CAMBRIDGE , MASSACHUSETTS — The 2021 Ig Nobel awards, rewarding ‘research that first makes people laugh and then makes them think,’ has seen 10 Ig Nobel prizes handed out, including one to a study suggesting men evolved beards to protect their faces in fist fights.
According to The Guardian, other notable winners were a study that emphasised the benefits of transporting rhinoceroses upside down, and a study that detailed the array of bacteria living on chewing gum stuck to pavements.
The Ig Nobel for chemistry went to a group who studied the smells released by cinema audiences and found that they change depending on the type of movie, with isoprene levels varying massively during scary movies.