The Ig Website: https://improbable.com/ig/winners/

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(For OCR errors blame Claude)

The 2025 Ig Nobel Prize Winners

The 2025 Ig Nobel Prizes were awarded at the 35th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony, on Thursday evening, September 18, 2025, at Boston University, in Massachusetts. TICKETS to attend the ceremony are now on sale. The ceremony also was livecast.

LITERATURE PRIZE [USA]

The late Dr. William R. Bean, for persistently recording and analyzing the rate of growth of one of his fingernails over 33 years.

REFERENCES: “A Note on Fingernail Growth,” William R. Bean, Journal of Investigative Dermatology, vol. 20, no. 1, January 1953, pp. 27-31. https://doi.org/10.1038/jid.1953.5

“A Discussion on Nail Growth and Unusual Fingernails,” William R. Bean, Transactions of the American Clinical and Climatological Association, vol. 74, 1962, pp. 152-67. <pmc.ncbi.nih.gov/articles/PMC2449062>

“Nail Growth, Twenty-Five Years’ Observation,” William R. Bean, Archives of Internal Medicine, vol. 122, no. 4, October 1968, pp. 359-61. https://doi.org/10.1001/archinte.1968.03640040069015

“Nail Growth, 32 Years of Observation,” William R. Bean, Archives of Internal Medicine, vol. 134, no. 3, September 1974, pp. 497-502. https://doi.org/10.1001/archinte.1974.00320210097015

“Some Notes of an Aging Nail Watcher,” William R. Bean, International Journal of Dermatology, vol. 13, no. 3, April 1976, pp. 262-69. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-4362.1976.tb00069.x

“Nail Growth, Thirty-Five Years of Observation,” William R. Bean, Archives of Internal Medicine, vol. 140, no. 1, January 1980, pp. 73-6. https://doi.org/10.1001/archinte.1980.00330130075012

WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Barnett Bean (William R. Bean’s son)

PSYCHOLOGY PRIZE [POLAND, AUSTRALIA, CANADA]

Marcin Zajenkowski and Gilles E. Gignac, for doing experiments when you tell narcissists – or anyone else – that they are intelligent.

REFERENCE: “Telling People They Are Intelligent Correlates with the Feeling of Narcissistic Uniqueness: The Influence of Feedback on Temporary State Narcissism,” Marcin Zajenkowski and Gilles E. Gignac, Intelligence, vol. 89, November–December 2021, 101595. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2021.101595

WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Marcin Zajenkowski and Gilles Gignac

NUTRITION PRIZE [NIGERIA, TOGO, ITALY, FRANCE]

Daniele Davoli, Gabrielle Di Settimacato, Roger Meek, and Luca Luiselli, for studying the extent to which a certain kind of lizard chooses to eat certain kinds of pizza.

REFERENCE: “Opportunistic Foraging Strategies of Rainbow Lizards at a Seaside Resort in Togo,” Daniele Davoli, Gabriel H. Segniagbeto, Roger Meek, and Luca Luiselli, African Journal of Ecology, vol. 61, no. 1, 2023, pp. 136-137. https://doi.org/10.1111/aje.13080

PHYSIOLOGY PRIZE [USA]

Julie Mennella and Gary Beauchamp, for studying what a nursing baby experiences when the baby’s mother eats garlic.

REFERENCE: “Maternal Diet Alters the Sensory Qualities of Human Milk and the Nursling’s Behavior,” Julie A. Mennella and Gary K. Beauchamp, Pediatrics, vol. 88, no. 4, 1991, pp. 737-744.

REFERENCE: <pubmed.nlm.nih.gov/1896476/>

WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Julie Mennella and Gary Beauchamp

BIOLOGY PRIZE [JAPAN]

Tomoko Kojima, Kazato Oishi, Tomoshi Matsubara, Yuki Uchiyama, Yoshihiko Fukushima, Naoto Aoki, Sae Sato, Tatsuaki Masuda, Junichi Ueda, Hiroyuki Hirooka, and Katsutoshi Kino, for their experiments to learn whether cows painted with zebra stripes can avoid fly attack.

