The Ig Nobel committee relocated its entire ceremony into the Zurich municipal sewer system on Thursday, citing visa concerns and a newfound appreciation for the city's underground infrastructure. Honorees waded through knee-deep runoff to reach a flooded junction chamber, where a single podium had been bolted to a concrete wall above a grate.
«We realized the only way to guarantee attendance was to make the venue as inaccessible as possible,» said Dr. Helena Vogt, the ceremony's chief organizer, gesturing at a colony of cockroaches that had taken up residence near the microphone. «The visa officers can't follow you here, and neither can the audience.» The crowd, consisting of three sanitation workers and a stray cat, threw paper airplanes that promptly disintegrated in the damp air.
This year's honorees included a team that measured the nutritional value of cockroach milk by milking 2,000 insects into a thimble, and another that mapped the evolutionary history of kissing by observing 500 couples through a two-way mirror. Each winner received a trophy resembling a cross between a mushroom and a human foot, which several attempted to use as a floatation device when the tunnel flooded during the awards.
«Next year we're considering the city's incinerator,» Vogt added, as a rat swam past the podium. «The heat will keep the speeches short.» The ceremony concluded with a group photo, taken by a diver, that will be displayed in the sewer's main pumping station.