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Watch LIVE @ 5:40 p.m. ET: 2017 Ig Nobel Awards

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Ready for some science that will make you laugh, and then make you think? The 27th annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony is tonight, and you can watch it live, beginning at 5:40 p.m. ET. Held at Harvard University in Boston, the Ig Nobels honor unconventional achievements in science and other areas, with prizes awarded by Nobel Laureates.

Kicking off the ceremony will be a mini-concert by the Boston Typewriter Orchestra, performed entirely on typewriters. Master of Ceremonies Marc Abrahams, editor of the Annals of Improbable Research, presides over the event, which will include presentation of the Ig Nobel Prizes by Nobel laureates such as Eric Maskin (winner of the 2007 Nobel Prize in Economics), Roy Glauber (winner of the 2005 Nobel Prize in Physics), and Oliver Hart (winner of the 2016 Nobel Prize in Economics).

Also taking place onstage will be a series of 24-second lectures on topics such as bots, sponges, biomedical research and sheep-dragging. The evening culminates in a performance of "The Incompetence Opera," a mini-opera with a libretto written by Marc Abrahams, in which a bartender and a psychologist commiserate about how promotions and opportunities seem to happen the most to those who deserve it the least.

Want more? Get acquainted with previous Ig Nobel winners and watch highlights of past ceremonies in the archives of the Annals of Improbable Research website.

Original article on Live Science.

Mindy Weisberger
Mindy Weisberger
Live Science Contributor

Mindy Weisberger is an editor at Scholastic and a former Live Science channel editor and senior writer. She has reported on general science, covering climate change, paleontology, biology and space. Mindy studied film at Columbia University; prior to Live Science she produced, wrote and directed media for the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Her videos about dinosaurs, astrophysics, biodiversity and evolution appear in museums and science centers worldwide, earning awards such as the CINE Golden Eagle and the Communicator Award of Excellence. Her writing has also appeared in Scientific American, The Washington Post and How It Works Magazine.  Her book "Rise of the Zombie Bugs: The Surprising Science of Parasitic Mind Control" will be published in spring 2025 by Johns Hopkins University Press.