A group of Japanese and US researchers has won this year’s Ig Nobel Prize in physiology for discovering “many mammals are capable of breathing through their anus.”
This is the 18th year in a row that Japanese nationals have claimed the annual prizes meant to honor achievements that make people laugh and think. The prizes were launched by a US scientific magazine in 1991 as a parody of the Nobel Prizes.
The organizers of the Ig Nobel Prizes announced this year’s winners on Thursday.
The physiology prize went to an international research team that included Takebe Takanori, professor at Tokyo Medical and Dental University and Osaka University.
The team conducted experiments on laboratory mice, pigs and rats that had difficulty breathing through their lungs.
The team said oxygen levels in the animals’ bloodstream grew significantly after an oxygen-rich liquid was administered into the rectum via the anus. It also said the condition of respiratory failure in pigs improved under specific conditions.
Prizes were also given to scientists in nine other fields.
The peace prize went to B.F. Skinner, a deceased US psychologist. The organizers say he held “experiments to see the feasibility of housing live pigeons inside missiles to guide” their flight paths. Skinner started the experiments during World War Two using pigeons he attempted to train to recognize targets.
A European team of researchers took the probability prize. The organizers say the team showed, “both in theory and by 350,757 experiments,” that when people flip a coin, it tends to land on the same side as it started.