ZURICH - The late Japanese researcher Tokuji Unno won this year's Ig Nobel Prize in medicine on Thursday for his study on how to blow one's nose.
The achievement, recognized at a ceremony in Zurich, marks the 20th consecutive year in which at least one Japanese national has been among the winners selected by the Annals of Improbable Research, a science humor magazine that has given out the annual awards since 1991, parodying the prestigious Nobel prizes.
Miki Takahara, an Asahikawa Medical University professor who accepted the medicine prize on behalf of Unno, told reporters, "He was strict and sincere about research. I think he would be very happy, too."
Unno, a professor emeritus at the university who published the work in 1977 and died in 2022 at 89, measured airflow and speed during nose-blowing and concluded it works best to blow each nostril separately.
Among other award recipients was an international team that won the chemistry prize for research that found the milk crystals of a type of cockroach contain over three times the energy of cow's milk by weight.
The Ig Nobel Prizes organizers moved the ceremony from the United States to Europe this year amid tighter U.S. visa issuance under President Donald Trump's administration.
