Say hello to the IG Noble 2025 award winners

Is it enhancing alcohol? Foreign language fluency? Does lizards contain West Africa a favorite pizza? Can cows paint with zebra lines help to repel flies? These and other research questions were honored tonight at a virtual ceremony to announce their receivers for the year 2025 for the annual IG Noble Awards. Yes, it is time of the year again, when it is close and ridiculous – to science.

Founded in 1991, Ig Nobels Good satirical simulation Nobel Awards. They honor “the achievements that make people laugh first and then make them think.” Unusual CAMPY Awards is characterized by miniature opera, scientific experimental shows, and lectures around the clock throughout the week, where experts must explain their work twice: once in 24 seconds and the second in seven words only.

Acceptance sermons are limited to 60 seconds. As the slogan suggests, the research that is honored may seem to be ridiculous at first glance, but this does not mean that it is devoid of scientific merit. In the weeks following the ceremony, the winners will also hold free public talks, which will be published on the unbearable research site.

Without more confusion, here are the 2025 IG Nobel Awards.

biology

Photo: Tomoki Kojima and others, 2019

quote: Tomoki Kojima, Kazato Oishi, Yasushi Matsubara, Yuki Uchiyama, Yoshihiko Fukushima, NAOTO AOKI, Saier Sato, Tatsuaki Masuda, Junichi Ueda, Hiroyuki Hirooka, Katsutoshi Kino, For their experiences To see if the cows coated with the brutal sector can avoid being exposed to flies.

Any dairy farmer can tell you that strong flies is the scourge of illusion of herds of cattle, and for this reason one often sees cows to flush their heads, seal their feet, wear their tails, and imagine his skin – trying to continuously get rid of bad organisms. There is also an economic cost because it causes livestock grazing and feeding them less, sliding for shorter times, and starts assembling together, which increases heat stress and risks animal injury. This leads to a decrease in milk in dairy cows and the least returns of beef from nutrition livestock.

You know who does not bother you with a lot of flies? Lestern ass. Scientists have long discussed the function of a distinctive white and white planning style for the zebra. Is it camouflage? Confusion of potential predators? Or is it to repel those annoying flies? Tomoki Kojima and others. She decided to put the last hypothesis on the test, and draw the zebra lines on six Japanese cows of pregnant women at the Aishi Agriculture Research Center, Japan. They have used the lacquers tools that are carried by the washed water after a few days, so cows can be rotated in three different groups: zebras, black lines, or no lines (as a control element).