The ceremony was opened with musical performances, including a team that performed with frog-based theremins, that set the tone for the evening.

Particular highlights included a Russian company that turns ammunition into trace amounts of diamond, Japanese engineers who developed a speech jamming device, and research into such critical topics as why coffee is so hard to carry without slopping and what makes a ponytail move the way it does.

Other honorees included the U.S. Government Accountability Office for its report on reports about reports that report recommended a further report; a Swedish researcher who helped explain why blonde people in a Swedish town were developing green hair (copper pipes); and a team whose research found that the Eiffel Tower looks smaller to people who are tilting their heads to the left.