The 2020 Ig Nobel Prizes

The page lists the 2020 Ig Nobel Prizes, awarded by Annals of Improbable Research to research and events that make people laugh and then think. It names the winners in acoustics, psychology, peace, physics, economics, management, entomology, medicine, medical education, and materials science.

Reading notes

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• The awards are presented by Annals of Improbable Research and were held virtually that year.
• The Peace Prize went to the governments of India and Pakistan for diplomats ringing each other’s doorbells and running away.
• The Management Prize went to five professional hit men in China for each subcontracting a murder until nobody actually committed it.
• The Medical Education Prize went to several world leaders for showing that politicians can affect life and death faster than scientists and doctors can.
• The Acoustics Prize went to researchers who induced a female Chinese alligator to bellow in helium-enriched air.
• The Psychology Prize went to researchers who devised a way to identify narcissists by examining eyebrows.
• The Physics Prize went to researchers who studied what happens to a living earthworm’s shape when vibrated at high frequency.
• The Economics Prize went to researchers who tried to measure the relationship between national income inequality and the average amount of mouth-to-mouth kissing.
• The Entomology Prize went to Richard Vetter for evidence that many entomologists are afraid of spiders.
• The Medicine Prize went to researchers who diagnosed misophonia as distress at hearing chewing sounds.
• The Materials Science Prize went to researchers who showed that knives made from frozen human feces do not work well.
• The page notes that Alexander Lukashenko had already won an Ig Nobel Prize in 2013.