Ig Nobel Prizes 2026: Splash-Free Urinals, Cockroach Milk, and the Art of Kissing
Meet the Ig Nobel Prize Winners
The 2026 Ig Nobels celebrate research that first makes you laugh, then think. Winners include a precise definition of kissing across species, evidence that upper-class individuals are more likely to take candy from children, cockroach milk with triple the energy of cow's milk, an aerodynamic study of nose-blowing, experiments on what makes venomous snakes bite, and the design of a splash-free urinal inspired by dogs. The ceremony moves to Zurich due to safety concerns for international travelers.
We cannot in good conscience ask the new winners, or the international journalists who cover the event, to travel to the US this year.
- embedding-shape
Some great winners this time, personal favorite:
> IG NOBEL ECONOMICS PRIZE 2026 [USA, MEXICO, CANADA]
Paul Piff, Daniel Stancato, Stéphane Côté, Rodolfo Mendoza-Denton, and Dacher Keltner, for amassing evidence that upper class people are more likely to snatch from a children’s supply of candy, and engage in other kinds of unethical behavior. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 109, no. 11, 2012, pp. 4086-4091. <doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1118373109>
- subarctic
Launched in 1991, so i guess the ig doesn't stand for instagram
- varjag
A paper am a coauthor of uses an Ig Nobel winning article as a reference. Because in fact it was a serious piece of research with practical implications.
- D-Coder
This article had me at pneumotachometers (emphasis mine):
> Unno used a pair of pneumotachometers (instruments to measure volume flow of respired gases) in parallel for his experiments to determine the velocity, volume, and time scale of blowing through each side of the nose over 60 trials.
- magneticnorth
It wasn't clear to me in the article, but the best splash-free urinal ("nautilus"), is the tall skinny one second-from-right in the photo.
In addition to having the correct angle to minimize splash, it also fits a wide range of heights and is easier to clean than some of the other designs they tried.