Marc Abrahams's Blog

The November 2025 issue of mini-AIR, our teeny tiny free little e-newsletter of overflow detritus that did not fit in the magazine (Annals of Improbable Research), has just gone out. The issue contains info about research on the topic “Quite.” Another highlight is the winning entry in the competition to create a limerick to explain […]

The Disappearing Spoon podcast looked into what it calls “The Dignity of the Ig Nobels — Winning an Ig Nobel Prize is largely considered a joke, but its benefits are no laughing matter”. The podcast, with host Sam Kean, is a project of the Science History Institute. The introduction to this episode says: The Ig […]

At the Monell Chemical Senses Center’s “Celebration of Science”, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, on Thursday, November 12, 2025, Marc Abrahams will do an evening talk about improbable research involving taste and smell. The entire day is a celebration of research on those subjects, and especially a celebration of research done by Robert Margolskee and colleagues over […]

Some questions intrigue scientists and the public. Other questions do not. This stud addresses one such question: “Can Bulgarian Yogurt Enhance Astronauts’ Performance During the Mars Missions?” Izabela Shopova, Diana Bogueva, Maria Yotova, and Svetla Danova, Journal of Ethnic Foods, vol. 10, no. 46, 2023. This image, figure 6 in the study, may help some […]

Ig Nobel Prize winners will gather on stage to ask each other questions about their work, in the Ig Nobel Face-to-Face event on Thursday, November 6, 2025. It’s part of the Falling Walls Science Summit, Berlin, Germany, on the main stage. Ig Nobel Prizes honor achievements so surprising that they make people LAUGH, then THINK. […]

Scott Carver writes: “I am passing along the latest iteration in the wombat cubed poo story – essentially moving from our previous work on how they make it, now to what they use it for. Enjoy.” That new iteration, a research study, is: “Deriving the functional significance of olfaction in a solitary non‐territorial herbivore: The […]

“Fluid Motion: Motion-Sick Drivers Excreted Fluids” is a special review article in the special MOTION issue (volume. 31, no. 5) of the magazine, Annals of Improbable Research. Download the article, free, you like. And if you really like, then subscribe to the magazine!

In his first public appearance as an Ig Nobel Prize winner, Vikash Kumar will be at the Royal Institution in London on Halloween night, Friday, October 31, 2025. In an event called Ig Nobel Face-to-Face, Kumar and other Ig Nobel Prize winners will ask each other questions about their work. Ig Nobel Prizes honor achievements […]

“Fly-Swatters and Flies” is a special review article in the special MOTION issue (volume. 31, no. 5) of the magazine, Annals of Improbable Research. Download the article, free, you like. And if you really like, then subscribe to the magazine!

The world, with the exception of the USA, will celebrate World Standards Day on Tuesday, October 14, 2025. As usual, the event is organized by the world’s leading developers of international standards: the IEC [the International Electrotechnical Commission], ISO [the International Organization for Standardization] and the ITU [the International Telecommunication Union]. The USA will celebrate […]