# Ep 214 Boogers: Digging for treasure

An episode of [This Podcast Will Kill You](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1299915173), 30 Jun 2026, 1 h 02 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/e0709a39-232b-4483-8e4f-b24c0111ae2c/89ca15df-ff31-461a-a46a-b4500145c0bc/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=64b4c224-562e-4b2f-9f31-b24c0111ae53

Hard and crusty. Green and gloopy. Clear and watery. Boogers come in a veritable rainbow of colors and a full spectrum of textures from liquid to solid. They’re really quite impressive if you think about it. Which, of course, few of us do, besides adding tissues to our shopping list or cursing the dagger-like boogers that emerge during a trip to a particularly dry locale. But boogers deserve a lot more credit, and this episode is our attempt at righting that wrong. What are boogers, and what purpose do they serve? How long have handkerchiefs been around, and when did mucus evolve? How many of us are nose-pickers, and how do other species deal with their boogers? More stuffed with snot facts than a nose during flu season, this episode has all the best tidbits to share at your next dinner party. Support this podcast by shopping our latest sponsor deals and promotions at this link: https://bit.ly/3WwtIAu See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: During the late dry season, we noticed that a flu
[0:03] Speaker 1: like illness had become increasingly prevalent in the group. The
[0:07] Speaker 1: symptoms of flu consisted of a hacking cough, frequent sneezing,
[0:11] Speaker 1: a running nose, or a blocked nasal passage. Some affected
[0:14] Speaker 1: individuals lay on their stomachs for prolonged periods while coughing
[0:18] Speaker 1: and breathing through the mouth. By mid September, at least
[0:21] Speaker 1: fifty two of the eighty two chimpanzees in the group
[0:24] Speaker 1: were suffering from this illness. An adult male colunde aged
[0:29] Speaker 1: approximately twenty nine years, displayed the above flu like symptoms
[0:33] Speaker 1: between September fourteenth and October third. During this period, he
[0:37] Speaker 1: was observed on four occasions using a toothpick like tool
[0:41] Speaker 1: ten to eighteen centimeters long. On one additional occasion, he
[0:45] Speaker 1: was also seen to make a tool, apparently without using it.
[0:49] Speaker 1: He inserted the tool deeply into one of his nostrils,
[0:52] Speaker 1: which often immediately stimulated him to sneeze. When he sneezed,
[0:57] Speaker 1: a large amount of nasal mucus was discharged onto his
[1:00] Speaker 1: upper lip. The mucus was then picked off and quickly ingested.
[1:05] Speaker 1: On one occasion, he recovered a dry twig from the
[1:08] Speaker 1: ground and removed the leaves from it. He tried to
[1:11] Speaker 1: elicit sneezing by pushing the modified stem into one nostril,
[1:15] Speaker 1: but in the course of twenty nine seconds he failed
[1:17] Speaker 1: to do so. He then discarded the tool, picked up
[1:20] Speaker 1: a large dry leaf, removed the leaf blade with his teeth,
[1:24] Speaker 1: and pushed the modified mid rib into one nostril. Within
[1:27] Speaker 1: five seconds, he sneezed and his nasal passage was successfully cleared.
[1:32] Speaker 1: Colunda was one of several chimpanzees which, because of a
[1:35] Speaker 1: badly blocked nasal passage, were breathing with difficulty only through
[1:39] Speaker 1: the mouth. Because the normal air passage was blocked, The
[1:43] Speaker 1: stimulus afforded by the use of this tool forced the
[1:45] Speaker 1: accumulated nasal mucus out of his nose. Colunde ceased to
[1:49] Speaker 1: display this type of behavior after October third, and by
[1:52] Speaker 1: October ninth he had recovered.
[2:18] Speaker 2: Hm hiar and I love literally everything about that description.
[2:47] Speaker 1: Isn't that glorious?
[2:49] Speaker 2: It's so good. It's every toddler.
[2:52] Speaker 1: It's every toddler. Toddlers stick tools up their nose to induce.
[2:56] Speaker 2: They stick their own fingers up their nose, and course
[3:00] Speaker 2: of course I love authentic things.
[3:05] Speaker 1: But what I love about this is that there there
[3:07] Speaker 1: seems to be like, because this happened repeatedly, because he
[3:11] Speaker 1: tried different tools, different approaches, it seems like it was
[3:15] Speaker 1: a intention, Like there was an intention.
[3:18] Speaker 2: Behind that much. So very much. It sounds like very much.
[3:21] Speaker 1: And what's really interesting is that none of the other
[3:24] Speaker 1: chimpanzees in the group copied him, although there was one
[3:28] Speaker 1: that was like really intent and like really studying his.
[3:31] Speaker 2: Behavior interesting, but he's the only one.
[3:35] Speaker 1: He was the only one. So that was from a
[3:38] Speaker 1: paper by Nishida and Nakamura from nineteen ninety three called
[3:43] Speaker 1: Chimpanzee tool use to clear a blocked nasal passage. I
[3:51] Speaker 1: love it. Hi, I'm Aaron.
[3:52] Speaker 2: Welsh and I'm Erin, a'm an Updike.
[3:55] Speaker 1: And this is this podcast will kill you.
[3:57] Speaker 2: Welcome to bookers, Welcome to books.
[4:01] Speaker 1: I'm so excited for this me too. I think we
[4:05] Speaker 1: chose it because we were like, what sounds fun fun?
[4:09] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, we do a lot of dark on
[4:12] Speaker 2: this podcast. We do.
[4:14] Speaker 1: We need a little we need a little bit of
[4:16] Speaker 1: levity from time to time.
[4:18] Speaker 2: Yeah, this provides that it does. Yeah, I mean there's
[4:23] Speaker 2: there's some you could get into some real darkness about mucus.
[4:26] Speaker 1: Of course you could, but we won't today. I'm I'm
[4:30] Speaker 1: certainly not. For the most part, It's gonna be a
[4:33] Speaker 1: really fun episode. There's I have no idea what you're
[4:37] Speaker 1: going to be talking about. I'm sure you have no
[4:39] Speaker 1: idea what I'm going to.
[4:40] Speaker 2: Be talking about.
[4:40] Speaker 1: A clue, great because I had no idea when I
[4:44] Speaker 1: was like, wait, what why?
[4:46] Speaker 2: What? A history of boogers.
[4:50] Speaker 1: It's going to be great. But first, before we get
[4:52] Speaker 1: into all of the greatness of boogers any time, what
[4:56] Speaker 1: are we drinking this week?
[4:57] Speaker 2: We're drinking this not rocket this not rocket it.
[5:00] Speaker 1: So I absolutely love this. I was like, I was thinking, okay,
[5:06] Speaker 1: we could do like jello.
[5:08] Speaker 3: Something like chia seeds, something, chia seeds, cilium husk, just
[5:13] Speaker 3: sitting in water for a while. But but there are
[5:19] Speaker 3: recipes out there for how.
[5:20] Speaker 1: To make your own snot at home. It's like, I mean, like,
[5:25] Speaker 1: we can all make our we're making our owns not
[5:27] Speaker 1: currently we sure are, yeah, but yeah. So the British
[5:31] Speaker 1: Society for Immunology has a recipe a PDF. You can
[5:35] Speaker 1: find it on their website called the Gruesome Snot recipe.
[5:39] Speaker 1: We're calling it the not Rocket, but it basically follows
[5:42] Speaker 1: the same the same principle. You can find this recipe
[5:45] Speaker 1: anywhere if you look up homemade s Nott and it's
[5:48] Speaker 1: gelatin powder and corn syrup and food coloring yea, to
[5:53] Speaker 1: make it whatever stage of the process you want. Do
[5:56] Speaker 1: you want green, do you want more yellow?
[5:58] Speaker 2: You could probably add some like lemon or lime juice
[6:02] Speaker 2: or like some other juice to make it more flavorful,
[6:05] Speaker 2: because otherwise it's going to be pretty bland.
[6:07] Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, it's going to be pretty You could
[6:10] Speaker 1: do because it calls for hot water too, so you
[6:11] Speaker 1: could do a little bit less hot water and just
[6:14] Speaker 1: a little bit of flavors.
[6:15] Speaker 2: Exactly. There you go. Yeah, just like you know the
[6:17] Speaker 2: jellos you used to make in college, for example.
