Scientists studying cockroach milk and nose-blowing win Ig Nobel prizes

Ten research teams were honoured on Thursday at a satirical science awards ceremony that was hosted outside the US for the first time due to travel concerns.

Researchers who studied milk from cockroaches and analysed soil health using underwear received Ig Nobel prizes celebrating unusual and imaginative contributions to science.

The awards organised by a digital magazine called the Annals of Improbable Research shifted to Europe after 35 years in the US over concerns about attendees being able to get visas.

At a convention centre in Zurich, Switzerland, research teams received a custom trophy resembling a cross between a mushroom and a human foot.

Among them were Matilda Brindle and Stuart West from the University of Oxford and the Florida Institute of Technology’s Catherine F. Talbot, who reconstructed the evolutionary history of kissing, and the late Dr Tokuji Unno who investigated the science of blowing one’s nose.

Another research team buried 1,000 pairs of underwear in more than 25 countries to study how critters in the soil helped them decompose.