BOSTON — A team of Japanese researchers has discovered that painting cows with zebra-like stripes can reduce fly bites. This unconventional study, along with other humorous scientific inquiries, earned them an Ig Nobel Prize on Thursday in Boston. The Ig Nobel Prizes honor comical yet thought-provoking research, and winners receive a handmade model of a human stomach and a single hand wipe instead of a cash prize.

Tomoki Kojima, the lead researcher, expressed his excitement, saying, "When I did this experiment, I hoped that I would win the Ig Nobel. It's my dream. Unbelievable. Just unbelievable." Kojima and his team applied tape to Japanese beef cows and spray-painted them with white stripes. Their findings indicated that the striped cows attracted fewer flies and appeared less bothered by them. However, Kojima acknowledged that implementing this method on a larger scale could be challenging.

The ceremony recognized winners in ten categories, including a European group that found that drinking alcohol can sometimes enhance a person's ability to speak a foreign language. Another researcher was honored for studying fingernail growth over several decades.

Marc Abrahams, the master of ceremonies and editor of a magazine dedicated to unusual research, noted, "Every great discovery ever, at first glance seemed screwy and laughable. The same is true of every worthless discovery. The Ig Nobel Prizes celebrate ALL these discoveries, because at the very first glance, who really knows?"

The 35th annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony, organized by the Annals of Improbable Research, took place at Boston University. It traditionally occurs weeks before the Nobel Prizes are announced. The event began with the audience throwing paper airplanes at the stage. Some winners who could not attend had their speeches read by actual Nobel laureates, including Esther Duflo, who won a Nobel Prize for her work on global poverty alleviation.

The ceremony also featured a mini-opera about gastroenterologists and their patients, inspired by this year's theme of digestion. Performers sang about the challenges of treating stomach issues and the humorous gifts patients bring, such as pizza and chili dogs. Additionally, a segment called the 24-second lecture allowed top researchers to explain their work in just 24 seconds. Among them was Gus Rancatore, who humorously licked an ice cream cone while repeatedly saying "yum," and Trisha Pasricha, who discussed her research on smartphone use in the bathroom and its potential link to hemorrhoids.

To keep the event lively, a man dressed in a suit with a dress would interrupt any winner who spoke too long, shouting, "Please stop. I'm bored."

Other notable winners included a team from India that investigated whether foul-smelling shoes affected the experience of using a shoe rack, and researchers from the U.S. and Israel who examined the effects of eating Teflon on food volume. An international team also studied the impact of alcohol on bats' flying abilities. Francisco Sanchez, a researcher from Colombia, remarked, "It's a great honor for us. You can see that scientists are not really square and super serious and can have some fun while showing interesting science."

Sanchez's research revealed that bats do not prefer rotten fruit, which often contains higher alcohol levels. He noted, "When they were forced to eat it, their flying and echolocation suffered. They actually got drunk similar to what happens to us. When you take some ethanol, you move slower."