbot, and Stuart West for devising a more precise definition of kissing — “non-agonistic interactions involving directed, intraspecific, oral-oral contact with some movement of the lips/mouthparts and no food transfer” — in ants, birds, polar bears, and humans.

REFERENCE: “A Comparative Approach to Kissing,” Matilda Brindle, Catherine F. Talbot, and Stuart West, Evolution and Human Behavior, vol. 47, no. 6, 2026, article 106788. <doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2025.106788>
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Matilda Brindle, Catherine Talbot, Stuart West

IG NOBEL ECONOMICS PRIZE 2026 [USA, MEXICO, CANADA]

Scientists Paul Piff, Daniel Stancato, Stéphane Côté, Rodolfo Mendoza-Denton, and Dacher Keltner, were awarded for collecting evidence that upper class people are more likely to take from a children’s supply of candy, and engage in other types of unethical behavior.

REFERENCE: “Higher Social Class Predicts Increased Unethical Behavior,” Paul K. Piff, Daniel M. Stancato, Stéphane Côté, Rodolfo Mendoza-Denton, and Dacher Keltner, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 109, no. 11, 2012, pp. 4086-4091. <doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1118373109>
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Paul Piff

IG NOBEL CHEMISTRY PRIZE 2026 [INDIA, FRANCE, JAPAN, CANADA, USA]

Sanchari Banerjee, Nathan Coussens, François-Xavier Gallat, Nitish Sathyanarayanan, Jandhyam Srikanth, Koichiro Yagi, James Gray, Stephen Tobe, Barbara Stay, Leonard Chavas, and Subramanian Ramaswamy received the award for discovering that milk proteins from vivaparous cockroaches contain three times as much energy as milk proteins from cows.

REFERENCE: “Structure of a Heterogeneous, Glycosylated, Lipid-Bound, in Vivo-Grown Protein Crystal at Atomic Resolution from the Viviparous Cockroach Diploptera punctata,” Sanchari Banerjee, Nathan P. Coussens, François-Xavier Gallat, Nitish Sathyanarayanan, Jandhyam Srikanth, Koichiro J. Yagi, James S.S. Gray, Stephen S. Tobe, Barbara Stay, Leonard M. G. Chavas, and Subramanian Ramaswamy, IUCrJ, vol. 3, no. 4, 2016, pp. 282-293. <doi.org/10.1107/S2052252516008903>
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Leo Chavas, Subramanian Ramaswamy, Nathan P. Coussens

IG NOBEL MEDICINE PRIZE 2026 [JAPAN]

The late Tokuji Unno, for the study called “How to Blow the Nose — An Aerodynamic Study of the Nose Blowing”

REFERENCE: “How to Blow the Nose — An Aerodynamic Study of the Nose Blowing” [article in Japanese], Tokuji Unno and Hiroshi Yajima, Nippon Jibiinkoka Gakkai Kaiho, vol. 80, no. 1, January 1977, pp. 11-17. <https://doi.org/10.3950/jibiinkoka.80.11>
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: This prize is being presented posthumously. Dr. Miki Takahara, a colleague of the late Dr. Unno, accepted the prize on behalf of the late winner.

IG NOBEL BIOLOGY PRIZE 2026 [BRAZIL, AUSTRALIA]

João Miguel Alves-Nunes, Adriano Fellone, Selma Maria Almeida-Santos, Carlos Roberto de Medeiros, Ivan Sazima, and Otavio Augusto Vuolo Marques, were awarded for gently stepping on various parts of various venomous snakes — repeatedly, at various temperatures at various times of day — to try to learn what does and what does not induce a venomous snake to bite a human.

REFERENCE: “Study of Defensive Behavior of a Venomous Snake as a New Approach to Understand Snakebite,” João Miguel Alves-Nunes, Adriano Fellone, Selma Maria Almeida-Santos, Carlos Roberto de Medeiros, Ivan Sazima, and Otavio Augusto Vuolo Marques, Scientific Reports, vol. 14, 2024, article 10230. <doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-59416-6>
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: João Miguel Alves-Nunes

IG NOBEL PHYSICS PRIZE 2026 [CANADA, USA, CHINA, SAUDI ARABIA]

Randy Hurd, Zhao Pan, Tadd Truscott, Kaveeshan Thurairajah, received the award for theoretical and experimental attempts to design a splash-free urinal.

