After 35 years in the USA, the Ig Nobel Prize ceremony is moving to Europe. This coming September, the 36th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony will take place in Zurich, Switzerland. [NOTE: We will have a big celebration event in Boston, three weeks after the ceremony happens in Zurich!] Ig Nobel Prizes honor achievements […]
Upasana Sarraju’s new book called Unruly: The Ig Nobel Prizes and The Science That Refuses to Behave dives into, swims and surfs through a universe (our universe, in fact) full of unexpected science. Published by India Penguin [ISBN 9780143470403], the book’s official debut date is February 28, 2026. Here’s how Sarraju describes the book: After […]
If you are a subscriber to our magazine (Annals of Improbable Research), you may be chuckling or grimacing (or both) at the email messages of the past few days. Do not be dismayed, please! Those emails are a side effect of something good, of a weird problem being solved. The PROBLEM: The company we have […]
Almost anyone who has spent time cutting a pancake with an exotic knife will acknowledge that it can be interesting. This study, also, acknowledges that cutting a pancake with an exotic knife can be interesting: “Cutting a Pancake with an Exotic Knife,” David O.H. Cutler and Neil J. A. Sloane, arXiv:2511.15864, 2025. (Thanks to Mason […]
If you want to submit an article for possible publication in the magazine, write it using only the brain inside your head. Please do NOT send us anything ‘written’ with or by an AI program. Recently we have been receiving a wave of articles written by or with ChatGPT, Claude, or some other large language […]
“A Canadian journal has issued corrections on 138 case reports it published over the last 25 years to add a disclaimer: The cases described are fictional,” says Retraction Watch, which supplies details. The journal is Paediatrics & Child Health. (Thanks to Eugenie Samuel Reich for bringing this to our attention.)