A wonderfully odd lineup of researchers earned recognition this week for science that sounds strange at first glance but is very real, including work on cockroach milk, the origins of kissing and an underwear-based method for measuring soil health.

The Ig Nobel Prize ceremony, a satirical celebration of unusual scientific research with genuine academic roots, was held Thursday in Zurich and organized by the digital publication Annals of Improbable Research.

Launched in 1991, the offbeat awards were staged outside the United States for the first time this year, amid concerns that some winners might face visa difficulties traveling to the U.S.

Among the other honorees were scientists who examined why wealthier people may be more prone to unethical acts, including taking candy from a baby, along with studies exploring the correct way to blow your nose and what happens when researchers carefully step on snakes to learn what triggers them to bite.

“The general pattern seems to be that, with wealth and rising power, you become less engaged with the needs of others and less burdened by the needs of social relationships,” Dr. Paul Piff, a social psychologist at the University of California, Irvine said, according to the Guardian. 

“Taking candy from children might be the least of our worries, but it’s emblematic of the tendency to prioritize one’s own needs over those of others.”

The final four honorees included those studying the power of having mutual enemies, attempts at a splash-free urinal, using dead mosquitos for 3D printing and research that found parents love the smell of their newborn babies but not teenage children.

In case you’re wondering, the team studying the history of kissing has defined it as “a non-agonistic interaction involving directed, intraspecific, oral-oral contact with some movement of the lips/mouthparts and no food transfer.” Romantic.

“Next time you kiss someone, you can think, ‘This is a 21.5 million-year-old tradition that I’m honoring here,” evolutionary biologist Matilda Brindle of the University of Oxford said, according to NPR. “It’s not just a modern human behavior. It’s really ancestral.’ And to us, that suggests that it probably has quite a useful evolutionary function.”

Brindle said her team believes that Neanderthals not only kissed each other. They may have also kissed early humans.

All the honorees receive a trophy that looks like a cross between a mushroom and a human foot while the audience throws paper airplanes at them.

The Ig Nobel has no relation to the actual Nobel Prize, which will announce its honorees in October.

Los Angeles Rams standout Aaron Donald was dealing with a contentious court dispute involving his ex-girlfriend’s dog at the same time he was weighing a high-profile return to the NFL.

Details of the lawsuit, published by The California Post on Friday, surfaced just days after Donald announced he was ending retirement and rejoining the league in a dramatic comeback at age 35.

In court filings submitted in late July, Donald argued that Jaelynn Blakey, his former partner and the mother of two of his children, should be required to remove her French bulldog from her residence. He claimed the animal posed a “danger” to their children.

Donald, a Super Bowl champion who is now married to Erica Donald, sought sole physical custody of his daughter Jaeda, 13, and son Aaron Jr., 10, until Blakey no longer kept the dog in her home.

According to the court documents, Donald alleged the dog bit his daughter on the mouth in September 2023 and later injured Blakey’s niece in a similar incident less than a year afterward. He also claimed the dog bit his son in the face in March 2026, and included photographs that he said showed the children’s injuries.

The 10-time Pro Bowl star and three-time Defensive Player of the Year claimed Blakey agreed to get rid of the dog after every incident but, earlier this summer, his children informed him it was still present at her home.

‘At some point in time, between March 20, 2026 and June 26, 2026, the dog returned to [Blakey’s] home in Los Angeles,’ his court filing claimed.

It continued: ‘Blakey “did not tell [Donald] the dog had returned to her home. The Minor Children informed [Donald] of the dog’s return, as well as [Blakey’s] instructions to them “not to run [their] mouths” by telling [Donald].”‘

In response to Donald’s allegations, Blakey insisted the pet was not ‘dangerous,’ her children are not afraid of it and she never instructed them to lie to him about the pet being at her home.

Her response claimed Donald ‘is taking away the family pet whom lived with us since 10 weeks old. He does this under the guise of protecting the children and their safety but that is not his true intent as evidenced by the fact that the dog has lived in my home over the past several years, with his knowledge even after 2023 & 2024 and has not had an issue with it.

‘This dog has been my emotional support through hard times, and is loved by my children. This request takes away not only [Donald’s children’s] pet but my youngest daughter’s pet as well. My youngest daughter has lived full time with our dog and it will be devastating to her to lose him.’

However, Donald ultimately got his way as a stipulation and order filed on August 3 revealed Blakey removed the dog from her home. The former couple then agreed to return to co-parenting their children as they were before the legal fight started.

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Donald and Blakey never married and split around the time that he moved to Los Angeles with the Rams from St. Louis in 2016. He then married wife Erica and they also share two children.

Donald returned to the Rams on Sunday, ending his retirement after two-and-a-half years to chase another Super Bowl title. Erica wrote on X: ‘I let him out the house y’all,’ with laughing, blue heart and heart hands emojis.

He made his decision after several weeks of discussion and nearly three months of intensive workouts for a star defensive lineman who reigned atop his position in a Rams uniform from 2014 until his retirement in early 2024.

Donald joined a light practice at the Rams’ training complex later Sunday, shaking hands and exchanging hugs with Myles Garrett and the rest of his teammates, both old and new.

He agreed to a one-year contract, and ESPN reported he will make at least $20 million in an incentive-laden deal.

Donald became one of the greatest defensive players of his era during a decade spent entirely with the Rams in St. Louis and Los Angeles. He won three NFL Defensive Player of the Year awards while earning 10 Pro Bowl selections, eight All-Pro selections and a Super Bowl ring before he retired somewhat abruptly following the 2023-24 season.

After two years of tending to his business interests and enjoying ample family time, Donald began to entertain the notion of a comeback this summer after the Rams traded young lineman Jared Verse in a deal for Garrett, one of Donald´s few peers in contemporary defensive line play.