[6:21] Speaker 1: Exactly exactly. But you can find the recipe for this
[6:26] Speaker 1: on our website, this podcast will Kill You dot Com
[6:28] Speaker 1: our social media channels, and then there's also on the
[6:31] Speaker 1: British Society for.
[6:32] Speaker 2: Immunology shout out, shout, thank you.
[6:36] Speaker 1: Thank you for your service.
[6:41] Speaker 2: Speaking of our website, yeah, we have one. It's called
[6:44] Speaker 2: this podcast will Kill You dot Com. You've heard us
[6:46] Speaker 2: talk about it literally, so there's no way this is
[6:48] Speaker 2: the first episode that you've ever listened to bookers.
[6:51] Speaker 1: Wow, well, thank you, welcome. This is exciting.
[6:54] Speaker 2: But we do have a website, and on it you
[6:56] Speaker 2: can find transcripts, you can find sources for all of
[6:58] Speaker 2: our episodes. You can find a good Reads list of
[7:00] Speaker 2: bookshop dot org affiliate account, you can find merch you
[7:02] Speaker 2: can find our Patreon, you can find Bloodmobile who does
[7:05] Speaker 2: our music, and much.
[7:07] Speaker 1: More, much more.
[7:09] Speaker 2: The end, Yes, review subscribe.
[7:13] Speaker 1: We're on YouTube. But you can see that we chose
[7:16] Speaker 1: shirts that were either fun It's Aaron's fun, lovely striped shirt,
[7:20] Speaker 1: love it. And then I tried to get the snottiest
[7:23] Speaker 1: in the spirit of boogers, green and yellow and really good.
[7:27] Speaker 2: I mean I would never have called it a snotty shirt. Yeah,
[7:32] Speaker 2: now forever and more forever. Okay, okay, shall we let's
[7:37] Speaker 2: do it? I gotter this break. I started off this
[7:55] Speaker 2: section with the question what are boogers? And I do
[8:00] Speaker 2: I kind of want to know where the term boogers
[8:02] Speaker 2: comes from? And I didn't Are you going to tell
[8:04] Speaker 2: me that?
[8:05] Speaker 1: Later? I am?
[8:06] Speaker 2: Yes, I was hoping so because I do not know
[8:09] Speaker 2: what I do know? And I think what we all
[8:12] Speaker 2: actually know is what a booger is. It's one of
[8:16] Speaker 2: those you know it when you see it relationships, right.
[8:19] Speaker 1: I mean dried nasal mucus. It was what is the
[8:23] Speaker 1: medical term for booger?
[8:26] Speaker 2: There's not like a good medical term, but yeah, they
[8:29] Speaker 2: are dried or sticky bits of our snot our nasal mucus.
[8:33] Speaker 2: So to talk about boogers, we first have to talk
[8:35] Speaker 2: about our snot, And to talk about our snot, we
[8:38] Speaker 2: have to talk about mucus. Now, on this podcast, I
[8:43] Speaker 2: have used the term mucus membranes a lot of times
[8:47] Speaker 2: because so many infections that we have covered on this podcast,
[8:51] Speaker 2: we can get infected by contact with our mucus membranes.
[8:54] Speaker 2: But I don't think I've ever really defined the term.
[8:58] Speaker 2: I usually just say something like mucous membranes for example,
[9:01] Speaker 2: our nose, our eyes, our mouth. So let's talk about
[9:05] Speaker 2: our mucus membranes, Shelly. Our whole entire body has to
[9:11] Speaker 2: protect itself from pathogens all the time, and we do
[9:15] Speaker 2: this in a whole bunch of different ways. But we
[9:17] Speaker 2: really our bodies rely very heavily on barrier methods. So
[9:23] Speaker 2: our skin is this thick relatively hard protective layer made
[9:27] Speaker 2: up of keratin. It's not actually very sick, but in
[9:30] Speaker 2: the scheme of things, it is compared to a bacteria.
[9:34] Speaker 2: And our stomach, which also contacts the outside world, is
[9:37] Speaker 2: full of acid to kill things that might get in there.
[9:41] Speaker 2: And then we have our mucosal surfaces. These are areas
[9:45] Speaker 2: of our body that are protected via you guessed it, mucuses.
[9:50] Speaker 2: So our mucosal membranes or our mucosal surfaces are these
[9:54] Speaker 2: wet epithelial cells that rely, at least in very large
[9:59] Speaker 2: part on mucus to protect us against infections. Now, our
[10:04] Speaker 2: nose and really our entire respiratory system, which connects between
[10:08] Speaker 2: our nose, our mouth and then down into our lungs,
[10:12] Speaker 2: is one of these mucosal surfaces.
[10:14] Speaker 1: Wait, hold on, wet epithelial cells?
[10:17] Speaker 2: What epithelial cells?
[10:18] Speaker 1: Or you're gonna tell me more about what what what
[10:21] Speaker 1: that means?
[10:22] Speaker 2: Well, no, like, our skin is an epithelial barrier, but
[10:25] Speaker 2: it's not wet.
[10:27] Speaker 1: Yeah, but what where's the wetness coming from from the
[10:29] Speaker 1: mucus And where's the mucus coming Let me tell you, Okay,
[10:40] Speaker 1: So it's the moisture that makes these cells wet. It's
[10:43] Speaker 1: the moisture, but the cells are making the moisture.
[10:47] Speaker 2: The cells are making the moisture, and the moisture is
[10:49] Speaker 2: the mucus, and the mucus makes them wet.
[10:51] Speaker 1: So chicken and egg.
[10:54] Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know. Don't ask me which game first there.
[10:56] Speaker 1: Okay, Okay, I'm just trying to so it's it's wet, Okay, Okay.
[11:00] Speaker 2: I'm just saying that's part of how we define like
[11:02] Speaker 2: a mucous membrane is a wet surface that has mucus
[11:05] Speaker 2: on it. Oh okay, Okay, that's all. It's not that deep, Okay, Okay.
[11:10] Speaker 1: I was really thinking it was deep.
[11:12] Speaker 2: It's it's not really deep. It's surface layer. But I'm
[11:15] Speaker 2: just kidding. Ah, ok yeah, Okay.
[11:18] Speaker 1: Anyways, it was a very dry epithelial cell.
[11:23] Speaker 2: We're going too far unhinged. Okay. I want to talk
[11:27] Speaker 2: a little bit more about our nose, since that's what
[11:29] Speaker 2: we're focusing on today. Our nose mucus. All right, we
[11:34] Speaker 2: know that we use our nose to breathe, we use
[11:36] Speaker 2: our nose to smell. I'm not talking about those two
[11:38] Speaker 2: aspects of the function of our nose today. I'm focusing
[11:41] Speaker 2: on the layer of protection that our nose affords the
[11:45] Speaker 2: rest of our lower respiratory system from pathogens, from toxins,
[11:50] Speaker 2: and from other stuff that would harm our lungs. It's
[11:54] Speaker 2: not our mucus is the thing that allows our nose
[11:58] Speaker 2: to protect. If we could take a short detour into
[12:03] Speaker 2: the anatomy of our nose, I would love that.
[12:05] Speaker 1: Okay, love nothing more?
[12:07] Speaker 2: Okay, good, So our nose. Obviously, we have a septum
[12:11] Speaker 2: that divides the middle of our nose into these two
[12:13] Speaker 2: nasal passages. If you've never seen a cross sectional like
[12:18] Speaker 2: cut open view of our face, then you might not
[12:20] Speaker 2: know that our nasal passages connect posteriorly so like towards
[12:24] Speaker 2: the back of our face and open up into this
[12:28] Speaker 2: relatively large nasal cavity. And our nasal cavity has these
[12:33] Speaker 2: like grooves, these kind of like projections in the walls
[12:36] Speaker 2: of them that further serve to increase surface area. That's
[12:39] Speaker 2: the same thing that our septum does. Right, Instead of
[12:41] Speaker 2: just one hole, we have two, so we have more
[12:44] Speaker 2: surface area for epithelial cells to be on. And then
[12:49] Speaker 2: that nasal cavity connects even more posterior like almost towards
[12:53] Speaker 2: our neck with a chamber called the naso pharynx, and
[12:58] Speaker 2: that lies just above our oral cavity or our mouth.
