Speed bumps are widely regarded as a pain, so it may come as no surprise that they can be used to diagnose acute appendicitis.
The British scientists who made the discovery have been recognised in this year's Ig Nobel awards, presented for achievements that make people "laugh, then think".
Dr Helen Ashdown, from Oxford University, and her team showed that a yelp of pain as a patient was being driven over speed bumps was indicative of acute appendicitis.
The speed bump test picked up 97 per cent of people with the condition, but was less good at avoiding "false positive" identification of those who were free of the complaint.
Writing in the British Medical Journal, the researchers concluded: "Presence of pain while travelling over speed bumps was associated with an increased likelihood of acute appendicitis.
"As a diagnostic variable, it compared favourably with other features commonly used in clinical assessment ..
"Speed bumps may have a useful alternative benefit in the diagnosis of acute appendicitis."
The Ig Nobel awards, from the spoof scientific journal Annals of Improbable Research, were presented at a ceremony at Harvard University in the US last night.
They are intended to parody the Nobel prizes due to be announced next month.
Other Ig Nobels were awarded for studies fitting chickens with prosthetic "dinosaur tails", looking at the plausibility of a Moroccan emperor fathering 888 children, and discovering the most painful bee sting points on the body.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here