The quirky annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony just honored its newest winners—feting the most bizarre, ridiculous, wacky, and laugh-out-loud-scientific studies. This year’s event accepted 41 recipients, with a focus theme of digestion. On September 14, 2023, Harvard University played host to a pretty thrilling awards ceremony. Researchers from a variety of disciplines shared their research, artfully integrating humor with rigorous scientific investigation.
The Nutrition Prize recognized a really interesting study on pizza topping preferences. This study concentrated on rainbow lizards (Agama agama) in Togo. These lizards have impressively learned to enjoy four-cheese pizza, proving their resourcefulness and ability to thrive in even the most developed cities. The African Journal of Ecology was the home of those findings. This is a huge step for learning more about wildlife behavior in human-dominated landscapes.
Spotlight on Rainbow Lizards
Dr. Luca Luiselli, an Italian tropical ecologist based in Nigeria, and the study’s author which first identified the lizard’s new food choice. He reported extraordinary behavior at a coastal tourist resort in Togo. It looked like the lizards were mugging pizza from hapless tourists!
“When the four-cheese pizza was made available, several individuals joined in, even coming from many metres away or descending from trees,” – Luca Luiselli
Luiselli elaborated, “I think the very strong smell of four-cheese pizza was very attractive to lizards. His original research demonstrated that cheese greatly improves the body condition and lipid storage of these lizards. This time storage is vital for future reproduction and might even reduce their chances of being eaten.”
“The four-cheese scent is stronger than other types of pizza, and therefore we think this attracted the lizards,” – Luca Luiselli
Dr. Di Terlizzi, a postdoc on the original study and study collaborator, indicated how thankful they were to be recognized with the Ig Nobel Prize. “It felt like the highest honour this work could ever receive,” he remarked. He began by moving on from the methods and outlining the significance of their findings. What they uncovered was something they’ve termed the “mozzarella phase,” that describes the way cheese proteins behave at higher temperatures.
“Our main contribution was to define what we call the ‘mozzarella phase’ — a region of the phase diagram where there isn’t enough starch, usually coming from pasta water, to prevent cheese proteins from clumping together when heated.” – Dr. Di Terlizzi
Psychological Insights and Unusual Discoveries
The high profile this year’s Psychology Prize received, for research into narcissism and intelligence. Previous research found that simply informing people of their nice, high IQ scores had the ability to raise their narcissism levels. Gilles Gignac, an intelligence and psychology researcher who joined in the study of the experiment. In his acceptance speech, he admitted that the honor caught him off guard.
“Marcin [Zajenkowski, co-author of the paper] and I were totally surprised when we were contacted about the award, so much so that I asked Marcin if it was a hoax.” – Gilles Gignac
Gignac brushed aside the obvious charge that manipulation of intelligence perceptions is easy to rig. We know that it can have serious long-term impacts on increasing narcissism.
“Levels of narcissism can be manipulated by telling [people] they are more intelligent than they actually are,” – Gilles Gignac
He further elaborated on the potential implications of their findings: “While this may seem like a fairly straightforward finding, consider the possibility that overpraising people regularly over time might have more substantial and dramatic effects on a person’s level of trait narcissism.
Besides psychological studies, this year’s Aviation Prize awarded DNA research on Egyptian fruit bats that reveals the structure of flight. The study revealed that these bats fly at slower speeds and change their echolocation patterns under the influence of alcohol.
Celebrating Unique Contributions
Intended as an antithesis to the Nobel Prizes, the Ig Nobels are best known for honoring weird, wacky, and otherwise funny research. Each winner receives a certificate and a unique prize: banknotes of 10 trillion Zimbabwean dollars. These notes were mistakenly once in circulation at a value of an equivalent of 60 cents before being withdrawn. Today, they are a whimsical nod to notable scientific milestones.
Dr. Karl’s award-winning research on belly button lint was a hit at the research festival. It upholds the long-running tradition of featuring weird but interesting studies that make you think.
Scientists are delving into everything, from citizen urban wildlife preferences to cross cultural cognitive psychology. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the Ig Nobel Prize confidently honors artistic and imaginative approaches to scientific inquiry.
