🥛 פרס המדע הכי מצחיק בעולם: החוקרים שגילו ש"חלב תיקנים" עתיר קלוריות במיוחד

There is a science prize like no other: the Ig Nobel Prize, given every year to research that makes people laugh first and think second. This year, on September 3, 2026, the yearly ceremony moved for the first time in 35 years, from Boston in the United States to Zurich, Switzerland, mostly because some international guests were having trouble getting visas. In a hall full of people throwing paper airplanes at the stage, a fun tradition at every ceremony, judges handed out ten unusual awards. One of them, the chemistry prize, went to an international team of scientists from Japan, the United States, and India who discovered something surprising about cockroaches. It turns out one species, the Pacific beetle cockroach, is one of the only insects in the world that gives birth to live babies instead of laying eggs, and the mother feeds them a milk-like liquid made inside her own body. Researchers studied tiny protein crystals from this "milk" using a powerful technique called X-ray crystallography, which uses X-rays to map out exactly how molecules are built. When they calculated the energy inside these crystals, the result surprised everyone: it was more than three times as calorie-packed as the same amount of cow's milk! The trophy itself looks like a mix between a mushroom and a human foot, matching the ceremony's whole spirit: celebrating research that sounds silly, but hides a real scientific discovery.