[13:01] Speaker 2: The walls of this entire cavity are lined with specialized cells,
[13:06] Speaker 2: and these cells, a lot of them, have teeny tiny
[13:10] Speaker 2: projections that are kind of hair like that are called scilia.
[13:15] Speaker 2: Now this is not the same as the actual hair
[13:17] Speaker 2: that we have in the very first part of our nose,
[13:19] Speaker 2: which is very normal and also a layer of protection.
[13:22] Speaker 2: But these are teeny tiny little hair like projections. We
[13:27] Speaker 2: also have interspersed these specialized types of cells called goblet cells.
[13:31] Speaker 2: Our goblet cells job is to make mucus, so that
[13:36] Speaker 2: is the vast majority of where our mucus is coming
[13:38] Speaker 2: from is from these goblet cells. And then also below
[13:41] Speaker 2: the first layer of epithelial cells, there's another layer of
[13:44] Speaker 2: submucosal cells. That's also where our blood vessels, are, nerves,
[13:49] Speaker 2: and all of the other good stuff in our nose exists.
[13:52] Speaker 2: But we also have a whole bunch of glands specialized
[13:55] Speaker 2: cells that form these nasal glands. They also make a
[13:58] Speaker 2: bunch of different types of secretions, including some types of mucus.
[14:03] Speaker 1: All right, why are goblet cells called goblet cells and
[14:09] Speaker 1: our goblet cells the same, Like these are mucus producers
[14:12] Speaker 1: everywhere where we make mucus.
[14:14] Speaker 2: Correct. Goblet cells are the cells that make mucus everywhere.
[14:17] Speaker 2: They're all over our guts, They're all over all of
[14:19] Speaker 2: our mucus membranes. I think, and I could be misremembering this,
[14:24] Speaker 2: but I think they're called goblet cells just because they
[14:25] Speaker 2: kind of look like a goblet, like you know, imagine
[14:29] Speaker 2: a chalice. They kind of look like that. They're like robust, fancy, fancy,
[14:35] Speaker 2: and they hold fluid. I don't know. That's my best remembrance,
[14:40] Speaker 2: all right.
[14:40] Speaker 1: So Aaron's etymology done.
[14:46] Speaker 2: So let us get more into detail on this mucus
[14:50] Speaker 2: blanket as I saw it described in one paper, and
[14:54] Speaker 2: I just really really beautiful. It's so good. So inside
[14:59] Speaker 2: of our nose, covering all of the cells and covering
[15:03] Speaker 2: those teeny tiny hair like projections, is a wet cushiony
[15:08] Speaker 2: two layered actually blanket that is made of mucus. Mucus
[15:14] Speaker 2: is mostly water, okay, ninety seven percent water. There's also
[15:20] Speaker 2: a bunch of salts in their ions. But the thing
[15:24] Speaker 2: that makes mucus mucus y are these things called glycoproteins,
[15:30] Speaker 2: and these are molecules that are made up of sugar
[15:32] Speaker 2: and proteins all stuck together. And we call these type
[15:36] Speaker 2: of glycoproteins musins. That's how we got the name mucus.
[15:41] Speaker 2: And what musins do is the same thing that chia
[15:44] Speaker 2: seeds do. If you put them into liquid, they hold
[15:47] Speaker 2: onto that water and turn it into a gelatinous substance.
[15:52] Speaker 2: So they are the things that make our snot snotty.
[15:54] Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, uh huh.
[15:56] Speaker 2: Now, the other thing that we have a lot of
[15:58] Speaker 2: in our mucus is immune cells, immune particles, antibodies, especially IgA,
[16:05] Speaker 2: which is the main antibody that helps to block pathogens
[16:09] Speaker 2: from entering our nasal cells and our respiratory tract. This
[16:12] Speaker 2: is in super high concentrations in our nasal mucus. We
[16:15] Speaker 2: have other Yeah, what does IgA do?
[16:17] Speaker 1: Like, where does it stand in the in the other
[16:21] Speaker 1: among the other IG's.
[16:22] Speaker 2: It's basically it is the highest concentration antibody in our
[16:27] Speaker 2: the mucus membrane areas. So it is it is like
[16:29] Speaker 2: an associated with mucus membranes, especially in the respiratory tract.
[16:33] Speaker 2: Antibody just like IgG or IgM, the other major antibodies.
[16:38] Speaker 2: There's other ones as well too. It is highly specific
[16:41] Speaker 2: to like a particular part of a particular pathogen. And
[16:45] Speaker 2: you can have memory with your IgA like you can
[16:48] Speaker 2: with IgG, which is like a main memory type, and
[16:51] Speaker 2: all of the other ones are present too in our nose.
[16:53] Speaker 2: But that's just like it's a really high concentration, so
[16:55] Speaker 2: it's usually the first line of defense in our mucus membranes. Okay,
[16:59] Speaker 2: So for people who have like IgA deficiencies, for example,
[17:03] Speaker 2: then they might be at more susceptible to certain types
[17:07] Speaker 2: of especially respiratory pathogens, because they're not going to block
[17:10] Speaker 2: those as easily before it even gets into your lungs. Amazing,
[17:14] Speaker 2: so interesting. So that's what our mucus is made out of.
[17:19] Speaker 2: And I said already that we have these little hair
[17:22] Speaker 2: like projections, these silly that kind of line most all
[17:27] Speaker 2: of our respiratory tract, especially our nasal passages and our
[17:31] Speaker 2: nasal cavity back there, and these things wave like grass
[17:35] Speaker 2: in the wind or really like sea grass in the ocean.
[17:39] Speaker 2: Kind of beautiful. It's so beautiful, and in doing so,
[17:43] Speaker 2: they serve along with the mucus to propel all the
[17:48] Speaker 2: stuff in our mucus back to where it needs to go.
[17:53] Speaker 2: So in the very front part of our nasal passage
[17:55] Speaker 2: that might be propelling it out towards our nose holes
[17:58] Speaker 2: or our nostrils, but most of our mucus and the
[18:02] Speaker 2: cilia is propelling stuff backwards towards our nasopharynx and our
[18:07] Speaker 2: oropharynx so that we can swallow it.
[18:11] Speaker 1: Right, It is upsetting, but it is the truth. And okay,
[18:14] Speaker 1: but you said that sometimes it will propel forward and
[18:18] Speaker 1: sometimes backwards.
[18:19] Speaker 2: Yeah, why why it's mostly just anatomically Oh okay, yeah, yeah,
[18:24] Speaker 2: most of the time it's going back, but the very
[18:27] Speaker 2: front ones might sometimes go forwards. Just yeah, anatomic just
[18:30] Speaker 2: because that's where the motion easier output is. Yeah, okay.
[18:37] Speaker 2: So our mucus blanket does three major things in our nose.
[18:42] Speaker 2: Number one, it filters the air that we breathe. Literally,
[18:47] Speaker 2: because it is sticky, a lot of the larger particles,
[18:50] Speaker 2: including bacteria, but also allergens, toxins, et cetera, get stuck
[18:55] Speaker 2: in the stickiness of our mucus. That's the first thing
[18:58] Speaker 2: it does. Number Two, it serves as the first line
[19:01] Speaker 2: of defense against pathogens, both because we have so much
[19:06] Speaker 2: immune system stuff in our mucus, immunoglobulins, but also you know,
[19:11] Speaker 2: white blood cells and other inflammatory markers. But also because
[19:16] Speaker 2: when these pathogens get stuck to and interact with the
[19:19] Speaker 2: musin proteins in our mucus, it actually stimulates our immune response,
[19:24] Speaker 2: which is.
[19:25] Speaker 1: Why you can have some vaccines that are really.
[19:28] Speaker 2: Really good through your nose, especially if you need an
[19:31] Speaker 2: IgA response. And number three, this one's really important. Our
[19:37] Speaker 2: mucus helps to humidify the air that we breathe and
[19:42] Speaker 2: keep our cells moist as well.
[19:44] Speaker 1: It's a big one.
[19:45] Speaker 2: It's a huge one because if we were sucking dry
[19:48] Speaker 2: air into our lungs, we would get super sick. But
[19:54] Speaker 2: the air that we breathe is completely like it reaches
[19:58] Speaker 2: one hundred percent humidity by the time it hits our
[20:00] Speaker 2: naso farings beautiful. Isn't that beautiful? Even when you're in
[20:04] Speaker 2: Colorado and it's like two percent humidity or whatever.
