I always look forward to this time of year, even more so sometimes than the actual Nobel Prizes, because I want to see what new insights can be derived from the weird science that, as they say, first makes you laugh, then think. That's right, now we are at the 33rd First Annual Ig Nobel Prizes! Just like last year and the few years before, the Ig Nobel ceremony was conducted virtually while the pandemic is still not quelled to an extent that allowed the organizers (men and women of science, see?) to be comfortable enough to have hundreds of people packed into a raucous arena, so the paper airplane tosses and everything else was pre-taped and released online. This did not take away from the absurdity and the few laugh-out-loud moments that I (and probably hundreds of thousands of science enthusiasts tuning in from around the globe) had during the 90-minute event. I do wonder if some of these might supplant my personal top ten, but maybe not just yet. Now let's see what happened!

Most of the United States is feeling the cold of winter at the moment, but it's never too early to start planning your compost setup. As you all may guess, I'm a big proponent of sustainable living, even in the laboratory, and the habits we develop could also lead to a healthier yard and surrounding natural landscape. As a teacher in Chicago, I developed an engineering project with my students to turn a part of our school courtyard into a vegetable garden, and we incorporated composting into it. It was a very cost-effective project as the students would bring in their unused vegetable scraps, recycled papers, and egg shells to school and develop their own compost mixes from which we would derive fertilizing materials for corn and squash. We ended up growing quite a bit of corn and not much else, but I anticipate that was because of the suboptimal lighting due to our building blocking the bulk of the sun's rays most of the day. But imagine what you could do with a little planning and a bit more budget than a public school (but that's a story for another day)!