Lego trip takes while

Many doctors at some point in their career will be asked, ‘‘My child swallowed a piece of Lego, how long will it take to exit?’’

To get to the bottom of the question, Melbourne University researcher Andrew Tagg and a handful of fearless paediatricians ingested yellow Lego heads then waited patiently for the answer to appear.

Based on stool hardness and transit scores and found and retrieved time scores, the average journey in this small sample group was 1.7 days, although one paediatrician searched hopefully for two weeks without finding the lost yellow head.