[20:08] Speaker 1: You've got the crustiest books on the planet.
[20:11] Speaker 2: The hurts, right. What's so interesting too, is that it
[20:16] Speaker 2: does the opposite on the way out, So as we
[20:18] Speaker 2: are breathing out through our nose, we are taking back
[20:22] Speaker 2: that water and we're really really good at it. We
[20:25] Speaker 2: lose forty two percent more water if your mouth breathing
[20:29] Speaker 2: compared to nose breathing. That's fascint.
[20:32] Speaker 1: Okay, this is why I remember being learning that you're
[20:36] Speaker 1: when you run, you're supposed to breathe in through your
[20:39] Speaker 1: nose and out through your mouth.
[20:40] Speaker 2: Oh that's interesting.
[20:42] Speaker 1: That's what I always remember being hearing. I can't do it.
[20:45] Speaker 1: I have to mouth breathe the.
[20:46] Speaker 2: Whole time, the whole time. That makes sense.
[20:49] Speaker 1: And so I'm just wondering how dehydrated. How more dehydrated
[20:52] Speaker 1: I am?
[20:52] Speaker 2: Forty two percent according to one paper that direct I know.
[20:57] Speaker 1: That is Okay, So your nose is both humidifying and
[21:02] Speaker 1: dehumidifying depending on the context.
[21:05] Speaker 2: It humidifies and exhale it it replaces.
[21:09] Speaker 1: That water, and okay, so tell me. So now we're
[21:13] Speaker 1: still talking about mucus.
[21:16] Speaker 2: We are wet thing, a wet thing.
[21:19] Speaker 1: But then what makes it boogers? What dries it out?
[21:23] Speaker 2: What tries it out? Honestly, I don't have a great
[21:26] Speaker 2: explanation for that. Okay, that's the short answer. I'm sure
[21:30] Speaker 2: I could keep talking, because that's kind of what I do. Really,
[21:33] Speaker 2: I think a lot of it comes down to how
[21:36] Speaker 2: dehydrated we are to begin with. Okay, so if you
[21:40] Speaker 2: are dehydrated, then it is more likely that your boogers
[21:43] Speaker 2: or your nasal mucus is going to become more dehydrated.
[21:47] Speaker 2: There's a lot of different ways that we can have
[21:48] Speaker 2: trouble with our nasal mucus. Right when we get sick.
[21:52] Speaker 2: A lot of us are like, I'm making way more boogers,
[21:55] Speaker 2: I'm making way more snot than I should. We make
[21:59] Speaker 2: like two leaders of not a day.
[22:01] Speaker 1: It's it's why we all need to be hydrated.
[22:04] Speaker 2: That's why we all need to be h There's a
[22:06] Speaker 2: lot of reasons see our poop episode for more, but yes,
[22:10] Speaker 2: it is one reason that we need to be hydrated.
[22:12] Speaker 2: And a lot of times it can feel like we're
[22:14] Speaker 2: constantly blowing our nose. We must be making way more mucus.
[22:17] Speaker 2: I actually have no data, There is no data in
[22:19] Speaker 2: the literature that I found to suggest that we actually
[22:22] Speaker 2: produce any more mucus when we're sick. But what does
[22:25] Speaker 2: happen is that the blood vessels in our nose are swelling,
[22:29] Speaker 2: which allows more blood flow, so could potentially have more
[22:33] Speaker 2: water component to that mucus because of plasma extravasation. Basically
[22:38] Speaker 2: we also have more inflammatory markers, which can contribute to
[22:43] Speaker 2: water because it's inflammation which brings ions, which brings water.
[22:48] Speaker 2: But also what we know is that common cold viruses
[22:52] Speaker 2: really mess with that mucociliary transport, So our cilia are
[22:56] Speaker 2: not doing a good job bringing that mucus back towards
[22:59] Speaker 2: our where it's supposed to go so that we can
[23:01] Speaker 2: swallow it. And this can last for weeks after exposure,
[23:06] Speaker 2: and so that might be part of why it feels
[23:08] Speaker 2: like we're blowing our nose so much, because our mucus
[23:11] Speaker 2: is going back how it should.
[23:12] Speaker 1: Shooting down right. What about like post nasal drip though,
[23:15] Speaker 1: because that always increases a lot during cold respiratory infection.
[23:19] Speaker 2: But is that also just because it's not transporting it
[23:21] Speaker 2: all the way back the way that it should, because
[23:23] Speaker 2: that silly aligns the entirety of our track, So it's
[23:27] Speaker 2: just kind of hanging out there and drip dropping rather
[23:29] Speaker 2: than moving along the you know, sea grass the way
[23:33] Speaker 2: that it ought to. Okay, Okay, but that was the
[23:36] Speaker 2: opposite question of what you asked me, Aaron, which is
[23:39] Speaker 2: what about boogers?
[23:40] Speaker 1: Well, I have more snock questions if you're so willing,
[23:43] Speaker 1: But I mean, when I get to the boogers.
[23:45] Speaker 2: Going and then see if you have if I answer
[23:48] Speaker 2: it of color, you'll you'll we'll get there. That's what
[23:50] Speaker 2: I'm on my way to. Great. So we also can
[23:54] Speaker 2: have trouble in the opposite direction, where instead of having
[23:56] Speaker 2: too much mucus, we have the really gross, hard mucus.
[24:02] Speaker 2: And there's several different ways that this can end up happening.
[24:06] Speaker 2: Dehydration I already mentioned is a really big one, but
[24:08] Speaker 2: there also might be some reasons, be they genetic or
[24:12] Speaker 2: be they just I don't know, changes in how our
[24:15] Speaker 2: body is responding that if we start secreting more of
[24:19] Speaker 2: these musins inside of our cells. These musins the proteins
[24:23] Speaker 2: that make our mucus mucus. They are stored as solids,
[24:29] Speaker 2: but they are secreted and then hydrated by the water
[24:33] Speaker 2: lining our cells. But in any case, that could be
[24:36] Speaker 2: one reason, right, if you're either secreting more of these
[24:38] Speaker 2: or like we already said, if we just don't have
[24:40] Speaker 2: enough water, then all of these musins are forming this thick, goopy, sticky,
[24:45] Speaker 2: rubbery mucus rather than a nice slippery one. The other
[24:49] Speaker 2: way that this can happen is if we have issues
[24:52] Speaker 2: with ion balance, so we can have a huge throwback
[24:56] Speaker 2: for like og listeners, if you remember all the way
[24:59] Speaker 2: back to our cystic fiber episode. People with cystic fibrosis
[25:03] Speaker 2: have a defect in an ion channel, which means that
[25:08] Speaker 2: they are not transporting sodium chloride and bicarbonate across our
[25:12] Speaker 2: cell membranes in your mucous membrane cells in a way
[25:17] Speaker 2: that leads to less water on those cells and thus
[25:21] Speaker 2: thicker mucus in your airways. So that's another way that
[25:25] Speaker 2: you can have thicker, stickier mucus. And then also if
[25:28] Speaker 2: we are sick, then our mucus also has a bunch
[25:32] Speaker 2: of inflammatory cells, there's increased permeability of our blood vessels,
[25:36] Speaker 2: and there's just more junk in our mucus. So sometimes
[25:40] Speaker 2: we get that sick hard to clear mucus because it's
[25:43] Speaker 2: just so full of other junk, including bacteria or viruses,
[25:46] Speaker 2: but also our own immune system stuff. And that gets
[25:49] Speaker 2: an air into the question that you didn't quite ask
[25:51] Speaker 2: because I didn't let you, which is what's up with
[25:54] Speaker 2: the color of our mucus?
[25:55] Speaker 1: What's up with the color?
[25:56] Speaker 2: Everyone wants to know because there's this idea that oh,
[26:00] Speaker 2: green or yellow means that you have a bacterial infection,
[26:05] Speaker 2: and that's not really the case. Green or dark yellow
[26:08] Speaker 2: mucus means that you have a bunch of white blood
[26:11] Speaker 2: cells and inflammation going on. So yes, that's probably often
[26:16] Speaker 2: associated with some type of infection, but not necessarily a
[26:20] Speaker 2: bacterial infection. You can get plenty of gross mucus with
[26:23] Speaker 2: just a viral infection.
