Cure For Hiccups

Got hiccups? It turns out the cure may be worse than the disease... The 2006 Ig Nobel Prize winners were awarded last week, on the campus of Harvard University. Among the winners were a group of researchers who claim that the cure for hiccups that just won't go away (even after holding your breath while standing on your head and rubbing your stomach) is "digital rectal massage." Read on for details, and to see who won the dubious distinction of winning the Ig Nobel prizes in Mathematics, Literature, Physics and other fields of scientific endeavor...

It'll Cure Hiccups, But...

Surely you've heard of the Nobel Prize, which is awarded for great achievements in science and civics. But have you heard about the IG NOBEL Prize? The Igs, which honor individuals whose achievements "cannot or should not be reproduced" are intended to celebrate the unusual, honor the imaginative, and take a good-natured poke at some remarkably goofy things done in the name of science.

The winner of this year's Ig Nobel Prize in Medicine went to Francis M. Fesmire of the University of Tennessee College of Medicine, for discovering that "Stick two fingers in your butt and call me in the morning" really DOES work as a cure for hiccups. His medical case report "Termination of Intractable Hiccups with Digital Rectal Massage" delves into all the ifs ands and (ahem) buts of the methodology.

Ig Nobel Winners in other categories included:

PEACE: (The Sound of Silence) -- Howard Stapleton of Wales was honored for inventing "teenager repellant" technology. His device drives loitering kids away from the convenience store by making annoying sounds audible only to teenagers. But Stapleton's contrivance has a dual purpose: he also used it to make mobile phone ringtones that cannot be heard by the teens' parents and teachers.

ACOUSTICS: (Chalk One Up For Researchers) -- D. Lynn Halpern, Randolph Blake and James Hillenbrand took this prize for figuring out exactly why some people hate the sound of fingernails scraping on a blackboard. My guess is that their "Psychoacoustics of a Chilling Sound" study originally included a larger number of researchers...

BIOLOGY: (Stung By The Facts) -- Bart Knols and Ruurd de Jong won for showing that, given the opportunity to choose, female malaria mosquitos really don't have a preference between stinky feet and stinky cheese.

The Ig Nobel Prizes are sponsored by the science humor magazine The Annals of Improbable Research. You can view the full slate of winners for 2006 and the past fifteen years at their website.

Got comments about hiccups or the Igs? Post your thoughts below...