THE IG NOBEL PRIZES - 2025 

Established in 1991, the Ig Nobel Prizes are a good-natured parody of the Nobel Prizes. The prizes celebrate achievements in the Nobel fields by recognized experts using scientific methods, but the subjects seem so silly - even preposterous - at first look that you don't think they can be taken seriously . But the Ig Nobel motto - "Laugh first, then think" - makes us realize that these inquiries can indeed have scientific and humanitarian merit. 

A good example of this is the winner of the 2025 Ig Nobel Prize in Biology:  

Tomoki Kojima and others for their experiments to learn whether cows painted with zebra-like striping can avoid being bitten by flies.

Painting zebra stripes on cows may seem ridiculous, but biting flies are a scourge for cattle herds - distressing the animals and affecting both dairy and meat production. The zebra is not bothered by biting flies, so an experiment into whether the striping prevents this is not silly at all.

But let's be fair. They do sound ridiculous. 

Chemistry 

Rofem Naftolovich and others for experiments to test whether eating Teflon [yes, the stuff they use on non-stick cookware] is a good way to increase food volume and hence satiety without increasing calorie content. 

 

Physics 

Giacomo Bartolucci and others for discoveries about the physics of pasta sauce, especially the phase transition that can lead to clumping, which can be a cause of unpleasantness. 

 

Engineering Design

Vikash Kumar and Sarthak Mittal for analyzing, from an engineering design perspective, "how foul-smelling shoes affects the good experience of using a shoe-rack"

 

Aviation

Francisco Sanchez and others for studying whether ingesting alcohol can impair bats' ability to fly and also their ability to echolocate 

 

Psychology

Marcin Zajenkowski and Gilles Gignac for investigating what happens when you tell narcissists - or anyone else - that they are intelligent

 

Nutrition

Daniele Dendi and others for studying the extent to which a certain kind of lizard chooses to eat certain kinds of pizza

 

Pediatrics

Julie Mennella and Gary Beauchamp for studying what a nursing baby experiences when the baby's mother eats garlic 

 

Literature

The late Dr. William B. Bean for persistently recording and analyzing the rate of growth of one of his fingernails over a period of 35 years

If you're surprised to see a study on fingernail growth rates under the Literature category, it will all make sense once you read the flowery prose stylings of Dr. Bean. Ex: "The nail provides a slowly moving keratin kymograph that measures age on the inexorable abscissa of time."