A group including Professor Toyofumi Chen-Yoshikawa of the Nagoya University Graduate School of Medicine has been awarded the Ig Nobel Prize in physiology for their research which found that “many mammals are capable of breathing through their anus”. The study found that it may be clinically viable to treat patients with difficulty breathing by reoxygenating them through their lower intesting using an oxygen-rich fluid, through testing on mice, rats and pigs. This may avoid complications associated with invasive intubation through the respiratory tract.
The Ig Nobel prize is organized by the scientific humor magazine Annals of Improbable Research, and aims to recognize scientific achievements that “first make people laugh, and then make them think”.
