I brought this up earlier with some friends though, and I got a lot of laughs because people thought I read it wrong or something, and because...just how are you supposed to take this seriously?
Picture is from the Cincinnati Children's Hospital link below.
I guess that's why it won an Ig Nobel Prize last year though, because it makes you laugh, then you've got to think about it.
So, this actually comes from Nature. There are a few animals and insects, such as a few (Australian, EEK) turtles that have this ability to draw air in through carefully placed gills, meaning they don't have to worry about chewing fast or something to get in more air. There's also an eel-like fish that uses it's gills to breath straight air if the water it's in is too low in oxygen. This can't cover the entire air-requirement of a species, but it can help a lot. That's why this actually came up as a treatment for people who have issues with their lungs.
Since they can't just blow air straight in, they created an oxygen-rich fluid (this is actually old tech) and inserted it...somewhere most people are a bit sensitive about things being inserted. This was, of course, first tested with some very surprised and concerned pigs, who showed good response to it so it was tried with humans. It helps some, but it's still being studied.
Takanori Takebe got an Ig Nobel prize for this, which does come with a bit of a cash prize that I assume got put into this. Or possibly framed for giggles. It's something like 10 trillion Zimbabwean dollars, or about 40 cents.
I look forward to when this becomes a more common practice and they have to figure out how to repackage this to make it more acceptable to the medical community and it's patients. I also look forward to the whole new round of hilarious idiocy people will do with this.
There are articles below if you want to look into it more, or if you don't believe me for some reason (I wouldn't blame you).
Seeya soon.
Sources:
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