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Why blame Tylenol? Why not just blame pregnant women in general? I鈥檓 sure RFK Jr. will. And that鈥檚 why we have Ig Nobels, to celebrate scientific study 鈥� this year鈥檚 theme is digestion 鈥� that Trump-style answers questions that no one ever asked.

Take the Literature Ig Nobel, won this year by the late Dr. William B. Bean for 鈥減ersistently recording and analyzing the rate of growth of one of his fingernails鈥� for 35 years.鈥� That鈥檚 one fingernail, not all, because that would have been overkill.

Bean鈥檚 first paper in 1953 was 鈥淎 Note on Fingernail Growth鈥� but by 1976 had been titled a folksier 鈥淪ome Notes of an Aging Nail Watcher.鈥� I鈥檓 delighted that Bean鈥檚 studies were published in journals of investigative dermatology and internal medicine, for the modern move to excessive specialization has demolished patient faith. As my cardiologist tells me briskly, I only do hearts, not back pain from your echocardiogram.

Science is under fire and out of fashion in the U.S. I write about this year鈥檚 Igs out of nostalgia for an era when science was so huge and helpful that you could make fun of scientists. They would fly to Boston University to be mocked before their peers.

Some international winners were only present online. Could it be that they were unwilling to test a U.S. border crossing in case they were intercepted and sent to prison exile in a country entirely unknown to them? Seems arrogant.

Perhaps this year鈥檚 winners had to be extra-eccentric. The Chemistry Prize went to three American and Israeli scientists for their experiments to test whether eating Teflon from non-stick pans 鈥渋s a good way to increase food volume and hence satiety without increasing calorie content.鈥� Again, science crosses old barriers moving straight to childhood trauma.

My Scottish mother saved money by cooking on Teflon frying pans even after the non-stick black layer, thick with carcinogenic PFAs, began to shed large black flakes and enter our dinner. Had science consulted me, I would have said yes to all three hypotheses: Teflon does add bulk to comestibles while being non-fattening because inedible.

I could have shared an Ig Nobel in lived-experience data while I was still in high school rather than a Silver Cup in typing. I鈥檓 not bitter, but I am angry.

I鈥檓 not sure Japanese scientists deserved the Biology Prize for experiments 鈥渢o learn whether cows painted with zebra-like striping can avoid being bitten by flies.鈥� Obviously they can. In the cattle industry it鈥檚 called 鈥渄rag.鈥� The question is whether they should and if so, who does the painting. In these cultural times it must surely be the zebras, an Ig Nobel for the Bloody Obvious I would think.

The Physics Prize went to the Italians for investigating clumping in pasta sauce, a.k.a. Eight Guys Order In. This is cultural stereotyping. Do better, as we say now.

Alcohol ran through the Peace Prize (does booze encourage efforts to speak in a foreign language?) and the Aviation Prize (does booze make bats fly wrong and slur their bat signals?). Yes and yes.

Aviation was won by former Second World War World enemies in Germany, the U.K. and the Netherlands and Peace by any nation with bats.

You see how the Ig Nobels, open to all scientists with a dumb idea, can bring people together around the globe for prizes, skits and drinks, until Trump bans it, which he will.