Does painting cows with stripes prevent fly bites? Researchers who studied this wins Ig Nobel prize

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FILE - Audience members launch paper airplanes during a performance at the Ig Nobel Prize ceremony, in Cambridge, Mass., Thursday, Sept. 17, 2015. The Ig Nobel prize is an award handed out by the Annals of Improbable Research magazine for silly sounding scientific discoveries that often have surprisingly practical applications. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa, File)

BOSTON – A team of researchers from Japan wondered if painting cows with zebra-like stripes would prevent flies from biting them. Another group from Africa and Europe pondered the types of pizza lizards preferred to eat.

Those researchers were honored Thursday in Boston with an Ig Nobel, the prize for comical scientific achievement.

“When I did this experiment, I hop