Teflon Diet and Garlic Milk: Ig Nobel Prize Winners Announced

In 2025, the Ig Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to a Teflon diet, garlic milk, and zebra cows. Researchers who developed the idea of ​​adding powdered PTFE to food as a low-calorie filler to combat hunger were awarded the clown prize in chemistry.

For decades, scientists, doctors, and public health officials have struggled to solve the problem of obesity. Now, researchers have won an Ig Nobel Prize for a radical new approach: reducing people's calorie intake by feeding them Teflon, The Guardian reports.

The proposal was inspired by zero-calorie drinks and suggested that food manufacturers would add powdered polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) to their products in the hopes that it would satisfy people's hunger.

This team is among 10 winners of this year's Ig Nobel Prize, which is awarded for research that first makes people laugh and then makes them think, The Guardian notes. The award should not be confused with the far more prestigious and lucrative Nobel Prizes, which will be awarded in Scandinavia next month.

The latest winners were honored by actual Nobel laureates and showered with paper airplanes at a ceremony at Boston University on Thursday.

The researchers honored that evening found that:

* alcohol, at least in small doses, improves people's knowledge of foreign languages;

* cows disguised as zebras are less likely to suffer from insect bites;

* People become more narcissistic after being told they are smarter than most, even if they are not.

* Another prize went to a picky doctor who measured the growth of his nails for 35 years.

"I'm truly honored," said Dr. Rotem Naftalovich of Rutgers University in New Jersey, whose work on the Teflon diet was awarded the Chemistry Prize. After discussing the idea of ​​a low-calorie filler with his brother, David, they chose Teflon as their favorite substance.

In their argument for the anti-obesity technology, the researchers explained how powdered polytetrafluoroethylene could make up a quarter of our food supply. But while Naftalovich was making and eating chocolate bars containing Teflon, the US Food and Drug Administration was lukewarm about the idea.

“I don’t think they wanted to revisit it because it was such a dubious idea,” Natfalovich comments.

The Peace Prize was awarded to a team from Germany, Holland and Great Britain who demonstrated that a shot of vodka improves people's knowledge of a foreign language.

"A small sip seemed to give me a boost of confidence, without me even understanding the words," said Dr. Fritz Renner, a psychologist at the University of Freiburg. "But the improvement was minimal."

"It doesn't seem like people will start speaking perfect Dutch after just one glass," added Professor Matt Field, a psychologist at the University of Sheffield who worked on the study.

While alcohol may have improved communication with foreigners, flying on airplanes did not. The Aviation Prize was awarded to researchers who treated Egyptian bats with ethanol. The bats became slower and their echolocation was impaired, similar to how speech becomes slurred in drunk people. The team concluded that bats fed on fermented fruit may be "at higher risk of collisions with obstacles."

In 2025, food was a particular focus. A study on the influence of diet on the taste of breast milk won the Pediatrics Prize for showing that infants nursed longer after their mothers ate garlic. A team composed primarily of Italians won the Physics Prize for explaining the phase transition in cacio e pepe (cheese and pepper pasta) that causes unpleasant clumping. Another group of scientists found that, even when given a choice, rainbow lizards in Togo preferred the four-cheese pizza, earning them the Nutrition Prize.

Elsewhere, Indian researchers won an engineering prize for creating a shoe rack that neutralized the odor of stinky sneakers. The rack, essentially a cardboard box, contained an ultraviolet lamp that destroyed harmful bacteria in minutes. The sneakers also scorched.

The psychology prize was awarded to a study that found that people who were told they had above-average intelligence believed it and were more likely to boast.

Dr. Tomoki Kojima of Japan's National Agricultural and Food Research Organization won the prize in biology. His team demonstrated that cows suffer fewer fly bites when they are painted black. "I couldn't believe it," he said. "I thought it was a dream."

The Literature Prize was awarded posthumously to the late Dr. William Bean of the University of Iowa. In a series of papers, he documented the growth rate of his fingernails and toenails over a 35-year period. His son, Bennett, said the entire family was involved in the work.

"He was interested in the world, and we were part of it," his son, Bennett, told The Guardian. "He would have loved it, and he would have used it as an opportunity to write the perfect acceptance speech. He would have said, 'Finally, recognition!'"