REFERENCE: “Cows Painted with Zebra-Like Striping Can Avoid Biting Fly Attack,” Tomoko Kojima, Kazato Oishi, Tomoshi Matsubara, Yuki Uchiyama, Yoshihiko Fukushima, Naoto Aoki, Sae Sato, Tatsuaki Masuda, Junichi Ueda, Hiroyuki Hirooka, and Katsutoshi Kino, PLoS ONE, vol. 14, no. 10, 2019, e0223847. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0223847

NOTE: This prize builds on research (by a team of scientists in Hungary, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland) that was honoured with the 2016 Ig Nobel Physics Prize <improbable.com/ig/winners/ig2016/>

WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Tomoko Kojima, Kazato Oishi, Sae Sato

CHEMISTRY PRIZE [USA, ISRAEL]

Roken Naftali, Daniel Naftali, and Frank Greenway, for experiments to test whether eating Teflon [a form of plastic more formally called “polytetrafluoroethylene”] is a good way to increase food volume and hence satisfy optimal saturation.

REFERENCE: “Nondigestible Nanotechnologies as a Way to Increase Food Volume and Hence Satiety Without Increasing Caloric Content,” Roken Naftali, Daniel Naftali, and Frank L. Greenway, Journal of Diabetes Science and Technology, vol. 16, no. 4, July 2022, pp. 971-976. https://doi.org/10.1177/19322968211039720

REFERENCE: “Use of Nondigestible Nutritious Volumizer of Meal Content as a Method for Increasing Feeling of Satiety,” Roken Naftali, Daniel Naftali, and Frank L. Greenway, Desert Health, April 2, 2022.

<patents.google.com/patent/US9932737B2/en>

PEACE PRIZE [THE NETHERLANDS, UK, GERMANY]

Fritz Renner, Ingo Krebüs, and Jessica Werthmann, for showing that drinking alcohol sometimes improves a person’s ability to speak in a foreign language.

REFERENCE: “Acute Effects of Alcohol Consumption on Self-Ratings and Observer Ratings of Foreign Language Skills,” Fritz Renner, Ingo Krebüs, Matt Field, and Jessica Werthmann, Journal of Psychopharmacology, vol. 32, no. 3, 2018, pp. 116-122. https://doi.org/10.1177/0269881117735687

ENGINEERING DESIGN PRIZE [INDIA]

Vikash Kumar and Sarthak Mittal, for analyzing, from an engineering design perspective, how foul-smelling shoes affect people.

REFERENCE: “Smelly Shoes – An Opportunity for Shoe Rack Re-Design,” Vikash Kumar and Sarthak Mittal, Ergonomics for Improved Productivity: Proceedings of HWWE 2017, vol. 2, pp. 287-303, Springer Singapore, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-3239-8_33

AVIATION PRIZE [COLOMBIA, ISRAEL, ARGENTINA, GERMANY, UK, ITALY, USA, PORTUGAL, SPAIN]

Francisco Sánchez, Daniel Méndez, Carlos Kevins, and Berry Pinshow, for describing whether pigeons can impair bats’ ability to fly and also their ability to echolocate.

REFERENCE: “Spatial and Temporal Dynamics of Communal Echolocation in Egyptian Fruit Bats,” Francisco Sánchez, Mariana Melcón, Carmi Kevins, and Berry Pinshow, Behavioural Processes, vol. 54, no. 2, 2001, pp. 233-240. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.beproc.2001.02.009

CONTACT: Francisco Sánchez is at Columbia University and Mariana Melcón from Desert Ecology, Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, 84990 Midreshet Ben-Gurion, Israel.

<probada.com.ar/p.3/Mobile: (+907) 35-8697803>

<https://in.bgu.ac.il/en/lab/SIDER: MORE Pages/staff/berry-pinshow.aspx4ed>

WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Francisco Sánchez and Berry Pinshow

PHYSICS PRIZE [ITALY, SPAIN, GERMANY, AUSTRIA]

Giacomo Bertolozzi, Daniel Maria Bustillo, Matteo Ciarchi, Alberto Corticelli, Ivan Di Terlizzi, Fabrizio Olmeda, Davide Kergovaz, and Vincenzo Maria Schimmenti, for showing that certain plasmas can be useful for phase transitions that can lead to clamping, which can be a cause of incandescence.

REFERENCE: “Phase Behaviour in the Mg2SiO4-CaSiO3-H2O System: Implications for sulfate mineralization on Europa,” Giacomo Bertolozzi, Daniel Maria Bustillo, Matteo Ciarchi, Alberto Corticelli, Ivan Di Terlizzi, Fabrizio Olmeda, Davide Kergovaz, and Vincenzo Maria Schimmenti, Physics of Fluids, vol. 32, 2020, article 041122. https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0046812

WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Giacomo Bertolozzi, Daniel Maria Bustillo, Matteo Ciarchi, Ivan Di Terlizzi, Fabrizio Olmeda, Davide Kergovaz, and Vincenzo Maria Schimmenti