After a few glasses of sangria, it might feel like your conversational Spanish is suddenly fluent.
The same goes for your German after a stein of beer, or your French following a bottle of red.
Now, experts have revealed Dutch courage really does help – and that drinking alcohol actually improves our foreign language skills.
Researchers from the University of Bath asked 50 native German speakers who had recently learned Dutch to take part in a conversation after consuming either a low dose of alcohol or a non-alcoholic beverage.
The findings showed that participants who had consumed alcohol were rated as having better Dutch pronunciation, suggesting having a few drinks may reduce language anxiety and lead to improved fluency.
The study has just won the Ig Nobel ‘Peace’ prize, which celebrates research that makes people ‘laugh and then think’.
‘We’re delighted that this playful piece of research has received such recognition,’ first author Dr Inge Kersbergen said. ‘The Ig Nobel Prize reminds us that science can be both serious and fun and sometimes the light-hearted questions open up surprising insights into human behaviour.’
Here are some of the other quirky studies that have won an award this year.
Experts discovered participants who consumed alcohol had better foreign pronunciation. Their research won them an Ig Nobel prize (stock image)
Fingernail growth speed
The late Dr William Bean, who died in 1989, has been awarded the Literature prize for ‘persistently recording and analysing the rate of growth of one of his fingernails over a period of 35 years’.
His research, which was published in the Archives of Internal Medicine in 1980, revealed a ‘slowing of growth with increasing age’.
‘The average daily growth of the left thumbnail, for instance, has varied from 0.123mm a day during the first part of the study when I was 32 years of age to 0.095mm a day at the age of 67,’ he wrote.
Intelligence and narcissists
Marcin Zajenkowski and Gilles Gignac have been awarded this prize ‘for investigating what happens when you tell narcissists — or anyone else — that they are intelligent’.
Published in 2021, this study revealed that telling people they are intelligent is linked to an exaggerated feeling of specialness.
The findings could go some way to explaining how narcissism arises in children – especially if they have parents who consistently tell them how clever they are.
Dr Bean documented the growth of his nails over 35 years. Pictured: Some of his work, which he has now won an Ig Nobel prize for
Lizards’ pizza preference
Awarded to Daniele Dendi, Gabriel H. Segniagbeto, Roger Meek, and Luca Luiselli for studying ‘the extent to which a certain kind of lizard chooses to eat certain kinds of pizza’.
This study involved analysing the foraging strategies of lizards at a seaside resort in Togo, West Africa.
Researchers discovered a clear preference for a particular type of pizza – four cheese – among all monitored individuals, indicating ‘they may have some chemical cues attracting them’.
Nursing mothers and garlic
Julie Mennella and Gary Beauchamp have been awarded this prize ‘for studying what a nursing baby experiences when the baby’s mother eats garlic’.
Their study, published 34 years ago, revealed that when a breastfeeding mother ate garlic, it increased the intensity of her milk’s odour two hours later.
Babies were attached to the breast for longer and ingested more milk during this period – indicating they enjoyed the milk more when it had a garlicky tinge.
Researchers won an award for discovering that babies drank more breastmilk when their mothers had recently eaten garlic (stock image)
Cows painted with zebra-stripes
This prize was awarded to Japanese researchers who carried out experiments ‘to learn whether cows painted with zebralike striping can avoid being bitten by flies’.
They discovered that the numbers of biting flies on cows painted with black and white stripes were significantly lower than those on non-painted cows.
Painting stripes on livestock such as cattle could prevent fly biting attacks and provide another method to deter to insects without using pesticides, they concluded.
The Teflon diet
Awarded to Rotem Naftalovich, Daniel Naftalovich and Frank Greenway for experiments to ‘test whether eating Polytetrafluoroethylene [a form of plastic also known as Teflon] is a good way to increase food volume and hence satiety without increasing calorie content’.
This study, published in 2017, argues that Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) is an ‘ideal substance’ for the purpose of making people feel fuller without the added calories.
They suggested ‘increasing the volume of food by mixing the food with PTFE powder at a ratio of three parts food to one part PTFE by volume will… reduce caloric consumption in people’.
Researchers found that painting black and white stripes on cows helped to keep pesky flies away
Impact of smelly shoes
Vikash Kumar and Sarthak Mittal for analysing, from an engineering design perspective, ‘how foul-smelling shoes affects the good experience of using a shoe-rack’.
These researchers, from Shiv Nadar University in India, warned that many people don’t often wash their shoes, leading to a ‘breeding ground for a very smelly bacterium’.
‘The authors of this paper see smelly shoes as an opportunity for re-designing the traditional shoe-rack for a better user experience,’ their study reads. ‘After exploring all the possible methods of killing the bacteria which was the main source of smell, use of Ultra Violet rays was chosen to be a potential method.’
Physics of pasta sauce
To Italian researchers for ‘discoveries about the physics of pasta sauce, especially the phase transition that can lead to clumping, which can be a cause of unpleasantness’.
Earlier this year, the team carried out a range of experiments to figure out the ultimate recipe for Cacio e pepe – a simple dish containing pasta, Pecorino Romano cheese and black pepper.
Writing in the journal Physics of Fluids they said: ‘A true Italian grandmother or a skilled home chef from Rome would never need a scientific recipe for Cacio e pepe, relying instead on instinct and years of experience. For everyone else, this guide offers a practical way to master the dish.’
Flying ability of drunken bats
Awarded to Francisco Sánchez, Mariana Melcón, Carmi Korine and Berry Pinshow, for studying whether ingesting alcohol can impair bats’ ability to fly and to echolocate.
Analysis of flying Egyptian fruit bats after ingesting ethanol-rich food revealed that – much like humans and driving – alcohol had a negative impact on their ability to fly competently.
They found the bats flew significantly slower and their echolocation skills were worsened after eating the alcoholic fruit.
One tradition of the Ig Nobel ceremony, held at Boston University, is that the audience make and throw paper planes at the winners.
Marc Abrahams, master of ceremonies, closed the event with the traditional, ‘If you didn’t win an Ig Nobel Prize tonight — and especially if you did — better luck next year.’
This article was originally published by a www.dailymail.co.uk . Read the Original article here. .