Swiss scientist soils underpants, wins silly science prize
Research that won Ig Nobel Prize had 1,000 citizen scientists bury underwear across Switzerland
Franz Bender convinced a thousand people to soil their underwear — and he wasn’t asking for bowel movements.
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he → soil → movements
In 2021, the Swiss soil ecologist and his team recruited 1,000 citizen scientists to bury and dig up underwear around Switzerland in an effort to better understand soil and soil health.
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ecologist → recruit → health
In September, the research won an Ig Nobel Prize, which is awarded annually for research that makes people laugh and then think.
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people → win → research
The effort yielded some surprising results for the researchers — and the participants when they unearthed their underwear, which the hungry underground microbes had often consumed down to almost nothing.
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microbes → yield → nothing
“I think this moment when people dig out the underwear and look at it, it was really a revealing moment for many,” Bender, who works at the Agroscope agricultural research centre in Zurich, told Quirks & Quarks host Bob McDonald.
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who → think → McDonald
“It’s fascinating to see that, yeah, soil is really alive, and there’s a lot of life underground that we usually don’t think about.”
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we → ’ → that
The research was published in Plants People Planet in Aug. 2026.
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research → publish → Aug.
But Bender isn’t the first person to put underwear underground.
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Bender → put → underwear
In fact, the effort has roots in Canada.
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effort → have → Canada
The Innovative Farmers Association of Ontario started burying underwear in Ontario fields around 2015, farmer Alan Kruszel said.
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Kruszel → start → 2015
People had been burying cotton strips called assays for decades, but the farmers decided underwear was more fun.
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underwear → bury → decades
It was so much fun, in fact, that Kruszel suggested taking it national.
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Kruszel → suggest → it
” campaign was born.
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campaign → bear → ?
“It was just a marvelous hit,” Kruszel, a board member with the Soil Conservation Council of Canada, told Quirks & Quarks.
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Kruszel → tell → Quirks
“It was to get people to think about soil as a living, breathing ecosystem, and to raise awareness of the importance about soil and soil health.”
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people → get → health
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And it wasn’t just farmers and soil researchers who wanted to put what normally goes under our pants into the earth underneath our feet.
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what → say → feet
“I buried undies with all kinds of different people.
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I → bury → people
We did it with senators, we did it with deans of universities, school kids, the Canadian Ag Museum in Ottawa did it with us,” Kruszel said.
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Kruszel → do → us
“Garden clubs … you have no idea how much fun a group of little old ladies had with holding up soiled undies.”
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group → have → undies
A colleague of Bender's took notice, and suggested trying it in Switzerland.
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colleague → take → Switzerland
They hosted a small event where families buried underwear in the soil.
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families → host → soil
“The Swiss media just loved it.
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media → love → it
It was all over the place in the media,” Bender said.
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Bender → say → media
“Then another collaborator approached us [and said] ‘Hey, why don’t we start a citizen science project out of this and do something really big with it?’”
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we → approach → it
Bender and his research team needed 1,000 citizen scientists, but they got around 1,400 applications, so they had to select for geographically balanced distribution around Switzerland.
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they → need → Switzerland
Bender and his team shipped the volunteers two pairs of size small organic, cotton underwear, 12 teabags for comparison with the underwear, and some detailed instructions.
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Bender → ship → underwear
“So we drew clear pictures how they should be inserted in the soil, to which depth, and where the teabags should be placed,” Bender said.
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Bender → draw → soil
The team also developed a smartphone app where participants could add additional information, such as pictures and geographical data, and answer questions about the land, such as whether it's fertilized or whether pesticides were used.
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pesticides → develop → land
The citizen scientists dug up one pair of underwear and one set of teabags out after four weeks, and the second set of underwear and the rest of the teabags after eight weeks.
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scientists → dig → weeks
Hungry soil consumes underwear
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soil → consume → underwear
Underwear doesn’t sound like an appetizing meal, but for the microbes and other life in fertile, biologically active soil, it was delicious.
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it → sound → soil
Uncovered from other kinds of soil, though, the uncovered underwear looked almost wearable.
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underwear → uncover → soil
The underwear was completely eaten,” Bender said.
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Bender → eat → ?
“And in other cases, the underwear still looked like almost new.”
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underwear → look → cases
Generally, the underwear saw the greatest decomposition in private gardens and flowerbeds, and the least decomposition in lawns.
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underwear → see → lawns
Bender explained that gardens often have a lot of compost and potentially also irrigation, which create soil conditions that have a lot of nutrients, organic matter and moisture.
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that → explain → nutrients
This promotes soil biological activity, which — in turn — leads to mangled underwear.
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which → promote → underwear
Lawns, in contrast, don’t have much species diversity above ground, and also get cut often.
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Lawns → have → ground
The soil system under lawns therefore isn’t nearly as alive and active as it is in gardens, and the result is that some underwear buried under lawns looks more dirty than consumed.
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underwear → bury → lawns
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There were some unexpected results, though.
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study → support → decades
…and 17 more, not listed.
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