His first game of the season could be on Thursday night when the Rams face the San Francisco 49ers in Melbourne.

Rams coach Sean McVay insisted the entire roster travel to Australia for their regular-season opener next week but admitted he still isn’t sure whether Donald will play.

‘I don’t have that sense quite yet,’ McVay said. ‘I think (the ramp-up process) has been really good. He’s so intentional about his rhythm and routine.

‘This week will be a big week for him in terms of how he feels, and then we’ll take it a day at a time and see where he´s at.

‘If he feels good enough to go, great. If not, I have a lot of confidence in the other guys that’ll be ready to step up if that’s the case, that have really gotten all the reps anyway.’

Researchers in China have detected a previously unknown tick-borne virus capable of causing flu-like symptoms, fatigue and gastrointestinal problems, according to a newly published study.

The virus, named Asian longhorned tick nairovirus (ALTNV), belongs to the orthonairovirus group. Scientists reported that infection can also lead to thrombocytopenia, or low blood platelet counts, along with laboratory signs of liver-cell injury or inflammation.

Chinese researchers have been monitoring patients with unexplained illnesses since 2009, including cases of severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome, known as SFTS, said Dr. Sharon Nachman, chief of pediatric infectious diseases at Stony Brook Children’s Hospital in New York.

“Thrombocytopenia is low platelet count, so those patients bled, and it had about a 30% mortality, which is quite high,” Nachman told Fox News Digital. “So, they kept following those patients.”

Although many infections were associated with Dabie bandavirus (DBV), a tick-borne hemorrhagic fever virus, researchers found that it was not the most frequently detected virus among the cases they were studying.

After extensive testing of blood samples and viral fragments, researchers identified the new virus, ALTNV, which is genetically distinct from DBV.

Researchers from the State Key Laboratory of Pathogen and Biosecurity in Beijing identified the virus in 10.4% of 3,163 patients who had been bitten by ticks.

Patients who had both ALTNV and DBV were more likely to have respiratory issues and kidney complications. Seven (18.4%) of these patients died during the course of the study.

“The cocirculation of ALTNV and DBV in the same areas, coupled with their shared tick vector, underscores the need for improved differential diagnosis between infections with these viruses in regions where SFTS is endemic,” the authors concluded.

The findings were published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine.

“The big picture is that ticks carry lots of viruses,” Nachman said. “We’re getting smarter at identifying those viruses. And when one blood sample is negative, it’s important to say, ‘Maybe there was a new virus there, and let’s look for it.’”

Symptoms and treatment

Illness from ALTNV can initially resemble the flu, causing fever, muscle aches, fatigue and sometimes respiratory symptoms.

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Although an ALTNV infection can cause low platelet counts, the study did not link the virus alone to severe bleeding or deaths. The fatal cases involved patients who were also infected with DBV, which causes severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome.

Because tick-borne viral symptoms can overlap with many infections, Nachman emphasized the importance of identifying the specific virus.

“Effective antivirals exist for flu, but not for many tick-borne viruses, including the newly identified one,” she said.

For most patients, supportive care is given to help manage symptoms, “but it’s also about being smart and not giving patients the wrong medication,” Nachman noted. “And we certainly don’t want to use antibiotics because those only work for bacteria, not for viruses.”

Preventing tick bites

Nachman shared the best practices she recommends to families looking to avoid tick bites.

“Wear the right clothing, meaning long pants, tucking them into your socks, and use tick repellents on your skin if you’re an adult or on your clothing if you’re a young child,” she advised.

It’s also important to be on the lookout for ticks on the skin.

“The longer the tick is on your skin, the more it’s engorged, the more it’s likely to pass an infection to you,” Nachman said. “So, removing them after you’ve gone hiking or walking on the beach will be really important.”

While the Asian longhorn tick is not yet seen in the U.S., Nachman noted there are “lots and lots of other ticks, and those ticks carry other diseases.”

“I don’t want to say one tick is worse than another tick. It’s rather all about the diseases they carry and who you are,” she said.

“So, if you’re a healthy adult, and you get babesiosis, you often get better without any medications. But if you’re an immune-compromised adult, you’re going to be quite sick.

“It’s not really about the ticks. It’s about the patient. Who are you? What’s your underlying illness if you have any? How old are you, and how healthy are you?”

A scheduled rock concert in Virginia was called off Thursday after a worker was fatally crushed beneath a tour bus in a nearby parking lot just hours before showtime, authorities said.

U.S. Park Police told FOX 5 DC that officers were called to Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts at about 5 p.m.

The English rock band Squeeze had been set to take the stage at the Virginia venue at 7:30 p.m. that evening.

When officers arrived, the worker was underneath the tour bus. Park Police said a support device failed, causing the bus to collapse onto him.

“There was an accident involving a member of the community at Wolf Trap National Park,” the venue said in a social media post. “Out of respect, tonight’s show has been canceled.”

“Squeeze are deeply saddened and shocked by an incident that occurred at the venue earlier today, which resulted in the loss of a life,” the band said in a statement to Rolling Stone. “We will work with the promoter and venue regarding the possibility of rescheduling the show and will communicate further information to ticket holders as soon as it is available. Our thoughts remain with everyone affected by this tragic event.”

The worker’s identity has not been released by Park Police.

News of the accident prompted some fans to leave, but many lingered in the parking lot, shaken by the death of the worker.

“It was horrible when we found out that happened,” Debbie Daniel told FOX 5 DC. “We saw the emergency vehicles come in, figured something serious had happened because there was like 15 or more vehicles. But, yeah, it was very tragic.”

Eric Anderson, another fan, empathized with the man’s colleagues and agreed with the decision to cancel the show.

“Especially from what we’re starting to understand about the circumstances, the show can’t go on. And we understand that,” Anderson said.