2019’s ‘Ig Nobel’ Prizes Honor Strange, Unusual, and Hilarious Research

CNN reports: Pizza might protect against cancer, why wombats poop in cubes and a diaper changing machine that can be used on human babies — these are just some of the research and inventions awarded at this year’s Ig Nobel Prizes, a spoof of the actual Nobel Prize awards. The Ig Nobels are “intended to celebrate the unusual, honor the imaginative — and spur people’s interest in science, medicine, and technology,” according to its website. Even if the science does sound, well, hilarious. Organized by the magazine Annals of Improbable Research, the awards have been going on for 29 years, always celebrated in September with a gala held at Harvard University. Winners accept their prizes from “genuinely bemused genuine Nobel Laureates,” the website reads. Long-time Slashdot reader LifesABeach shared a link to that wacky two-hour prize ceremony on YouTube. You can also read the list of 2019’s winners on the official web site. And today, most of this year’s Ig Nobel winners also gave free public talks at MIT.