Sat Sep 20 04:50:00 UTC 2025: Here’s a summary and rewrite of the text as a news article, from an Indian perspective:
**Summary:**
The annual Ig Nobel Prizes, which celebrate unusual and humorous scientific research, were awarded in a virtual ceremony. The prizes recognize studies that “make people laugh, and then make them think,” highlighting that even whimsical research can explore important scientific questions. This year’s awards included a study by two Indian researchers on the impact of smelly shoes on shoe rack usage, alongside studies about fingernail growth, narcissism, pizza-eating lizards, garlic and breast milk, zebra stripes on cows to repel flies, Teflon ingestion, foreign language proficiency while drinking alcohol, and more.
**News Article:**
**The View From India: Smelly Shoes and Laughing Cows Highlight Ig Nobel’s Unique Charm**
**CHENNAI, September 20, 2025** – The Ig Nobel Prizes, the annual celebration of scientific research that first tickles your funny bone before engaging your mind, were awarded in a virtual ceremony broadcast from Harvard University. Once again, researchers from around the globe were recognized for studies that are both humorous and surprisingly insightful.
This year, India made a splash with Vikash Kumar and Sarthak Mittal winning the engineering design prize “for analyzing, from an engineering design perspective, how foul-smelling shoes affect the good experience of using a shoe-rack.” This win marks the 22nd Ig Nobel awarded to Indian research or researchers, continuing India’s strong presence in this unique corner of the scientific world.
“It’s great to see Indian researchers contributing to science in such creative and unusual ways,” says Dr. Anjali Verma, a researcher at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. “The Ig Nobel Prizes remind us that science doesn’t always have to be serious and can be a source of amusement and inspiration.”
Other intriguing studies recognized this year included an analysis of fingernail growth over 35 years, research on how telling narcissists they are intelligent affects them, the culinary habits of pizza-loving lizards, the effects of garlic consumption on breast milk and infant behavior, and whether painting zebra stripes on cows reduces fly bites. One particularly interesting study from Japan demonstrated that striped cows indeed attracted fewer pests.
The Ig Nobel Prizes, founded in 1991, have become a respected annual tradition, demonstrating that even seemingly frivolous research can shed light on essential issues in psychology, biology, and other scientific domains. India also notably won the Peace Prize in 2020, which it shared with Pakistan, which highlights the quirky, global nature of the awards.
The Ig Nobel Prizes aren’t just about laughs, but the importance of finding the humor and beauty in the world around us through innovative research that makes us think.
First Piper 