The Ig Nobel Prizes for this year have just been awarded ...
The winner of the Ig Nobel prize in medicine was Francis Fesmire, of University Hospital in Florida, for a study that showed that intractable hiccups can be terminated by "digital rectal massage."
"Initially, gagging and tongue pulling manoeuvres were attempted with no change in symptomatology," Dr Fesmire wrote in a study published in the Annals of Emergency Medicine. "Digital rectal massage was then attempted using a slow circumferential motion. The frequency of hiccups immediately began to slow, with a termination of all hiccups within 30 seconds," the valiant scientist found.
So, now you know ... and if you do get hiccups, don't ask me for help!