[26:24] Speaker 1: I feel like I want to know where this notion
[26:28] Speaker 1: came from. Yeah, maybe it will explore it on a
[26:31] Speaker 1: health myths.
[26:31] Speaker 2: That's a great question. I love that idea because I
[26:34] Speaker 2: don't know.
[26:35] Speaker 1: I have definitely heard this over the years and times
[26:39] Speaker 1: when I'm like, I know for certain that this is
[26:42] Speaker 1: not a bacterial infection, right, and you have growed and
[26:44] Speaker 1: I have absolutely appalling Yeah. Yeah, and you can have
[26:48] Speaker 1: a viral or a bacterial infection and have totally clear snot.
[26:52] Speaker 2: As well too, yep right.
[26:54] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[26:54] Speaker 2: The other color that you might see is brown or
[26:57] Speaker 2: red kind of bloody mucus, and sometimes that might be concerning,
[27:01] Speaker 2: but it also might just mean that you've been blowing
[27:03] Speaker 2: your nose so hard for so long that you've got
[27:05] Speaker 2: some capillaries leaking. So there's a little bit of blood
[27:08] Speaker 2: mixed in there. It runs the gamut.
[27:11] Speaker 1: Really a rainbow of mucus.
[27:14] Speaker 2: It really, it really is maybe not blue, but not blue.
[27:18] Speaker 1: I could imagine almost any other color.
[27:20] Speaker 2: Yeah, pretty much. I mean red, yellow, brown, green, orange,
[27:26] Speaker 2: orangeish for sure.
[27:27] Speaker 1: Maybe not purple either.
[27:29] Speaker 2: If you had a lot of blood in there, it
[27:31] Speaker 2: could potentially be right, yeah, maybe. Anyways, So that's our bookers, Aaron,
[27:38] Speaker 2: and our mucus. Do you have other questions? I feel
[27:42] Speaker 2: like you probably do.
[27:42] Speaker 1: I do. Nose picking.
[27:45] Speaker 2: Nose picking, yep.
[27:47] Speaker 1: And children pick their doves constantly. Children gallots of nose bleeds.
[27:53] Speaker 2: They do. Yeah, those two things are in fact associated.
[27:56] Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, Yeah.
[27:57] Speaker 2: So I tried to get an an understanding of, like,
[28:01] Speaker 2: how many people really pick their nose? A lot of
[28:05] Speaker 2: people pick their nose, Aaron, I have a paper. Oh good, Okay,
[28:09] Speaker 2: I found a few. There was a survey of adolescents,
[28:12] Speaker 2: and only three percent of them reported never picking their nose.
[28:16] Speaker 2: And they probably, like three percent three percent reliers because
[28:19] Speaker 2: or they just didn't remember that, Like they definitely picked
[28:22] Speaker 2: their nose as a kid, right. In surveys of adults
[28:26] Speaker 2: anywhere from like nine to fifteen percent report never picking
[28:30] Speaker 2: their nose again, and that just means never recently, right,
[28:36] Speaker 2: because pretty much all kids are going to pick their
[28:37] Speaker 2: nose at some point, and really, like, I get it.
[28:40] Speaker 2: I have two small kids who we tried from very
[28:47] Speaker 2: young age to teach them to blow their nose, Yeah,
[28:50] Speaker 2: and they bless them, still just kind of suck at it,
[28:54] Speaker 2: you know, well, and sometimes they're just too sticky and
[28:57] Speaker 2: dried out to actually get those boogers out with just
[29:00] Speaker 2: blowing your nose, like you gotta do something else. There
[29:04] Speaker 2: are some risks associated with nose picking. There is an
[29:07] Speaker 2: increased risk of infection, like if you have small abrasions,
[29:11] Speaker 2: then you can get bacteria or viruses that get into
[29:13] Speaker 2: your nose that can cause either a local infection or
[29:17] Speaker 2: can put people at higher risk for other respiratory infections, right,
[29:20] Speaker 2: since again, your nasal mucus is there to protect you
[29:23] Speaker 2: against infections. Also, there's been studies that show that people
[29:26] Speaker 2: who do pick their nose more regularly are more likely
[29:29] Speaker 2: to carry staff oureus in the nose. That makes sense,
[29:32] Speaker 2: so that's something. And of course nose picking puts you
[29:36] Speaker 2: definitely at higher risk of nose bleeds and things like that.
[29:39] Speaker 2: I didn't see a ton of data that said that,
[29:42] Speaker 2: like picking your nose puts you at risk of getting
[29:44] Speaker 2: other people infected. But theoretically it's possible because you're gonna
[29:48] Speaker 2: have stuff on your fingers from picking your nose if
[29:51] Speaker 2: you don't wash your dang hands afterwards.
[29:53] Speaker 1: That'd be a hard study to carry out.
[29:55] Speaker 2: Exactly, Like, I don't I don't even know.
[29:59] Speaker 1: Do our boogers chain as we get older.
[30:01] Speaker 2: I mean, certainly, because everything about our immune system changes
[30:05] Speaker 2: as we get older. But I don't have great data
[30:06] Speaker 2: to say, like your bookers get X, Y and Z
[30:08] Speaker 2: way versus when you're younger. So that's bookers eron boogers.
[30:15] Speaker 2: What you got for me?
[30:16] Speaker 1: Okay, before I tell you all about boogers, in what
[30:20] Speaker 1: I could find the medications that we use to dry.
[30:23] Speaker 2: Up, yeah boo yeah, uh huh. Okay, so some of.
[30:27] Speaker 1: What doesn't work. I know that there's some that are
[30:30] Speaker 1: don't that don't work at all.
[30:32] Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a lot that don't work at all, especially
[30:35] Speaker 2: most of the over the counter stuff doesn't work at all.
[30:40] Speaker 2: One that does is phenylephyrine. Yeah, Okay, that's not the
[30:44] Speaker 2: same thing as the other. It's the one that you
[30:46] Speaker 2: have to get behind the pharmacy counter in the US, Okay,
[30:48] Speaker 2: you have to have an ID for it. What that
[30:51] Speaker 2: does is causes blood vessel constriction, okay, and so that's
[30:54] Speaker 2: going to reduce blood flow, it's going to reduce inflammatory response,
[30:57] Speaker 2: and so that's going to also help to clear things up.
[31:00] Speaker 2: That's the same thing too that like a nasal steroid
[31:03] Speaker 2: or something is going to do, is just reduce overall
[31:05] Speaker 2: inflammation rather than directly affecting the ccilia or mucus production itself.
[31:10] Speaker 2: Hypertonic saline or even just isotonic saline, so like saline
[31:15] Speaker 2: nasal sprays or saline nasal washes also help to stimulate
[31:20] Speaker 2: our cilia. Plus they're providing hydration, which can help double
[31:24] Speaker 2: if you're dealing with that really thick or hyper concentrated mucus.
[31:28] Speaker 2: One that people use a lot, even though the data
[31:31] Speaker 2: is meh at best is gwifensin. That's what's in like
[31:35] Speaker 2: a mucinex or whatever, right, no affiliation here, that claims
[31:40] Speaker 2: to thin the mucus. It's what's called an expectorant. So
[31:43] Speaker 2: people usually use it if they have like a lot
[31:45] Speaker 2: of chest congestion to try and help cough out. We
[31:48] Speaker 2: didn't even talk about the cough reflex, but to try
[31:50] Speaker 2: and cough out that mucus by making it thinner. Yeah,
[31:54] Speaker 2: there is some data that shows that it does help.
[31:57] Speaker 2: Most of that data is like based on serve of
[32:00] Speaker 2: did you feel like you were coughing out more stuff
[32:03] Speaker 2: versus looking at the actual like mucus products or anything
[32:07] Speaker 2: like that. So yeah, that's how I got Aaron. There
[32:11] Speaker 2: are other ones too, but that's those are the main functions.
[32:14] Speaker 1: Those are the ones that actually great.
[32:15] Speaker 2: Okay ones, Okay, So now tell me everything you know
[32:19] Speaker 2: about boogers.
[32:21] Speaker 1: There's so much I can't can't wait. You may or
[32:41] Speaker 1: may not be surprised that the history of boogers is
[32:44] Speaker 1: not the most robust area of study.
[32:49] Speaker 2: Is it not one of the four humors eron?
[32:52] Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, it is, but like I didn't want
[32:56] Speaker 1: to go down another humoral passway, but I really because
[33:01] Speaker 1: I was trying to find like boogers, like references to boogers.
