I abso­lutely must post a link to this story! Flatulence Helps Fight Disease.

"British scientists say a hi-tech test focused on flatus -- the pungent gas emanating from stool -- is highly effective in quickly identifying tough-to-spot viral or bacterial infections of the gut."

"While flatulence may be the stuff of jokes, the fight against dangerous gastrointestinal infections is no laughing matter.
World­wide, over 600,000 chil­dren die each year from chronic diarrhea, most of them in poorer coun­tries without easy access to soph­ist­ic­ated med­ical laboratories.”

“So far the tech­no­logy has dis­played impress­ive accur­acy, cor­rectly identi­fy­ing the poten­tially life-threatening bug, Clostridium dif­fi­cile, 100 per­cent of the time and the Nor­walk virus — respons­ible for last year’s highly pub­li­cized cruise-ship out­breaks — 93 per­cent of the time. The test was also highly accur­ate in spot­ting rota­virus, a major cause of diarrhea in children.”

Hmmm… I won­der if I’ll be able to claim ‘med­ical research’ the next time I ‘let one go’?