Since 1991 the Nobel-parody prizes have sought to highlight annually ten “achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think”. The gala award ceremony is an exercise in orchestrated irreverence—attendees are encouraged to fly paper aeroplanes throughout—and the prizes tend to skip the sublime and go right for the ridiculous. This year’s psychology prize went to researchers who asked 1,000 liars how often they lie, and then decided whether to believe them. The economics prize was given to a team “for assessing the perceived personalities of rocks, from a sales and marketing perspective”. It is, by design, a bit of fun, but it doesn’t stop there. The medicine prize went to a team that showed an itch on one’s left side can be relieved by looking in a mirror and scratching on the right. Sure, you laugh. But then you think: there’s something more to that.