Every September, a month before the Nobel Prizes are announced, The Annals of Improbable Research reveal the recipients of their Ig Nobel Prizes, now in their 33rd year, celebrating science that makes people laugh, then think. The lucky recipients of the 2023 prizes, presented by real Nobel laureates, were, as usual, an eclectic bunch, united only by their dedication to slightly startling research.
The mechanical engineering prize). They were particularly commended for coining the name “necrobiotics” for the field they have pioneered. Also commended for its use of words was a paper, called “The the the the induction of jamais vu in the laboratory: Word alienation and semantic satiation”, written by a multinational team from France, the UK, Malaysia and Finland, which won the literature prize. This explored “the sensations people feel when they repeat a single word many, many, many, many, many, many, many times”, while the communication prize was landed by scientists who have researched the talents of people who are expert at speaking backwards, which include carrying out neuroimaging analyses.
