For example,
> for their experiments to learn whether cows painted with zebra-like striping can avoid being bitten by flies.
This isn't absurd. It is currently thought that the stripes are NOT for camouflage, since simulated predator vision (such as lions) cannot resolve them. It is believed that one reason for the stripes could be to act as a deterrent against flies (how exactly, not sure).
In this sense, testing whether it works on cows isn't absurd!
The study debunking blue zones won, but it was some of the best science I’ve ever seen. (Removing false knowledge is more important than adding new knowledge)
Turns out the Mediterranean diet doesn’t help you live to a hundred, there was just a lot of pension fraud in Italy.
Turns out best predictor of Japanese centenarians is if the local records hall was destroyed in World War Two (because the records were replaced by non native speaking records clerks)
Sometimes that means the achievement (or "achievement") is something genuinely absurd. Other times it's not.