The annual lg Nobel Prize ceremony is organized every year by theAnnals of Improbable Research, a digital magazine that spotlights research that first makes people laugh and then think.
The lg Nobel Prize ceremony is normally held weeks before the actual Nobel Prizes are announced.
This year, the Ig Nobel Prize ceremony was hosted by Karen Hopkin and Marc Abrahams.
Every year, Ig Nobel Prizes celebrate science that “makes people laugh and then think,” and the prizes are presented by genuine Nobel laureates. This year’s 35th edition hit the mark.
The Ig Nobel Prizes event is held annually under the umbrella of the Annals of Improbable Research.
At the start of the event, there’s a tradition of plane pelting to honor the winners: a mini-opera about gastroenterologists and their patients.
This year’s Ig Nobel Prize had a fascinating theme: digestion, with a section called the 24-second lecture, where top researchers come and explain their work in just under 24 seconds.
The last speaker named, Trisha Pasricha, explained her work studying smartphone use on the toilet and the potential risk for hemorrhoids.
“Every great discovery ever, at first glance, seemed screwy and laughable," explained Marc Abrahams, master of ceremonies and editor of the magazine.
He continued, “The same is true of every worthless discovery. The Ig Nobel Prizes celebrate ALL these discoveries, because at the very first glance, who really knows?”
While the co-host, Karen Hopkin, who made the audience laugh with her witty personality, explained the theme of this year’s Ig Nobel Prizes.
She said, “This year's prize is a model of a human stomach. The sides of the stomach each resemble a human face; one face is happy, and one face is grumpy.”
She quipped, “Each winner also receives a piece of paper. A piece of paper saying they have won a Nobel Prize; it was actually signed by several Nobel laureates.”
So let’s break down the winners of this year’s Ig Nobel Prize 2025:
The late physician William Bean received the literature Ig Nobel Prize for persistently recording and analyzing the rate of growth of one of his fingernails over a period of 35 years.
The Psychology prize goes jointly to Marcin Zajenkowski and Gilles Gignac for their research on what actually happens when you tell a narcissist - or anyone else - that they are intelligent.
Daniele Dend, Gabriel Segniagbeto, Roger Meek, and Luca Luiselli received Ig Nobel Prize for studying the extent to which a certain kind of lizard chooses to eat certain kinds of pizza.
Julie Mennella and Gray Beauchamp clinched the Ig Nobel Prize for studying what a nursing baby experiences when their mother eats garlic.
A team of Japanese researchers led byTomoki Kojima won this year’s Ig Nobel Prize for experimenting with whether cows painted with zebra-like stripes can avoid fly bites.
A team of researchers includes Giacomo Bartolucci, Daniel Maria Busiello, Matteo Ciarchi, Alberto Corticeli, Ivan Di Terlizzi, Fabrizio Olmedia, Davide Revignas, and Vincenzo Maria Schimmenti for their discovery about the physics of pasta sauce, especially the phase transition that can lead to clumping, which can yield an unappetizing dish.
Now, due to the visa restrictions imposed during the Trump administration, many recipients could not travel to the USA, so the Ig Nobel Prize organizers have decided to hold three more events this year, with locations in Berlin, London, and Tokyo.