Rollercoasters can help eliminate kidney stones

Judges this year awarded the I.G. Nobel Prize for Medicine to researchers who have studied how roller coasters can help eliminate kidney stones.

I.G. The Nobels are fictitious prizes published in the Annals of Improbable Research, which honor the scientific achievements that make people laugh and then reflect.

The research carried out does have some serious points.

Prof. David Wartinger and Marc Mitchell, this year's winner, have analyzed the effects that rollercoasters can have on kidney stones.

They had the idea after someone came back from vacation saying their kidney stones had been dislodged after going on a roller coaster.

So, they took a silicone model of the human kidney system filled with urine and kidney stones in a world of Walt Disney World at Big Thunder Mountain Railroad in Orlando, Florida.

The team considered using animals for the test but found it inappropriate for the research.

Their work was published last year in the "Journal of the American Osteopathic Association".