Can you levitate a frog? Are cats solid or liquid? What type of pizza do lizards prefer?
These are real questions that guided award-winning research. The award? The Ig Nobel Prize.
The Ig Nobel Prize was created in 1991 by Marc Abrahams, co-founder and editor of the science humor magazine Improbable Research. As you might be able to tell, the Ig Nobel’s name is a pun on the Nobel Prize and on the word ignoble (which means not honorable in character or purpose). This pun is intentional, as Abrahams aimed to shine light on research so shocking that it will “first make people laugh, and then make them think.” Abrahams hoped that the Ig Nobel would give attention to more researchers who are advancing science, even if in eccentric ways. He hopes that people who hear about Ig Nobel-winning research will become curious about science, medicine, and technology, making science not seem as scary anymore.
The Ig Nobels are awarded each September in Boston (the location changes, but the celebration has been held at Harvard, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and, most recently, Boston University), with prizes being presented primarily by Nobel laureates. Ig Nobel Prize winners not only gain the honor of the award, but are given a ten trillion Zimbabwean dollar bill (although in 2025 this cash prize was exchanged for a Purell moist towelette) and some other quirky trophies. The Ig Nobel ceremonies are very entertaining, as they include a themed opera and circus performance each year. I highly recommend watching at least one ceremony if you have an hour to spare.
As for the award-winning research itself, I thought I would highlight my three favorite Ig Nobel Prizes (in no particular order), hopefully piquing your interest in science.
Floating frog: The 2000 Ig Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Andre Geim, then a professor at Radboud University in the Netherlands, and Michael Berry, then a professor at the University of Bristol in England, for levitating a frog. This experiment utilized a phenomenon called diamagnetism. Diamagnetic materials are substances that are repelled by a magnetic field and generate an induced magnetic field in the opposite direction, causing a repulsive force that pushes the material away from the magnetic field. Essentially, diamagnetic materials get propelled away from magnets. Water and other organic molecules are examples of diamagnetic materials.
After watching water levitate, Geim was inspired to see if objects like strawberries and cherry tomatoes would levitate. The frog comes into play thanks to Geim’s wife, who probably noticed the high water content in frogs (around eighty percent of a frog is water). By using a ten-tesla magnet (a magnet ten times stronger than a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine), the atoms in a frog’s body respond in a way to balance against gravity, “cancelling” the frog’s gravitation and making it float.
Interestingly, Geim is also the only person to win both an Ig Nobel and a Nobel in physics, making him a world record holder! Geim’s Nobel prize is for discovering graphene, a two-dimensional substance consisting of a single layer of carbon atoms in a honeycomb arrangement that is incredibly strong, highly flexible, and transparent. Remarkably, his Nobel prize comes from unconventional science as well, as he used Scotch tape to isolate graphene from a pencil. Scotch tape still remains the best way to isolate graphene, showing the power of simplicity.
Drunk worms: In 2024, the Ig Nobel in Chemistry was awarded to Sander Woutersen, Daniel Bonn, and Antoine Deblais, three researchers at the University of Amsterdam. Their research emerged because of the desire to study active polymers, polymers that are capable of self-propulsion, making them important in understanding the cell membrane and how sperm cells move.
Active polymers are difficult to study, so the researchers needed to find a larger model, leading them to Tubifex tubifex worms. These worms, also known as sewer worms, are very thin, have segmented bodies that resemble polymers, and display active motion. The researchers utilized pillar-array chromatography to separate the worms, as this technique can separate molecules based on how long it takes for them to move through a column. In order to create inactive polymers, they needed inactive worms. They found that submerging worms in alcohol for a few minutes successfully anesthetized the worms, creating inactive “polymers.”
The results of the experiment showed that drunk worms actually took longer to navigate the pillars, which is counterintuitive, as the inactive worms were expected to “go with the flow” and pass through the pillars quickly. Essentially, this experiment provided a possible model for separating active polymers, while also teaching us the lesson that “when a drunk worm is wrapped around a lamppost and a sober worm passes by, he occasionally takes the drunk worm with him. So, the moral of the story is, if you go to the pub, somebody needs to remain sober and bring everybody home.”
Bacon tampons: In 2014, a group of four doctors from Detroit Medical Center, Ian Humphreys, Sonal Saraiya, Walter Belenky, and James Dworkin, were awarded the Ig Nobel in Medicine for successfully stopping nosebleeds with cured salted pork. This group of doctors successfully treated a four-year-old girl with a rare disorder called Glanzmann thrombogenia (GT). GT is a rare congenital condition where one’s body is not able to properly make integrin alpha IIb beta 3 proteins that are crucial in making platelets form clots. As a result, people with GT are prone to bruising and prolonged bleeding, which can be life-threatening. The girl had two life-threatening nosebleeds, and traditional treatment was not working. So, her doctors turned to cured salted pork because pork contains clotting factors, and the high salt content would pull fluid from her nose. The cured salted pork quickly stopped the girl’s extreme nosebleeds, allowing her to be discharged after only three days. So who knows, maybe if you have an extreme nosebleed, your doctors will tell you to put bacon up your nose (don’t do this at home; it is possible you may get an infection).
I hope these three seemingly absurd studies entertained, and perhaps inspired, you! And who knows, maybe one day you will find yourself winning the famed Ig Nobel Prize.
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