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New Delhi: It's weird and unconventional but smart.
International recognition have come to two Indian researchers for their quirky study: smelly shoes and their impact on the user experience of shoe racks. The pair -- Vikash Kumar and Sarthak Mittal -- was awarded the engineering prize at the 35th Ig Nobel Awards, held on Thursday night at Boston University.
The award function is organised every year. It is held by the science humour magazine Annals of Improbable Research. The Ig Nobel Prizes honour the quirky, curious, and often amusing aspects of scientific research. It comes just weeks before the announcement of the real Nobel Prizes.
Vikash Kumar, an assistant professor at Shiv Nadar University, and his student researcher Sarthak Mittal, now at Newgen Software, found out “how foul-smelling shoes affect the good experience of using a shoe-rack”. Their research paper was titled “Smelly Shoes — An Opportunity for Shoe Rack Re-Design”. It stood out not just for its subject but also for its unconventional methodology.
The idea of their invention struck on a college campus when Mittal spotted shoes piling up outside hostel rooms. Probing further, the duo discovered the real cause: odour, not lack of space. Drawing on design, microbiology, and engineering, they made racks fitted with UV lamps that eliminate bacteria which cause the foul smell in the shoes. The racks sanitised shoes using UV lamps, just like water purifiers disinfect water.
Accepting the award, the duo underlined that conventional sensors used to detect odour levels proved unreliable. “Sensors to detect smell levels failed us, so we recruited brave human noses,” they added.
The study found out how unpleasant footwear smells affect the perception and usability of shared storage areas, like shoe racks in homes and public spaces. The researchers recommended that addressing such sensory discomfort in daily environments could bring about improved design and hygiene practices.
Science humour magazine Annals of Improbable Research started the Ig Nobels back in 1991. It celebrates achievements that “make people laugh, then make them think”. The winners are chosen for their quirky and innovative inventions in a whimsical ceremony featuring paper airplanes, mini-operas, and real Nobel laureates presenting the awards.
India's track record at the awards is quite remarkable. Bengaluru-based neuroscientists once were awarded for studying nose picking, while another Indian won it for calculating the surface area of elephants with equations.
The 2025 ceremony once again reflected the unusual yet thought-provoking scientific studies. Among them were:
A team of Japanese researchers received the Ig Nobel biology prize for showing that painting zebra stripes on cows reduces the likelihood of fly bites.
Italian scientists probed how rainbow lizards developed a taste for pizza. When rainbow lizards steal pizza from resorts in Togo, four cheeses is their preferred topping, according to the research which won the nutrition prize.
A Dutch-German-UK team carried out a research and claimed that drinking alcohol can help a person speak a foreign language more clearly -- within reason. The team won the peace prize. The scientists said in a statement read at the ceremony that the idea struck them while drinking at a bar during an international conference, where they noticed that “drunken Germans usually pronounce Dutch better than sober Germans”.
The physics prize was awarded to European researchers for "discoveries about the physics of pasta sauce" -- in particular, how to avoid clumpiness while making the iconic Italian dish cacio e pepe.
The aviation prize was given to researchers who found that alcohol in fermented fruit hinders bats’ ability to fly and use echolocation for navigation.
The late US researcher William B. Bean won the literature prize for “persistently” tracking and analysing the growth of his fingernails over a period of 35 years.
A Polish-Canadian-Australian team was awarded the psychology prize for exploring what happens when you tell a narcissist they are intelligent.
A US duo won the paediatrics prize for studying what a nursing baby experiences when its mother eats garlic.
