Painting cows with zebra-like stripes may help reduce fly bites — at least that’s what a Japanese research team found, earning them an Ig Nobel prize for comical scientific achievement.
Tomoki Kojima and his team spray-painted Japanese beef cows with white stripes and discovered the animals attracted fewer flies and seemed less disturbed. “When I did this experiment, I hoped that I would win the Ig Nobel. It's my dream. Unbelievable. Just unbelievable,” Kojima said while appearing on stage in stripes, alongside colleagues waving cardboard flies.
Despite the quirky success, Kojima admitted the method might be difficult to apply on a large scale.
The Ig Nobel prizes, now in their 35th year, are organized by the Annals of Improbable Research, a digital magazine that celebrates studies that “make people laugh, then think.” The awards are presented weeks before the Nobel Prizes are announced, with traditions like paper airplanes thrown at the stage and mini-operas performed.
This year’s winners were honored in 10 categories. They included a European team that found alcohol can sometimes improve foreign language speaking ability, a researcher who tracked fingernail growth for decades, and an international group that studied whether feeding alcohol to bats impaired their flying.
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Other unusual studies recognized:
Lizards’ preference for pizza, researched by teams in Africa and Europe.
The effect of foul-smelling shoes on the experience of using a shoe rack, explored by Indian scientists.
Whether eating Teflon could increase food volume, investigated by US and Israeli researchers.
The physics of pasta sauce, examined by European scientists — complete with a pasta-themed skit at the awards.
Marc Abrahams, master of ceremonies and editor of the magazine, said in an email interview: “Every great discovery ever, at first glance, seemed screwy and laughable. The same is true of every worthless discovery. The Ig Nobel Prizes celebrate ALL these discoveries, because at the very first glance, who really knows?”
The ceremony, held at Boston University, also featured “24-second lectures” where scientists summarized their research quickly — ranging from ice cream tasting to smartphone use on the toilet. Nobel laureates, including Esther Duflo, read acceptance speeches on behalf of absent winners.
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For Colombian researcher Francisco Sanchez, whose team studied drunken bats, the recognition was both humorous and meaningful. “It’s a great honor for us,” he said. “You can see that scientists are not really square and super serious and can have some fun while showing interesting science.”
Source: Agency