Anal breathing? Japan & US scientists win Ig Nobel award for study on breathing through anuses.

“Thank you for believing (in) the potential of anus," said Takanori Takebe as he accepted the Physiology Prize at the 2024 Ig Nobel Prize ceremony.

The Ig Nobel Prizes honour achievements "so surprising that they make people laugh, then think".

It is unsurprising then, that Takebe's team of 11 Japanese and American scientists' discovery that mammals are capable of breathing through their anuses took this year's Physiology Prize.

"The prizes are intended to celebrate the unusual, honour the imaginative — and spur people’s interest in science, medicine, and technology," according to the Ig Nobel website.

The 2024 award ceremony is the first in four years since Covid-19 to be held offline.

It was also available to watch on webcast if you are interested in watching a demonstration of how anal breathing is done.

Anal breathing a possibility for humans

Accepting the award on Sep. 12, Takebe, a professor at Tokyo Medical and Dental University, said the research first started after questioning why humans are unable to "suck up oxygen from the butt" like loaches.

His team, fittingly wearing loach hats, also did a demonstration on how anal breathing occurs, as Takabe explained.

The team administered oxygenated liquid through the rectum into the intestines of pigs, rats and mice with respiratory diseases, and found that it helped alleviate symptoms, The Japan Times reported.

This inspired a new treatment method for artificial respiration in humans, which Takebe hopes can serve as a "transformative approach" to help patients with respiratory failure.

Clinical trials have reportedly begun in June to confirm its safety to commercialise it in 2028 in Japan and 2030 in the United States.

EVA Therapeutics, founded by Takebe, is carrying out the trials.

Before Takebe could finish his presentation, however, a girl came up on stage yelling: "Please stop. I’m bored."

Ignoble ceremony

The little girl is not the only quirky thing about the satiric award ceremony.

Organised by the Annals of Improbable Research magazine, winners get a transparent box containing historic items related to Murphy’s Law — the theme of the night, AP reported.

They are also gifted a hefty but nearly worthless sum of Zimbabwean $10 trillion in the form of a banknote.

Halfway through the ceremony, a competition to see who could perform the "most Murphy-esque song" about Murphy’s Law was also commenced.

The more lucrative and career-changing Nobel prizes will be handed out in Scandinavia next month.

Top photos from Ig Noble Prize's webcast