From cockroach milk to stepping on snakes, Ig Nobel awards celebrates science at its oddest

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Stimson, B. (2026, September 5). From cockroach milk to stepping on snakes, Ig Nobel awards celebrates science at its oddest. Fox News. https://www.foxnews.com/world/cockroach-milk-stepping-snakes-ig-nobel-awards-celebrates-science-oddest

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Fox News · collected 2026-09-05 · by Brie Stimson

Quick Summary

A satirical ceremony, the Ig Nobel awards, was held in Zurich on Thursday to honor unusual but real scientific studies. This year's winners included researchers who studied cockroach milk, the evolutionary history of kissing, and the behavior of upper-class people, such as stealing candy from a baby. According to Dr. Paul Piff, the general pattern is that wealth and rising power lead individuals to prioritize their own needs over others' (no specific numbers mentioned). The ceremony, founded in 1991, typically takes place in the US but was held outside it this year due to visa concerns.
Written locally by qwen2.5:14b on 2026-09-05, using this article's own text rather than the other coverage of the same event (that is the story summary below).

AI analysis runs on qwen2.5:14b, locally

Story summary

14 unusual science studies were honored at the annual Ig Nobel awards in Zurich, which took place outside the US for the first time this year due to visa concerns. The awards, founded in 1991, recognized research on topics such as *cockroach milk*, the evolutionary history of *kissing*, and testing soil health using *underwear*. Other winners included studies on why upper-class people are more likely to engage in unethical behavior, like stealing candy from a baby, and how to properly *nose blow* and *gently step on snakes*. The ceremony was hosted by the Annals of Improbable Research digital magazine.

Written for “Ig Nobels Celebrate Unusual Science” on 2026-10-21, grounded in this article and the 0 other(s) covering the same event.

Story

📰 Ig Nobels Celebrate Unusual Science
Science · 1 article(s) covering the same event.

Compared with similar articles

Nothing to compare against. No article is close enough to this one for the pipeline to have linked or judged the pair.
How this article was measured signals, leaning charts, publisher record, byline, topics and claims

Signals How these are calculated →

Claims extracted
14
sentences that state something as happening or true
Uncertain
36%
5 of 14 hedged ("reportedly", "may", "according to")
Leaning
not political
takes no side on a contested political question
Publisher signals
67/100
Fox News's corrections and hedging, across everything collected from it. Not a measure of accuracy.
Outlets on this story
1
Science
Same framing elsewhere
1
articles that frame the event the way this one does
Analyzed 2026-09-05 · how these are computed

How this is being covered How these are calculated →

Article leaning vs. publisher reliability
Source leaning vs. consistency

Publisher

Fox News · 4949 article(s) · 9 correction(s) detected
Running correction rate · 9 correction(s)

Who wrote this

Brie Stimson
38 article(s) here · 1 carrying a prediction
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Also by Brie Stimson
Nothing else under this byline is closely related to this article, so these are simply their most recent.
All 38 articles by Brie Stimson →

Topics

Guardian U.S. Zurich the Annals of Improbable Research the University of California, Irvine

Subjects

Brindle PERSON · 1× Guardian ORG · 1× Matilda Brindle PERSON · 1× NPR ORG · 1× Paul Piff PERSON · 1× U.S. GPE · 1× Zurich GPE · 1× the Annals of Improbable Research ORG · 1× the University of California, Irvine ORG · 1× the University of Oxford ORG · 1×

Narrative

The final four honorees included those studying the power of having mutual enemies, attempts at a splash-free urinal, using dead mosquitos for 3D printing and research that found parents love the smell of their newborn babies but not teenage children.
framing: mixed · carried by 1 article(s) · first seen 2026-09-05
🔮 The awards, which were founded in 1991, took place outside the U.S. for the first time this year over the concern that the honorees wouldn’t be able to get a visa.

Claims (14 extracted, 5 hedged)

A motley crew of scientists was honored this week for its unusual contributions, which included studying cockroach milk, the evolutionary history of kissing and testing soil health by using underwear. asserted
which → honor → underwear
The satirical Ig Nobel ceremony, which honors unusual but real studies, took place in Zurich Thursday and was presented by the digital magazine, the Annals of Improbable Research. asserted
which → honor → Research
The awards, which were founded in 1991, took place outside the U.S. for the first time this year over the concern that the honorees wouldn’t be able to get a visa. asserted
honorees → found → visa
Other winners included researchers who found upper-class people were more likely to engage in unethical behavior, such as stealing candy from a baby, a study on proper nose blowing and gently stepping on snakes to see what provokes them into biting people. "The general pattern seems to be that, with wealth and rising power, you become less engaged with the needs of others and less burdened by the needs of social relationships," Dr. Paul Piff, a social psychologist at the University of California, Irvine said, according to the Guardian. uncertain
Piff → include → Guardian
"Taking candy from children might be the least of our worries, but it’s emblematic of the tendency to prioritize one’s own needs over those of others." uncertain
it → take → others
The final four honorees included those studying the power of having mutual enemies, attempts at a splash-free urinal, using dead mosquitos for 3D printing and research that found parents love the smell of their newborn babies but not teenage children. asserted
parents → include → babies
In case you’re wondering, the team studying the history of kissing has defined it as "a non-agonistic interaction involving directed, intraspecific, oral-oral contact with some movement of the lips/mouthparts and no food transfer." asserted
team → wonder → mouthparts
"Next time you kiss someone, you can think, 'This is a 21.5 million-year-old tradition that I'm honoring here," evolutionary biologist Matilda Brindle of the University of Oxford said, according to NPR. uncertain
Brindle → kiss → NPR
And to us, that suggests that it probably has quite a useful evolutionary function." uncertain
it → suggest → function
Brindle said her team believes that Neanderthals not only kissed each other. asserted
Neanderthals → say → other
They may have also kissed early humans. uncertain
They → kiss → humans
All the honorees receive a trophy that looks like a cross between a mushroom and a human foot while the audience throws paper airplanes at them. asserted
audience → receive → them
The Ig Nobel has no relation to the actual Nobel Prize, which will announce its honorees in October. asserted
which → have → October
The Associated Press contributed to this report. asserted
Press → contribute → report
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