In a delightful celebration of the peculiar, the 34th Annual Ig Nobel Prizes honored ten unexpected achievements that elicited laughter and provoked thought. The awards ceremony took place at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where attendees embraced tradition by launching paper airplanes crafted from recycled materials.
Honoring the Peaceful Pigeons
This year’s award-winning research highlighted a diverse array of behaviors, including fascinating insights into avian and botanical studies. The prestigious Ig Nobel Peace Prize was awarded posthumously to B. F. Skinner for his 1940s experiments involving using live pigeons to aid missile navigation. Skinner’s daughter accepted the accolade on his behalf, emphasizing the significance of these studies in understanding behavioral sciences.
Plants Imitating Plastic
The 2024 Ig Nobel Botany Prize went to Jacob White and Felipe Yamashita, who discovered that certain plants, like Boquila trifoliolata, can mimic the shapes of nearby artificial plastic plants. This groundbreaking study challenges traditional notions of plant behavior.
Hair Whirls Across Hemispheres
Marjolaine Willems and her research team earned the anatomy prize for their investigation into whether hair patterns swirl in a consistent direction across different hemispheres, backed by their paper on genetic and hemispheric influences.
Bizarre Physiology Discoveries
The physiology prize was awarded to Takanori Takebe and his team for their surprising findings that many mammals can breathe through their anus, expanding our understanding of mammalian biology.
Coin Flip Consistency
The probability prize was claimed by František Bartoš and his colleagues, who, through extensive experimentation, concluded that a flipped coin is more likely to land on the same side it started from, demonstrating persistence in scientific inquiry.
Painful Placebos and Effectiveness
Lieven Schenk, Tahmine Fadai, and Christian Büchel took home the medicine prize, revealing that placebos causing painful side effects may prove more effective than those without such effects, adding a new layer to the understanding of placebo responses.
Swimming Dead Trout
Jimmy Liao was recognized with the physics prize for elucidating the swimming capabilities of deceased trout, offering novel insights into fluid dynamics.
Drunken Worms
The chemistry prize was awarded to Tess Heeremans and colleagues for their innovative approach to differentiating between sober and intoxicated worms using chromatography, highlighting the intersection of biology and chemistry.
Investigating Demographic Patterns
Saul Justin Newman received the demography prize for his astute observations on longevity records, revealing patterns tied to misrecording and fraud in regions with poor birth-and-death documentation.
This remarkable series of Ig Nobel winners concluded with a posthumous biology prize awarded to Fordyce Ely and William E. Petersen for their unique experiment involving a paper bag explosion and a cat standing on a cow, developed to explore factors affecting milk spillage. Their family members accepted the award at the ceremony, which included a demonstration honoring their groundbreaking research.
