This year's award ceremony will be held in Zurich, Switzerland, instead of at a university in the United States as before. Organizers have said the decision to move the event to European soil is due to the security situation for researchers and journalists.
Among this year's ten awards that met the criteria of both causing laughter and prompting reflection is a team of researchers who tested the ultimate shape for a urinal to avoid splashing urine. According to the researchers, this would, in addition to giving users a more pleasant, splash-free experience, be climate-smart because it does not require as extensive cleaning of floors and walls as today's variants.
The rich are unethical
A jab at the upper class comes with the economics prize, which goes to the discovery that people in the upper class are more likely to engage in unethical behaviour than people from lower social classes. This includes, for example, taking candy from small children or breaking traffic rules. According to the study, it is also more common for people from the upper class to lie in negotiations and cheat to win a prize.
Anyone who has wondered how quickly a pair of underwear breaks down if it is buried in the ground will also get an answer. It depends on the type of soil it is left in, another of the studies that received attention shows. In total, researchers buried 1,000 pairs of underwear in different locations in 25 countries, and then dug them up after two months for documentation. According to the nomination, the study provides answers to important questions about the properties of soil.
The Scent Mystery
Researchers from Poland and Germany, among others, have found that parents find small children to smell lovely, but teenagers to smell the opposite. One likely explanation is that it benefits the bond with parents if newborns smell good. And perhaps as expected, the study suggests that hormones are probably behind teenagers giving off less pleasant scents.
The winners receive a specially designed work of art and 10,000 billion dollars - albeit in the extremely inflationary Zimbabwean dollar.
Biomechanics – A more precise definition of kisses as “non-combative interactions involving directed, intraspecific, oral-oral contact with some movement of the lips/mouthparts and without the transfer of food” - in ants, birds, polar bears and humans.
Economy – People from the upper class are more likely to take candy from children and exhibit other forms of unethical behaviour.
Chemistry – Milk proteins from cockroaches that are born alive and not hatched from eggs contain three times as much energy as milk protein from cows.
Medicine – An aerodynamic study of how to blow your nose.
Biology – Researchers have carefully stepped on different parts of different venomous snakes at different times, temperatures and times of day in order to find out what causes a venomous snake to bite a human.
Physics – Theoretical and experimental attempts to construct a splash-proof urinal.
Technology – Mosquito suction proboscises are used as nozzles for high-resolution 3D printing.
Olfactology – Babies smell wonderful to their parents, but teenagers don't.
The Peace Prize – We appreciate friends who are mean to people we dislike.
Soil science – 1,000 identical pairs of underwear have been buried in more than 25 countries and then dug up after two months.