[33:05] Speaker 1: I don't know what I expected to find, but yeah,
[33:07] Speaker 1: the literature was kind of sparse on like the story
[33:10] Speaker 1: of dried nasal mucus slash flem slash snot slash bogies,
[33:15] Speaker 1: O bogies, goobers, goobers.
[33:18] Speaker 2: To call them goobers.
[33:19] Speaker 1: I just think of the chocolate covered peanuts. Oh yeah,
[33:22] Speaker 1: that was my movie theater snack.
[33:25] Speaker 2: For a while.
[33:25] Speaker 1: Coobers. Yeah, interesting for a period of time. Okay, then
[33:29] Speaker 1: I went back to like sweethearts or something. Anyway, I
[33:32] Speaker 1: tried a bunch of different search terms for this for
[33:35] Speaker 1: this episode, and I did find a few fun snippets
[33:38] Speaker 1: on like the etymology of boogers or bogies. So it
[33:42] Speaker 1: turns out that booger, which is what we in the
[33:45] Speaker 1: US often called dried nasal mucus, probably originated from bogie,
[33:50] Speaker 1: which is often what is used in the UK to
[33:52] Speaker 1: refer to what we call boogers and goblin or hobgoblin
[33:57] Speaker 1: or bogeyman. Oh, something meant to frighten, especially little children.
[34:02] Speaker 1: So I don't know if it was like oh.
[34:04] Speaker 2: And then also scary stuff that's so weird.
[34:07] Speaker 1: Yeah, also was it was used. Booger has been used
[34:11] Speaker 1: in the US and the Southern US, especially to mean
[34:14] Speaker 1: ghost or spirit. And so how it got from like scary, bogie,
[34:20] Speaker 1: goblin whatever, to are in your nose. Maybe it's like, oh,
[34:25] Speaker 1: there's a little bit of a there's a goblin up
[34:27] Speaker 1: there or something.
[34:28] Speaker 2: Oh interesting, it's a cave. It's a cave.
[34:30] Speaker 1: Yeah, goblin in your nose.
[34:32] Speaker 2: Yeah okay.
[34:34] Speaker 1: But in addition to bogie to refer to dried nasal mucus,
[34:38] Speaker 1: it's also a golf term meaning oh yes, one shot
[34:41] Speaker 1: over par So. It was named after an imaginary golfer
[34:45] Speaker 1: named Colonel Boogie Bogie in eighteen ninety who was very good.
[34:49] Speaker 1: So you were like trying to beat him. I like
[34:51] Speaker 1: couldn't quite get my head around where Colonel Bogee came from.
[34:56] Speaker 1: I guess it's like another He was like the Bogeyman,
[34:59] Speaker 1: like the imagine.
[35:00] Speaker 2: By trying to be so random Erin also, bogie.
[35:04] Speaker 1: Is referred to or is used to refer to an
[35:06] Speaker 1: unidentified aircraft, sometimes so like top gun, top gun and
[35:12] Speaker 1: left there you go. In Australia, apparently bogie can mean
[35:18] Speaker 1: swim or bathe or like swimming hole, maybe.
[35:21] Speaker 2: Like we're going to the bogie or like, oh my god,
[35:23] Speaker 2: all of our Australian listeners, I'm so sorry, I don't know, Okay,
[35:27] Speaker 2: I do tell us, okay, yeah.
[35:29] Speaker 1: Please send us an example of bogee in a sentence.
[35:33] Speaker 2: How do you use the word boge a sentence.
[35:35] Speaker 1: Yes, but yeah, this little this little exercise and etymology
[35:39] Speaker 1: was basically how the entire research for this episode went
[35:42] Speaker 1: for me. It's just like rabbit hole. Let's dig down here,
[35:45] Speaker 1: rabbit hole, try to understand this. Oh gosh, is that
[35:47] Speaker 1: where we're going now? So instead of doing one like
[35:52] Speaker 1: comprehensive history of boogers, I decided to do three stories
[35:56] Speaker 1: related to bookers.
[35:57] Speaker 2: Love it.
[35:58] Speaker 1: Number one mucus in evolution, okay, Number two nose picking,
[36:03] Speaker 1: and number three handkerchiefs and facial tissue. Ooh well, it's
[36:07] Speaker 1: basically just like a booger grab bag.
[36:10] Speaker 2: I love it.
[36:11] Speaker 1: There we go, Okay. Number one, why mucus is great.
[36:16] Speaker 1: One of the many fascinating booger facts you shared with us,
[36:19] Speaker 1: Aerin is that our mucus that we produce in our
[36:22] Speaker 1: nose helps to protect us from infection by acting as
[36:25] Speaker 1: this little barrier to trap pathogens or other irritants that
[36:30] Speaker 1: we might breathe in, not just bacteria viruses, but also
[36:33] Speaker 1: put like pollutants and just like junk junk that's in your.
[36:37] Speaker 2: Like, you know, the junk that you're breathing in.
[36:39] Speaker 1: Yeah, you know when you blow your nose after your gardening,
[36:43] Speaker 1: or you are driving down a dirt road with the
[36:45] Speaker 1: windows open, like I've done that, and then what comes
[36:49] Speaker 1: out is like you're like mud in my nose. Otherwise
[36:52] Speaker 1: that would be in your lungs, right, So that's pretty great.
[36:55] Speaker 1: Thank you Manmas, Thank you mucus. Our nasal passages are
[36:59] Speaker 1: just one place that mucus resides. Like you said, Aaron,
[37:02] Speaker 1: we have all these mucous membranes. You can find it
[37:04] Speaker 1: in our intestinal tract, our lungs, our genital tracks, and
[37:07] Speaker 1: humans are far from the only species to produce mucus.
[37:11] Speaker 1: In fact, mucus is widespread.
[37:13] Speaker 2: It's everywhere I'm looking down.
[37:15] Speaker 1: I mean it's like close to universal, yeah, produced by
[37:18] Speaker 1: vertebrates and invertebrates alike, from dogs to fishes to corals
[37:23] Speaker 1: and comb jellies the most distant animal relatives of humans
[37:27] Speaker 1: produce mucus, of course, and it serves far more purposes
[37:30] Speaker 1: than just keeping our noses moisturized and infection free. It
[37:34] Speaker 1: helps with transport of substances. So corals produce a kind
[37:38] Speaker 1: of mucus that traps food like zoplankton that's then conveyed
[37:42] Speaker 1: to their mouths to be digested and then excreted through
[37:45] Speaker 1: that same mouth after digestion.
[37:47] Speaker 2: Oh.
[37:47] Speaker 1: I love that it helps with gas and ion exchange.
[37:52] Speaker 1: So this is crucial for fish to maintain how much
[37:55] Speaker 1: water and salutes are in their bodies. So when salmon
[37:58] Speaker 1: travel from the ocean salt water to their breeding grounds
[38:02] Speaker 1: up river, which is freshwater, their mucus composition changes. Does
[38:06] Speaker 1: that help to protect against different pathogens that they're exposed to?
[38:09] Speaker 1: Does it help with at ion exchange?
[38:11] Speaker 2: Wow?
[38:13] Speaker 1: Mucus also helps with communication, So land snails might use
[38:17] Speaker 1: mucus as a queue to like where to go. They're like, oh,
[38:20] Speaker 1: there are studies done. That's like snails of the same
[38:24] Speaker 1: species will follow the tracks of.
[38:27] Speaker 2: The same same snails, but.
[38:29] Speaker 1: Then they'll maybe avoid the mucus tracts of non reli.
[38:33] Speaker 2: Good. I love that.
[38:35] Speaker 1: Fish also use mucus. There's a lot about fish and mucus.
[38:39] Speaker 1: I've downloaded a few review papers in case you're interested.
[38:42] Speaker 1: Fish use mucus to communicate in a bunch of different ways,
[38:44] Speaker 1: like from signaling alarm, reproduction to repel predators. There's even
[38:49] Speaker 1: like mucus traces up waterfalls or like upstreams to be
[38:53] Speaker 1: like this is where to go.
[38:54] Speaker 3: Oh wow.
[38:55] Speaker 1: Hagfish in particular are well known for the absolutely ridiculous
[38:59] Speaker 1: amount of slime that they produce. When I have a
[39:02] Speaker 1: whole paper on this too.
