That prize-winning breakthroughs can come from the most unexpected places is evident from the fact that researchers won an Ig Nobel Prize for their discovery that mammals can breathe through their anus.
After a series of tests on mice, rats and pigs, Japanese scientists discovered that the animals absorb oxygen through the rectum. These results form the basis for a clinical study to see if the procedure can treat respiratory failure.
The team is one of 10 to win this year’s Ig Nobel awards (see below for more), the irreverent accolades given for achievements that “first make people laugh and then make them think.” They are not to be confused with the more lucrative and career-changing Nobel Prizes, which will be handed out in Scandinavia next month.
The latest batch of Ig Nobel winners received their awards at a ceremony at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Thursday. The event included actual Nobel laureates handing out the prizes, “24/7” lectures in which experts explained their subjects first in 24 seconds, then in seven words, and extensive paper airplane throwing.
Other work honoured that evening included American research into housing pigeons in rockets to better guide them to their targets; British research showing that claims of extreme longevity often come from areas where life expectancy is short and birth certificates are traditionally lacking; and French research showing that scalp hair tends to curl clockwise, although less so in the Southern Hemisphere.
The Japanese researchers became interested in whether people with respiratory problems could benefit from oxygen in their backsides after noting that some animals, such as loaches, can use their intestines to breathe. They began the work during the Covid crisis, when many hospitals were desperately short of ventilators to support the breathing of people with severe infections.
The team’s experiments, which won the Ig Nobel Prize in physiology, showed that mice, rats and pigs could absorb oxygen into the bloodstream when it was administered through the rectum, supporting normal breathing. In 2021, Ryo Okabe of Tokyo Medical and Dental University and colleagues wrote in the journal Med how “enteral ventilation” offered “a new paradigm” for helping patients with respiratory failure.
Dr. Takanori Takebe, an author of the study at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, admitted he had “mixed emotions” when he heard about the award, but he was excited to hear it was being recognized for making people laugh and then think. If it sparks interest in enteral ventilation, he said, “I would be so happy.” The team is conducting a phase 1 trial in human volunteers.
Dr Saul Newman of Oxford University won the demography prize for showing that many claims about people living extraordinarily long lives come from places with short lifespans, no birth certificates, and where administrative errors and pension fraud are rampant. “Extreme old age records are a statistical wreck,” he said. “From the level of individual cases to broad population patterns, virtually none of our old age data is meaningful.”
Prof Roman Khonsari, a craniofacial surgeon at the Necker-Enfants Malades University Hospital in Paris, and colleagues won the anatomy prize for their global study of hair whorls. While most people’s scalp hairs rotate clockwise, their research found that in the Southern Hemisphere, they rotate more counterclockwise.
“I was in surgery when I got the call,” Khonsari said. “I was thrilled because despite the obvious irrelevance of this study, I believe that deciphering patterns in nature can lead to important discoveries about fundamental developmental mechanisms. Shapes carry interesting amounts of information.”
The discovery led to comparisons with tornadoes, which typically spin in different directions in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. In a paper in the Journal of Stomatology, Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, the researchers suggested that the Coriolis effect, in which the Earth’s rotation deflects winds to the right in the Northern Hemisphere and to the left in the Southern Hemisphere, could be at work here. Not that Khonsari believes so. “I don’t think it’s a plausible hypothesis, to be honest,” he said.
The other winners of the 2024 Ig Nobel Prizes
Peace
Awarded to the late B.F. Skinner, an American psychologist, for investigating the feasibility of housing live pigeons in rockets to guide them to their targets. The project, which Skinner himself described as “crazy”, was abandoned despite a perfect demonstration with a pigeon trained to hit objects on the New Jersey shoreline. “The spectacle of a live pigeon carrying out its mission, beautiful as it was, simply reminded the committee how utterly fantastic our proposal was,” Skinner wrote.
Botany
Given to Jacob White in the US and Felipe Yamashita in Germany for reporting evidence that the South American plant Boquila trifoliolata can mimic the leaves of plastic plants it is placed next to, leading them to conclude that ‘plant vision’ is a plausible hypothesis.
Medicine
Won by a Swiss, German and Belgian group for demonstrating that fake drugs that cause painful side effects can be more effective in patients than fake drugs that do not cause painful side effects.
Physics
Awarded to James Liao of the University of Florida for an extensive, multi-published study of the swimming abilities of a dead trout.
Probability
Shared by a team of 50 researchers, mostly Dutch, who tossed 350,757 coins to test a hypothesis put forward by Persi Diaconis, a former magician and professor of statistics at Stanford University. Their work supported Diaconis’ prediction that tossed coins are (slightly) more likely to land the way they started.
Chemistry
Another victory for the Netherlands, with a team in Amsterdam using chromatography to separate drunk and sober worms, all in the name of polymer science.
Biology
Another posthumous award, the Ig Nobel Prize in Biology, honored the late Fordyce Ely and William Petersen for their 1940s research into factors that affect milk production in dairy herds. In a paper in the Journal of Animal Science, the pair said they placed a cat on a cow’s back and repeatedly exploded paper bags to see if the milk flow changed. The terrified cows appeared to produce less milk. “At first, placing a cat on a cow’s back and exploding paper bags every 10 seconds for two minutes was frightening,” the researchers wrote. “Later, the cat was deemed unnecessary.”