Coincident with the prestigious Nobel Prizes awarded each year are their parody counterparts: the Ig Nobel Prizes (a play on the words “ignoble” and “Nobel”). The honors are bestowed to individuals who demonstrate notable achievements that “first make people laugh, and then make them think.” The awards ceremonies take place each October at the Sanders Theater of Harvard University and include genuine Nobel Laureates presenting the awards.

This year’s Ig Nobel Prize in Medicine goes to Donald L. Unger of Thousand Oaks, California, for investigating whether knuckle cracking causes arthritis. The premise of his research, published in Arthritis & Rheumatism, was to test the validity of admonitions from “renowned authorities” (i.e., his mother, several aunts, and mother-in-law) that cracking his knuckles would lead to arthritis. Over the course of 50 years, Unger cracked the knuckles of his left hand at least twice daily, while sparing his right hand to serve as a control. At the end of the 50-year observation period, Unger did not detect any difference between both hands. He concluded that “there is no apparent relationship between knuckle cracking and the subsequent development of arthritis of the fingers.”

In light of the present evidence, Unger now questions whether other “parental beliefs”, such as the importance of eating spinach, are similarly flawed.