Overview
- The eight-member group from Padua, Barcelona, Austria and the Max Planck Institute in Dresden applied fluid dynamics and published their results in Physics of Fluids.
- Experiments identified starch concentration as the key to a stable, lump-free sauce, with about 2–3% relative to the cheese preventing the “mozzarella phase.”
- The 35th ceremony took place in Boston under the Annals of Improbable Research, which honors studies that first amuse then provoke thought.
- Other Italian collaborators were recognized on teams studying how alcohol affects bat flight and what pizzas attract Togo’s rainbow lizards.
- Additional prizes included a posthumous literature award to physician William B. Bean for 35 years of thumbnail measurements and recognition of European research showing alcohol can sometimes aid foreign-language speech.