[39:03] Speaker 2: When is it going to be like hagfish musins instead
[39:06] Speaker 2: of snail musins that they're putting in skincare I just
[39:08] Speaker 2: can't wait for that. I'm sure so well.
[39:10] Speaker 1: Hagfish also produce these, like these fibers that like help
[39:14] Speaker 1: the mucus be more coagulate. I don't, it's really I
[39:17] Speaker 1: love it. It's cool stuff.
[39:19] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[39:20] Speaker 1: Uh. Mucus helps with adhesion. So for instance, there are
[39:23] Speaker 1: some types of birds like swallows and phoebees that build
[39:26] Speaker 1: nests made out of mud mixed with their saliva, which
[39:30] Speaker 1: contains musin that basically acts as glue to cement the nest. Wow,
[39:34] Speaker 1: it's really cool.
[39:35] Speaker 2: That's really cool.
[39:36] Speaker 1: I loved, Like, how did that evolve?
[39:39] Speaker 2: You have so many questions.
[39:41] Speaker 1: It helps with lubrication.
[39:43] Speaker 2: Of course.
[39:43] Speaker 1: Earthworms use mucus to move through the earth. We use
[39:47] Speaker 1: it to help our digestion move smoothly. It's critical in
[39:50] Speaker 1: reducing friction injuries, and of course mucus helps to prevent infection,
[39:56] Speaker 1: not just as a barrier but mucus itself contains many
[39:58] Speaker 1: different anti microbial compounds, even within coral's jellyfish fish. The
[40:04] Speaker 1: quantity and overall composition of these compounds, as well as
[40:07] Speaker 1: the mucus microbiome, might change along with changing environments. Again,
[40:12] Speaker 1: think of those salmon going from saltwater to freshwater. Saliva
[40:16] Speaker 1: contains mucus that helps to fight pathogens that cause cavities.
[40:21] Speaker 1: Doesn't always do a great job. See our florid episodes. Right,
[40:26] Speaker 1: These anti microbial properties of mucus have garnered a lot
[40:30] Speaker 1: of attention as a potential in like non toxic protective
[40:33] Speaker 1: coating agents for implants, for example, because it's like, well,
[40:37] Speaker 1: these are things that are naturally found, but then there's
[40:41] Speaker 1: all started making them. Yeah, but there are other avenues
[40:44] Speaker 1: for anti microbial applications of this. There's snail musin. Maybe
[40:48] Speaker 1: we'll go down that pathway sometime.
[40:50] Speaker 2: I have a bottle, do you really I'm a little
[40:52] Speaker 2: bit embarrassed to say, yeah, I know. It's it's like
[40:57] Speaker 2: just any other lotion, let's be honest. I mean it's
[41:00] Speaker 2: just a little stickier. Yeah.
[41:02] Speaker 1: Unfortunately, I think skincare mostly comes down to genetics, but
[41:05] Speaker 1: and sun exposure.
[41:06] Speaker 2: Sun exposure. Yep.
[41:07] Speaker 1: Yeah, clearly. Mucus is a vital substance for most of
[41:13] Speaker 1: animal life on this planet. And that's also evidenced by
[41:17] Speaker 1: how often it has evolved independently. Like one recent paper
[41:21] Speaker 1: found fifteen cases of parallel evolution. So like, muse and
[41:25] Speaker 1: genes keep evolving because it's so important.
[41:29] Speaker 2: Yeah, it's so useful.
[41:30] Speaker 1: Wow, mucas is pretty rad. Okay, you're ready for number two?
[41:35] Speaker 2: I love it. I just can we sit with that?
[41:37] Speaker 2: Mucus is pretty rad? Is rad? Yeah, so our boogers
[41:40] Speaker 2: are pretty radd percent. People just try and get rid
[41:44] Speaker 2: of them all the time. It's like, thank you, well, okay.
[41:47] Speaker 1: People try to go. Speaking of trying to get rid
[41:49] Speaker 1: of boogers, give no nose picking.
[41:52] Speaker 2: Nose picking.
[41:54] Speaker 1: A nineteen ninety five survey of two hundred and fifty
[41:57] Speaker 1: four adult residents of Dane County, Wiscone you read this
[42:01] Speaker 1: one revealed that ninety one percent were nose pickers, although
[42:07] Speaker 1: only seventy five percent thought that everyone else picked their nose.
[42:12] Speaker 1: This would come. These findings would come as a great,
[42:15] Speaker 1: though probably not entirely unsurprising upset to Albert Seltzer, MD,
[42:20] Speaker 1: who the author of a nineteen sixty three paper titled
[42:24] Speaker 1: nose Picking, in which he says, quote, the average person
[42:28] Speaker 1: would consider it insulting to be advised not to pick
[42:31] Speaker 1: his nose. Nose picking is not done in polite society.
[42:35] Speaker 1: It is in a class with nail biting, ear picking, sniffling,
[42:38] Speaker 1: and other mannerisms that simply are not done by the
[42:41] Speaker 1: well bred person. Perhaps it would be more correct to
[42:45] Speaker 1: state that people, even the most well bred, ought not
[42:47] Speaker 1: to pick their noses, but do far too often. If
[42:52] Speaker 1: you do not believe it, look around you the next
[42:54] Speaker 1: time you are at a public gathering, at a ballgame
[42:57] Speaker 1: or a lecture or at church. This matter does serves
[43:00] Speaker 1: the attention of all people who wish to be in
[43:02] Speaker 1: good taste and to remain in good health.
[43:07] Speaker 2: So he's saying, everyone is out there picking their nose,
[43:10] Speaker 2: but none of you should be doing this.
[43:12] Speaker 1: No one is doing everyone's doing it in private, No
[43:15] Speaker 1: one should be doing it at all, but everyone does it.
[43:18] Speaker 1: And it's like, it's so funny. It's when I read
[43:20] Speaker 1: that thing about like just go to a ballgame or whatever,
[43:24] Speaker 1: and it is amazing airports driving around and you look
[43:28] Speaker 1: around at the intersection and there's just like constant. I
[43:31] Speaker 1: feel like nose picking is on display all the time.
[43:34] Speaker 2: It really is, if you look for it there, it's there,
[43:37] Speaker 2: not just the toddlers.
[43:39] Speaker 1: It's really not. It's really not. Yeah, So nose picking
[43:44] Speaker 1: is not a thriving area of research as far as
[43:47] Speaker 1: I could find.
[43:48] Speaker 2: No.
[43:49] Speaker 1: Unfortunately, I guess most articles seem to focus either on
[43:53] Speaker 1: how common it is, which is exceedingly common extreme cases,
[43:57] Speaker 1: so like compulsive nose picking, rhino to lexomania, which is
[44:02] Speaker 1: I think you mentioned that sometimes leading to injury and
[44:06] Speaker 1: blood loss, and like a septum deforation perforation.
[44:11] Speaker 2: That's what it is.
[44:12] Speaker 1: And some papers have looked at the health effects like
[44:16] Speaker 1: nose picking and infection rate or other things like that,
[44:19] Speaker 1: but not so much about the history of nose picking
[44:22] Speaker 1: or cultural variations. Nose Picking might be widespread even among adults,
[44:28] Speaker 1: but it's not seen as culturally acceptable in many places
[44:31] Speaker 1: around the world.
[44:33] Speaker 2: And why that is.
[44:34] Speaker 1: Might come down to the same reasons that we see
[44:36] Speaker 1: other bodily excretions or fluids as like unacceptable or like
[44:41] Speaker 1: the disgust there they can harbor pathogens. So if someone
[44:45] Speaker 1: with a case of flu or a cold or covid
[44:47] Speaker 1: picks their nose and wipes their running snot on their hand,
[44:50] Speaker 1: and then touches a shopping cart, a door handle, or
[44:53] Speaker 1: god forbid, shakes your hand. That makes transmission of that
[44:56] Speaker 1: pathogen more likely. And so it's possible that our feeling
[45:00] Speaker 1: of disgust regarding nose picking and booger eating, which I
[45:03] Speaker 1: could not find statistics on that helps prevent the spread
[45:09] Speaker 1: of certain diseases. And it certainly seems like this discuss
[45:13] Speaker 1: is something we have to learn. Like, spend any time
[45:16] Speaker 1: with a child under five ten years of age and
[45:20] Speaker 1: you'll see that right away.
