Sword swallowing is dangerous
Updated on 05 October 2007
The pain caused by sword swallowing and how sheets become wrinkled. More4 News investigates the Ignobel awards that celebrate the breakthroughs we never knew.x
Groundbreaking scientific research has just shown that sword swallowing could - possibly - harm your throat.
Another study shows that rats cannot tell the difference between someone speaking Japanese backwards, and someone speaking Dutch backwards. This is the latest apparently pointless scientific research to be awarded the Ignobel prize - an annual award for the quirkier side of scientific research.
Previous winners of the award include a team of scientists who produced a study of 'Courtship behaviour of ostriches towards humans under farming conditions in Britain'.
Another team of scientists in America bred a jalapeno pepper that was entirely spiceless - and my favourite, the centrifugal birthing machine, that would spin pregnant women round and round to help them give birth.
Joining me now was science journalist Frank Swain to discuss the awards.
