Kane: So in trying to find the best fiction and the best nonfiction of a year it means doing a ton of research, which, thankfully, we're a bunch of good-natured nerds, and we love any excuse to research and any excuse to read more books. I mean, it was a great self-assigned homework project this year. [Laughs.] So some of the most important things that we were looking at for every book is it had to have an exceptional voice in writing and an incredible story.
I love investigating and debunking things that are trending on social media. As a former Scientific American intern, Youmshajekian has an affinity for reporting stories on consumer health that pique her personal curiosity: I think you ask better questions when you're in the shoes of your reader because you want the same questions answered. You want to get to the bottom of things.
Highlights of this year's Ig Nobel recipients include a nutrition prize for studying the preferred pizza toppings of rainbow lizards at a seaside resort in Togo (their favourite is four cheese), and a physics award for figuring out how to prepare the perfect cacio e pepe a pasta dish made with grated pecorino romano cheese and black pepper that is surprisingly hard to get right (see The 2025 Ig Nobel prizewinners in full').
Gary Stix notes that when he started at Scientific American in 1990, the magazine operated without the Internet as we know it today, emphasizing the radical evolution of science journalism.
