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The judges awarded this year's Ig Nobel Prize for medicine to researchers who have studied the potential for passing kidney stones in roller coasters.
Researchers thought that looping fast tracks could help dislodge clumps of fearsome minerals, which are often very painful to overcome.
Kidney stones are deposits of salt and minerals that accumulate in the kidneys. Usually they come out of the body through the urinary tract, but sometimes surgery is required to remove them. Although they do not normally cause permanent damage, kidney stones can cause severe pain as they pass through the body.
Researcher David Wartinger took a silicone model of a human kidney system filled with urine and kidney stones on the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, a race that shakes passengers.
Of course, the ride facilitated the passage of stones through the urinary tract of silicon. The rear seats, discovered by Wartinger and his colleague Marc Mitchell, gave the best results.
"If I personally had the misfortune of having a kidney stone, I would take the time and effort to find a moderate-intensity roller coaster and do half a dozen rides," Wartinger said. Newsweek. But he warned that the benefits could only extend to stones up to about 0.2 inches in diameter.
The team considered using animal models but ultimately found them unsuitable for the research setting, "because of the ambient temperature and the inappropriate presentation of such material in a park." of family attractions.
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Wartinger and Mitchell published their results in The journal of the American Association of Osteopathy. Unfortunately, Wartinger does not think the research will extend to testing on humans. The data was collected more than a decade ago, before his retirement, and no North American amusement park has expressed interest in continuing the work, he said. . However, the silicone model was used to develop a surgical training tool.
"It's always good to have your work appreciated by your peers," Wartinger said. "It was an honor to be recognized by the Ig Nobel Committee."
The Ig Nobel Prize rewards fun but important research. This year, he has presented ten awards in the following categories: medicine, anthropology, biology, chemistry, medical education, literature, nutrition, peace, reproductive medicine and economics. Previous winners include Basile Audoly and Sebastien Neukirch, who won the 2006 Physics Prize for exploring why spaghetti never seems to break in two.
This year, the winners were John Barry, Bruce Blank and Michel Boileau, who won the Reproductive Medicine Award for their groundbreaking research on men's sexual health. They used postage stamps to test penile function.
Lindie Hanyu Liang, Douglas Brown, Huiwen Lian, Samuel Hanig, Lance Ferris, and Lisa Keeping won the Economics Award for their research on the effectiveness of using voodoo dolls on patterns. .
The judges awarded Francisco Alonso, Cristina Esteban, Andrea Serge, Maria-Luisa Ballestar, Jaime Sanmartín, Constanza Calatayud and Beatriz Alamar the prize for peace for their analysis of road rage. The team tracked how often drivers screamed and cursed, and probed their motives and the effects of their behavior.
You can watch the entire ceremony – with sketches, paper-airplane delights and even a mini-opera – below.
This article has been updated to include David Wartinger's commentary.
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