Overview

• Ten tongue‑in‑cheek prizes were awarded Sept. 18 at Boston University by the Annals of Improbable Research under a loose theme of digestion, with Nobel laureates participating in the presentations.
• Biology honorees showed that painting black cattle with white, zebra‑like stripes sharply reduced biting‑fly landings, suggesting a low‑cost alternative to insecticides that some farmers have already trialed.
• The Aviation prize recognized research on Egyptian fruit bats, finding that alcohol consumption slowed flight and altered echolocation in a way comparable to human speech impairment.
• Chemistry winners explored polytetrafluoroethylene (Teflon) as a nondigestible filler that produced weight loss in rats, securing a patent but abandoning human use after the FDA declined to approve it as a food additive.
• Other highlights included Nutrition research reporting rainbow lizards in Togo preferred four‑cheese pizza and a Paediatrics study showing babies nursed longer when breast milk smelled of garlic.