A levitating frog, a necrophiliac duck, taxi drivers’ brains — the Ig Nobel prizes have shined a spotlight on offbeat work
— nature (@Nature) November 19, 2024
Here’s an inside look at how winners feel about this sometimes unwanted ‘honour’ https://t.co/hryjpzYygE
Every fall, we cover the awarding of the Ig Nobel prizes from The Annals of Improbable Research. These lighthearted awards highlight research that seems weird, silly, or outrageous. But that's how science is done, one tiny step at a time to reveal what's going on in our world. Last year, more than 9,000 research papers were nominated for the Igs, and when potential winners are selected, they have the option of turning down the honor. Eleanor Maguire once declined to accept the award, because she was afraid it would hurt her career. But three years later she was up for the award again and decided to accept it. Far from hurting her career, she was later introduced as the “the most famous member” of a science panel, even though that panel included actual Nobel prize winners. Well sure, we may laugh about the Ig Nobel prizes, but we remember them because odd and obscure science studies are more fun to read about than the "serious" science that wins Nobel prizes. An article in the journal Nature tells us how winning an Ig Nobel affected the careers of several scientists, including one who won an Ig Nobel and a few years later won the Nobel prize. -via Damn Interesting