The annual award ceremony features miniature operas, scientific demos, and 24/7 lectures. All products featured on WIRED are independently selected by our editors. However, we may receive compensation from retailers and/or from purchases of products through these links. Does alcohol enhance one's foreign language fluency? Do West African lizards have a preferred pizza topping? And can painting cows with zebra stripes help repel biting flies? These and other unusual research questions were honored tonight in a virtual ceremony to announce the 2025 recipients of the annual Ig Nobel Prizes.

Babies who are breastfed for even just a few months from birth tend to score higher on neurocognitive tests at age 10, a new study has revealed. Researchers in the US gave cognitive tests to nine and ten-year-olds whose mothers reported they were breastfed, and compared their results to scores of children who were not. The findings suggest that any amount of breastfeeding has a positive cognitive impact on children, although the longer the children were breastfed, the higher their score. Dr Daniel Adan Lopez, first author of the study, said: 'Hopefully from a policy standpoint, this can help improve the motivation to breastfeed.' Remember to support your baby's neck but not hold the back of their head. They should then be able to take a large mouthful of breast.