Last night in Boston, scientists got special prizes. These prizes are called the Ig Nobel Prizes. They are funny prizes for interesting research. The research makes people laugh first. Then it makes people think. This year was the 35th time for these prizes.

A team from Maastricht won a prize. The team had four people: Fritz Renner, Inge Kersbergen, Matt Field, and Jessica Werthmann. They wrote an article called Dutch Courage?. In their study, they worked with fifty German students. These students were new to learning Dutch. They started learning Dutch only recently.

The scientists did an experiment. They gave alcohol to twenty-five students. It was a small amount of alcohol. The other twenty-five students got no alcohol. Then all the students had to talk in Dutch. The scientists wanted to see what happened.

Other people listened to the students. These people did not know which students drank alcohol. The listeners said something interesting. The students who drank alcohol had better pronunciation. Their Dutch sounded better. But the German students themselves felt different. They did not think they spoke better.

How did the scientists get this idea? They were at a scientific conference. They were sitting at the bar. They talked about this idea there. The researchers have an important warning. Alcohol in large amounts is bad for memory. So you should not drink alcohol when you want to learn a language.

The Ig Nobel Prize ceremony is always fun and silly. People in the audience throw paper planes. Opera singers sing songs about science. The people who run the ceremony wear funny hats. The winners often come to the ceremony. But the researchers from Maastricht did not come. Two Nobel Prize winners read their speech. Their names are Robert Merton and Svante Pääbo. Nobel Prizes are the real, serious science prizes.

Another Ig Nobel Prize this year was about alcohol too. This prize was for aviation. Aviation means flying. Scientists studied bats. They wanted to know something. Can bats fly well after they drink alcohol? Can they find their way? The answer was no. The bats could not fly and navigate properly.

Another winner did something for 35 years. He watched his own fingernails grow. He wrote down everything about his fingernails. Then he published his findings. This means he shared his information with other people. He got the Ig Nobel Prize for literature.

Scientists also won the prize for nutritional science. Nutritional science is about food and eating. These scientists studied a colorful lizard. They discovered something funny. The lizard really loves quattro formaggi pizza. This pizza has four types of cheese on it.

There was one more interesting discovery. Scientists painted cows. They painted them black and white like zebras. After that, the cows had fewer problems. Biting flies did not trouble them so much.

The Ig Nobel ceremony always happens in September. This is one month before the real Nobel Prizes. The real Nobel Prizes are given in October.