Will alcohol increase? A person’s foreign language fluency? Does West African lizard have the preferred pizza filling? Can painting cows with zebra stripes help fight off biting flies? These and other unusual research questions announced the 2025 recipient of the 2025 IG Nobel Prize, announced tonight at a virtual ceremony. Yes, it’s that time of year, a fusion of serious and stupid science.
IG Nobels was founded in 1991 A kind imitation Nobel Prize; they respect the achievement of “firstly making people laugh and then making them think.” There is no doubt that the award ceremony for camping has miniature operas, science demonstrations and 24/7 speeches, and experts must explain their work twice: once 24 seconds, and the second time in just seven words.
The limit for acceptance speeches is 60 seconds. As the motto suggests, research at first glance may seem ridiculous, but that doesn’t mean it has no scientific merits. The winners will also have free public talks within the weeks following the ceremony and will be posted on the Impossible Research website.
Without further ado, this is the winner of the 2025 IG Nobel Prize.
biology
Photo: Tomoki Kojima et al., 2019
Quote: tomoki kojima, kazato oishi, Yasushi Matsubara, Yuki Uchiyama, Yoshihiko Fukushima, Naoto Aoki, Sato, Tatsuaki Masuda, Junichi ueda, Hiroyuki Hiroyuki Hirooka and Katsutoshi Kino, Katsutoshi Kino, Hiroyuki Kino, Kinokino Kino, Kino Kino, For the experiment To see if cows drawn with zebra-like stripes can avoid being bitten by flies.
Any dairy farmer can tell you that biting flies is a plague scourge on herds, which is why people often see cows raising their heads, stepping on their feet, shaking their tails and twitching their skin, which is to eliminate those annoying creatures. The same is true for economic costs, as it causes cattle to graz and feed less, lie for a shorter time, and then start to build up, thereby increasing the harm of heat stress and risk to the animals. This results in less milk production for cows and less beef production for raised cows.
Do you know who won’t be bothered by biting flies? zebra. Scientists have long debated the function of zebras’ unique black and white striped patterns. Is it a disguise? Confusing potential predators? Or to fight off those annoying flies? Tomoki Kojima et al. It was decided to put the latter hypothesis in the test, painting zebra stripes of six pregnant Japanese black cows at the AICHI Agricultural Research Center in Japan. They used water paint that was washed after a few days, so the cattle could take turns into three groups: zebra stripes, just black stripes or no stripes (as a control).
