Teflon Diet, Garlic Milk, and Cow-Zebras Among the Craziest Scientific Discoveries

For decades, doctors, scientists, and public health experts have been trying to find a solution to the global obesity crisis. A glimmer of hope has emerged with medications, but now there is a new radical idea awarded the Nobel Prize for obesity, i.e., weight loss. Eat Teflon!

Inspired by zero-calorie drinks, researchers have suggested that the food industry add polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) powder to products so that consumers feel full sooner, while this substance, they say, would ‘slip out’ of the body ‘unnoticed.’

This research team is just one of ten awarded at this year’s Ig Nobel Prize ceremony. This recognition honors scientific research that first makes people laugh and then makes them think. Unlike the ‘real’ Nobel Prizes, which will be awarded in Sweden and Norway in October and December, the Ig Nobel comes with paper airplanes and a lot of humor. The Ig Nobel was initiated by the American scientific humor magazine Annals of Improbable Research (AIR), and the ceremony has been held in Boston since its inception.

At the ceremony held at Boston University, the winners were awarded by actual Nobel laureates, and the audience showered them with paper airplanes as a reward.

Among the laureates are researchers who demonstrated that moderate amounts of alcohol improve the ability to speak a foreign language, that cows painted like zebras have fewer problems with insect bites, and that people become more narcissistic when told they are smarter than average, even when that is not true. Another award went to a doctor who diligently measured the growth of his own nails for 35 years.

–I feel honored – said Dr. Rotem Naftalovich from Rutgers University in New Jersey, whose ‘Teflon diet’ earned him the chemistry award. He developed the idea in a conversation with his brother David, and in the journal Obesity Technology, they proposed that PTFE could make up to a quarter of the volume of food. Naftalovich even made and ate Teflon chocolate bars, but the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) remained cold to this proposal.

–I think they didn’t even want to consider it because it sounded too crazy – he admitted.

The Peace Prize went to a German-Dutch-British team that proved a shot of vodka improves the ability to speak foreign languages.

–A small sip increased confidence, without the words completely falling apart – said Dr. Fritz Renner from the University of Freiburg.

However, the effect was not dramatic.

–It didn’t mean that people suddenly became perfect speakers of Dutch after a drink – added Prof. Matt Field from the University of Sheffield.

The aviation award, on the other hand, went to researchers who gave Egyptian fruit bats ethanol. Their flight became unstable, and echolocation was impaired, similar to how human speech slows down and becomes slurred under the influence of alcohol.

Garlic for Babies

Food also dominated the awards this year. The pediatric award went to researchers who proved that babies suck longer when their mothers eat garlic. Italian physicists were awarded for explaining the phase transition in cacio e pepe pasta, which causes unpleasant clumping. The nutrition award went to a team that discovered that lizards in Togo have a distinct preference for ‘four cheese’ pizza.

Indian researchers received the engineering award for constructing a shoe rack that neutralizes unpleasant odors using a UV lamp that kills bacteria in a cardboard box within minutes, although it also burns the sneakers. The psychological award went to a study that showed that when people are told they have above-average intelligence, they truly believe it and start to boast.

The biological award was won by Dr. Tomoki Kojima from the Japanese National Agricultural and Food Research Organization, who proved that cows with painted black stripes indeed have fewer problems with fly bites.

The literature award posthumously went to Dr. William Bean from the University of Iowa, who documented the growth of his own nails over 35 years.