Japanese researchers who proved that drawing zebra-like stripes on dairy cows can repel flies have won the Ig Nobel Prize in biology. It is not Nobel season yet. Before that, the knockoff Nobel with "Ig" attached was announced.
Ig is an abbreviation for the English phrase "Improbable Genuine." The Harvard University magazine Annals of Improbable Research (AIR) awards the Ig Nobel Prize every year to people who have conducted offbeat studies.
AIR held the 35th Ig Nobel Prize ceremony on the 18th (local time) and announced winners in 10 categories. This year's ceremony theme was digestion.
The Japanese team painted white stripes with water-soluble lacquer on black cows to create a zebra pattern. These cows were bitten by flies up to 50% less often than cows painted with black stripes or cows left unpainted.
The researchers said, "This striping treatment can replace conventional insecticides and benefits animal welfare, human health, and the environment."
Kojima Tomoki of Japan's National Agriculture and Food Research Organization, who led the team, said, "When we were experimenting, I really wanted to win the Ig Nobel Prize," sharing his acceptance remarks. He appeared onstage in striped attire. Colleagues also staged a performance by surrounding him with paper fly models.
Researchers from Nigeria, Togo, Italy, and France studied which kinds of pizza lizards prefer and won the nutrition prize. In pediatrics, a U.S. team that examined what breastfed babies experience when their mothers eat garlic won the award.
Though a scientific awards program, it also drew praise for contributions to peace and literature. The late U.S. scientist William Bean, who meticulously recorded fingernail growth rates over 35 years, won the literature prize. German researchers Fritz Renner and Jessica Werthmann received the peace prize for a study suggesting alcohol can help improve foreign language ability.
A U.S.-Israeli team that studied the flight abilities of bats after drinking alcohol (aviation prize), an Indian team that researched how smelly shoes affect shoe-cabinet use (engineering prize), and a European team that analyzed why pasta sauce clumps (physics prize) were among those honored.
Marc Abrahams, host of the Ig Nobel Prize ceremony and editor of AIR, said in an email interview with The Associated Press, "All great discoveries at first seem ridiculous and foolish," adding, "At the moment of first encounter, nobody really knows what they are, so the Ig Nobel Prizes celebrate all such discoveries."
References
Physics prize
Physics of Fluids (2025), DOI: https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0255841
Nutrition prize
African Journal of Ecology (2023), DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/aje.13100
Engineering prize
Design Science and Innovation (2021), DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-2229-8_33
Psychology prize
Intelligence (2021), DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2021.101595
Biology prize
PLOS One (2019), DOI: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0223447
Peace prize
Journal of Psychopharmacology (2017), DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0269881117735687
Chemistry prize
Journal of Diabetes Science and Technology (2016), DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/193229681562672
Aviation prize
Behavioural Processes (2010), DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.beproc.2010.02.006
Pediatrics prize
Pediatrics (1991), DOI: https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.88.4.737
Literature prize
JAMA Internal Medicine (1980), DOI: https://doi.org/10.1001/archinte.1980.00330130075019