Poles win Ig Nobel prizes, receiving 100 trillion Zimbabwean dollars and trophies

Polish researchers were among this year’s winners of the Ig Nobel prizes, receiving trophies and 100 trillion Zimbabwean dollars. The awards honor scientific work that “first makes people laugh, then makes them think.”

The team, led by Agnieszka Sorokowska of the University of Wrocław, won in the olfactory science category. Its research found that babies smell wonderful to their parents, while teenagers do not produce the same reaction.

The prizes were presented on Thursday, Sept. 3, in Zurich. It marked the first time the ceremony had taken place outside the United States. Marc Abrahams, editor-in-chief of the Annals of Improbable Research, told the AP in March that organizers moved the event because of security concerns affecting international laureates and journalists traveling to the United States.

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first makes people laugh, then makes them think

Other winners included researchers who redefined kissing as directed oral contact between members of the same species without food transfer. Another team studied whether people from higher social classes were more likely than people from lower classes to take sweets intended for children.

The prizes also recognized research into cockroach milk proteins, nose-blowing aerodynamics, snake biting behavior, splash-resistant urinals, mosquito-trunk-inspired 3D-printing nozzles, friendship with people who are hostile toward disliked individuals, and burying 1,000 pairs of underwear in more than 25 countries before digging them up two months later.

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babies smell wonderful to their parents, but teenagers do not