REFERENCE: “Splash-free Urinals for Global Sustainability and Accessibility: Design Through Physics and Differential Equations,” Kaveeshan Thurairajah, Xianyu (Mabel) Song, J.D. Zhu, Mia Shi, Ethan A. Barlow, Randy C. Hurd, Zhao Pan, PNAS Nexus, vol. 4, no. 4, April 2025, pgaf087. <doi.org/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgaf087>
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Randy Hurd, Zhao Pan, Tadd Truscott, Kaveeshan Thurairajah

IG NOBEL TECHNOLOGY PRIZE 2026 [CHINA, CANADA, USA, EGYPT]

Engineer 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, for pioneering the use of mosquito proboscises as high-resolution 3D printing nozzles, a process called “Necroprinting”

REFERENCE: “3D Necroprinting: Leveraging Biotic Material as the Nozzle for 3D Printing,” Justin Puma, Zhen Yang, Evan Johnston, Zixin Zhang, Xiaoyi Lan, Lingzhi Zhang, Hongyu Hou, Zixin He, Ali Afify, Megan A. Creighton, Jianyu Li, and Changhong Cao, Science Advances, vol. 11, no. 47, November 19, 2025. <doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adw9953>
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Changhong Cao

IG NOBEL OLFACTION PRIZE 2026 [POLAND, GERMANY, SWEDEN]

Ilona Croy, Tomasz Frackowiak, Thomas Hummel, and Agnieszka Sorokowska, for collecting evidence that babies smell wonderful to their parents, but teenagers do not.

REFERENCE: “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,” Ilona Croy, Tomasz Frackowiak, Thomas Hummel, and Agnieszka Sorokowska, Chemosensory Perception, vol. 10, no. 3, 2017, pp. 81-87. <doi.org/10.1007/s12078-017-9230-x>
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Agnieszka Sorokowska and Ilona Croy

IG NOBEL PEACE PRIZE 2026 [USA, ARGENTINA, AUSTRALIA]

Jaimie Arona Krems, Rebecka Hahnel-Peeters, Laureon Merrie, Keelah Williams, and Daniel Sznycer, for documenting that we value friends who are vicious to people we dislike.

“Sometimes We Want Vicious Friends: People Have Nuanced Preferences for How They Want Their Friends to Behave Toward Them Versus Others,” Jaimie Arona Krems, Rebecka K. Hahnel-Peeters, Laureon A. Merrie, Keelah E.G. Williams, and Daniel Sznycer, Evolution and Human Behavior, vol. 44, no. 2, 2023, pp. 88-98. <doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2023.02.008>
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Jaimie Arona Krems, Keelah Williams, Daniel Sznycer

IG NOBEL SOIL SCIENCE PRIZE 2026 [SWITZERLAND, THE NETHERLANDS, GERMANY]

Franz Bender, Marcel van der Heijden, Atlant Bieri, and Pia Viviani, for burying 1000 identical pairs of organic cotton underpants in more than 25 countries, and then digging them up after two months. They investigated the textile decomposition, therefore estimating soil health.

REFERENCE: “Assessing Soil Health with Underpants,” S. Franz Bender and Marcel G.A. van der Heijden, Science, vol. 387, no. 6737, 2025, pp. 936-936. <doi.org/10.1126/science.adw0030>

REFERENCE: “Soil Health Assessment Using Buried Cotton Underpants with the Help of 1000 Citizen Scientists,” S. Franz Bender, et al., Plants, People, Planet, 2026. <doi.org/10.1002/ppp3.70259>

WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Franz Bender, Marcel van der Heijden, Atlant Bieri, Pia Viviani

Photo credit: Manuel Steinemann, Cécile Dauny, Rémy Jobin, Christian Hunger, Luisa Poggi, and Yann Hautier