NOBEL PRIZES GIVEN OUT FOR SPLASHPROOF URINAL AND NOSE-BLOWING STUDY

The 36th Ig Nobel Prizes were handed out in Zurich on September 3, essentially the parody version of the Nobel Prizes. The economics award went to Paul Piff and his co-authors for "Higher Social Class Predicts Increased Unethical Behavior." Translation: put out a bowl of candy earmarked for kids, and the wealthy participants helped themselves more often than not. The same team also clocked drivers of expensive late-model cars cutting people off at a busy four-way intersection. Peer-reviewed proof that the guy in the new Benz is exactly who you assumed he was. Physics went to the team that worked out why urinals splash back and proposed redesigns cutting the spray to 1.4 percent of what you are currently taking home on your pants. Chemistry went to researchers who found milk proteins from the viviparous cockroach pack three times the energy of cow milk, a fact you will now think about forever. Technology went to a group that used a mosquito's mouthparts as a nozzle for cheap high-resolution 3D printing. Medicine went posthumously to Japanese ENT Tokuji Unno for a 1977 aerodynamic study of nose-blowing that recommends going big and long. After decades in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the ceremony relocated to Switzerland because winners and guests found it difficult or unsafe to travel to the US. Every winner got a mushroom-shaped trophy and ten trillion Zimbabwean dollars, worth about four cents.

Why you should give a shit: The Igs are built to make you laugh first and think second, and this year the thinking is that splash-back is a solved engineering problem, cockroach milk is a legitimate protein source, and the richest guy in the room is still going for your kid's candy.