A team of researchers from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev has won an Ig Nobel Prize for its work on how booze impacts bats’ ability to take to the air, concluding that they shouldn’t drink and fly.
The 2025 Aviation Prize went to Prof. Berry Pinshow and Prof. Carmi Korine of the Beersheba school, as well as their two research assistants at the time, Dr. Francisco Sanchéz and Dr. Maru Mélcon. They led a team from Israel, Colombia, Argentina, Germany, the UK, Italy, the US, Portugal, and Spain.
Researchers found that bats that ingested ethanol “flew slower and were less able to locate their roosts using their unique tongue-clicking echolocation,” the university said in a statement Monday.
The researchers were honored in the 35th year of the Ig Nobel awards, which are sponsored by the science humor magazine Annals of Improbable Research and given out to honor weird and humorous scientific discoveries. The winners come from all over the world.
“We were all absolutely chuffed when we got the news that we had won an Ig Nobel award,” Pinshow said in the statement. “At first, we were a little dubious that we were being had on, but a letter from Marc Abrahams the editor of AIR settled our doubts. Then we were elated – who wouldn’t be? Science is certainly serious but it’s also fun and intellectually very satisfying.”
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The actual research was conducted 15 years ago and published under the title “Ethanol ingestion affects flight performance and echolocation in Egyptian fruit bats.”
Illustrative: Bats in cave Teumim in Beit Shemesh on October 9, 2006. (Jorge Novominsky /Flash90.)
The basis for the research was that as fruit ripens, its ethanol content increases, making the fruit more toxic to vertebrates. Researchers hypothesized that ingesting ethanol would probably cause “inebriation that will affect flight and echolocation skills.”
“We tested this hypothesis by flying Egyptian fruit bats in an indoor corridor and found that after ingesting ethanol-rich food bats flew significantly slower than when fed ethanol-free food,” they wrote. “Also, the ingestion of ethanol significantly affected several variables of the bats’ echolocation calls and behavior.”
In addition to reporting their observations about soused bats, the researchers noted, “In humans, ethanol also affects psychomotor performance, reducing visual reaction time to stimuli.”
The Ig Nobel award ceremony was held earlier this month in the ballroom of the George Sherman Union at Boston University, in Boston, Massachusetts.
“The prizes were handed to them by a gaggle of bemused Nobel laureates,” AIR said on its website, where it live-streamed the event. “The audience showered them with paper airplanes.”
Sanchéz attended to collect the prize and told the audience that the bats don’t like alcohol, which created problems in getting them to imbibe the stuff.
He also put on a short, humorous puppet act with a toy bat.
In the past, Ig Nobel winners received a Zimbabwean 10 trillion dollar bill. Organizers explained that, due to inflation, this year they were unable to buy any, so winners were instead given a moist towelette.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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