Talk about a dangerous job - a professional sword swallower has co-authored a scientific research paper on the side effects of the ancient art.
The profession may be thousands of years of old, but little was really known about the kind of injuries sword swallowers suffered for their art, before Dan Meyer compiled his research.
Meyer said that over the past 4000 years 287 people have swallowed a sword and 29 have died doing it.
The research, published in the prestigious British Medical Journal, won Meyer and his co-author Dr. Brian Whitcombe coveted Ig Nobel Prize. Their paper beat more than 7000 projects nominated for their ability to make people laugh, then think.
