Overview

• The Annals of Improbable Research presented the 35th awards at Boston University on Sept. 18, with Nobel laureates participating and a digestion-themed mini-opera.
• Biology winner Tomoki Kojima’s team showed zebra-striped paint cut fly bites on Japanese Black cattle, though the researchers cautioned that scaling the method across herds is challenging.
• The Nutrition and Aviation prizes highlighted animals’ appetites and impairments as Togo’s rainbow lizards preferred four-cheese pizza and Egyptian fruit bats flew slower with altered echolocation after ingesting alcohol.
• Human-focused honors included Pediatrics research finding babies nurse longer when milk smells of garlic, Psychology work showing bogus high-IQ feedback boosts temporary narcissism, and Peace findings that a small dose of alcohol can improve foreign-language pronunciation.
• Chemistry recognized PTFE as a proposed nondigestible additive that earned a patent but lacks U.S. FDA approval for food use, while Physics mapped cacio e pepe’s clumping phases in Physics of Fluids; the ceremony recording will post on AIR’s YouTube and air on NPR’s Science Friday on Nov. 28.