[45:21] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[45:22] Speaker 1: I read a frankly bizarre chapter of a book that
[45:27] Speaker 1: asked the question. The chapter specifically asked the question, why
[45:32] Speaker 1: is eating snot socially unacceptable?
[45:36] Speaker 2: Yeah? What was their conclusion?
[45:37] Speaker 1: Well, mostly the chapter seemed to be a defense of
[45:41] Speaker 1: the practice, oh, defending it, or at least kind of
[45:44] Speaker 1: took the stance of like, this is no different than
[45:46] Speaker 1: swallowing snot, which we do all day every day. And
[45:50] Speaker 1: also we exchange bodily fluids all the time with other people,
[45:54] Speaker 1: So people, why would you not want to consume somebody
[45:58] Speaker 1: else's snot? I did not particularly.
[46:06] Speaker 2: Injury.
[46:07] Speaker 1: This chapter made me uncomfortable, and there was a quote
[46:10] Speaker 1: that sought to explain why admitted booger eaters did what
[46:14] Speaker 1: they did. It haunts me. I'm passing passing along this curse. Okay,
[46:22] Speaker 1: God help me, okay.
[46:24] Speaker 2: Quote.
[46:25] Speaker 1: It should not be forgotten that among human preferences concerning
[46:29] Speaker 1: food texture, crunchiness is highly significant, and extra regards flavors,
[46:35] Speaker 1: salty and sweet tastes are the favorite ones. It so
[46:39] Speaker 1: happens that dry nasal exudations possess both characteristics as well
[46:44] Speaker 1: as proteins and trace slipands and quote, Yeah, I want
[46:54] Speaker 1: to go back to the person I was before I
[46:56] Speaker 1: read that. I have two things that I want to
[46:58] Speaker 1: say about that, Aaron, please.
[47:00] Speaker 2: Number one, I you know that I tried to record
[47:04] Speaker 2: my kids to see if they had any stories about
[47:06] Speaker 2: boogers that we could use for our first hand account.
[47:08] Speaker 2: And they're two into poop jokes right now, so their
[47:11] Speaker 2: stories just evolved into poop and it didn't work at
[47:13] Speaker 2: Allten But they said multiple times that they eat their
[47:17] Speaker 2: boogers because they do both of them.
[47:19] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[47:19] Speaker 2: Yeah, twenty years from now, they're gonna hate me for this,
[47:22] Speaker 2: but they they said that they eat them because they're delicious,
[47:26] Speaker 2: and I'm like, I.
[47:27] Speaker 1: Do believe crunchiness, salty, sweet flavors.
[47:32] Speaker 2: This is I don't know, man, it's you know, you're right.
[47:35] Speaker 2: We do swallow, you know, over a leader of our
[47:38] Speaker 2: own mucus, a leader and a half of our own
[47:40] Speaker 2: mucus every day. It does somehow feel different to like
[47:44] Speaker 2: take it out and then eat it intentionally feels different,
[47:48] Speaker 2: feels different to me.
[47:50] Speaker 1: I just yeah, like, there's is the disgust learned? Is
[47:55] Speaker 1: it right?
[47:56] Speaker 3: Right?
[47:57] Speaker 2: Is it warranted? I don't know.
[48:01] Speaker 1: I can't help but feel that it is warranted. But
[48:05] Speaker 1: but this this disgust that we feel is not universal.
[48:08] Speaker 1: It's not universal across the globe. It's not universal across
[48:12] Speaker 1: our life span. It's not universal in other primate species,
[48:16] Speaker 1: as evidenced by our first hand account bless them. I
[48:20] Speaker 1: read a review of nose picking in primates.
[48:22] Speaker 2: Okay.
[48:23] Speaker 1: It revealed that at least eleven species not only pick
[48:27] Speaker 1: their nose but also eat what comes out to mucus.
[48:30] Speaker 1: This spans from chimpanzees like our first hand to capuchins,
[48:34] Speaker 1: from macqus to eyes, all of which have pretty good dexterity.
[48:38] Speaker 1: So it seems like the species that have good dexterity
[48:40] Speaker 1: that have been observed our nose pickers and booger eaters.
[48:45] Speaker 2: So you're telling me that our fingers evolved so that
[48:48] Speaker 2: we could pick our nose and eat our bookers.
[48:50] Speaker 1: Well, so is that is that?
[48:52] Speaker 2: That means?
[48:53] Speaker 1: Yeah? Some but some some don't use their fingers directly.
[48:57] Speaker 1: They'll use sticks or twigs like our like our first hand,
[49:01] Speaker 1: but some do use fingers. So e eyes eyes, you
[49:05] Speaker 1: know how e eyes have that super long middle finger
[49:08] Speaker 1: that they use to dig out grubs and trees. They
[49:11] Speaker 1: also use that finger to pick their nose and eat
[49:14] Speaker 1: their bookers. So the scientists who observed this were like,
[49:18] Speaker 1: where the fingers totally, it's disappeared us all the way
[49:21] Speaker 1: up there where the heck didn't go. It's like a
[49:23] Speaker 1: very very long finger. A CT scan revealed that it
[49:26] Speaker 1: goes all the way up the nose until it reaches
[49:29] Speaker 1: the throat your FARINGX like yeah, and then they.
[49:34] Speaker 2: Pull it out and then they're just moving it from
[49:37] Speaker 2: one place to another.
[49:38] Speaker 1: Yeah, yep.
[49:41] Speaker 2: Fascinating, Anne. I love this.
[49:45] Speaker 1: Given the widespread nature of nose picking in those species
[49:48] Speaker 1: who have the dexterity in the fingers to do so.
[49:51] Speaker 1: In primates, The authors suggest that maybe nose picking and
[49:55] Speaker 1: booker ingestion is an adaptive grooming or cleaning behavior rather
[50:00] Speaker 1: than a harmful one. Okay, the jury is out. Jury
[50:04] Speaker 1: is out. I also want to know if other species
[50:07] Speaker 1: that have fingers, like raccoons, for instance, pick their nose.
[50:11] Speaker 2: Do they pick their nose?
[50:12] Speaker 1: I don't know.
[50:13] Speaker 2: Fake raccoons have little claws, you know ouch?
[50:18] Speaker 1: I mean, oh, so like it's too sharp?
[50:21] Speaker 2: Sharp? Yeah?
[50:22] Speaker 1: If they had blunted. I mean, I don't know if
[50:25] Speaker 1: an I can pick its nose to its throat.
[50:29] Speaker 2: I I don't know.
[50:32] Speaker 1: And there's one last nose picking fact that I want
[50:35] Speaker 1: to share.
[50:36] Speaker 2: Give it to you.
[50:37] Speaker 1: You already know this, but maybe it's just a reminder.
[50:41] Speaker 1: I want to give a shout out to the tick
[50:43] Speaker 1: species that crawls up the nostrils of chimpanzees, as well
[50:47] Speaker 1: as the occasional human potentially to avoid being groomed or
[50:52] Speaker 1: being removed oring grooming, which chimpanzees frequently engage in. I'm
[50:56] Speaker 1: not sure if they're able to get the tick out
[50:57] Speaker 1: with their fingers, but there have been you can see
[50:59] Speaker 1: pictures of chimpanzees with the ticks right in there, and
[51:04] Speaker 1: humans discovered it in theirs, like researchers have discovered it
[51:07] Speaker 1: over the years and they're like, there's something in my
[51:09] Speaker 1: nose that I can't get out, So I just wanted
[51:12] Speaker 1: to leave you with that.
[51:13] Speaker 2: Maybe that's why. Sure, it's right, no judgment here.
[51:26] Speaker 1: Number three three Blowing your nose. Blowing your nose, nose
[51:31] Speaker 1: picking is just one strategy to rid yourself of the
[51:34] Speaker 1: pesky nasal mucus. Or you can use a twig if
[51:37] Speaker 1: you want to be the chimpanzee in our first hand account.
[51:41] Speaker 1: You can also use pressure to evacuate your nostrils, perhaps
[51:44] Speaker 1: into the air the actually named it's not rocket, or
[51:49] Speaker 1: into a receptacle such as a handkerchief or a tissue.
[51:53] Speaker 1: But people have been emptying their nose into handkerchiefs and
[51:57] Speaker 1: tissue for quite some times. While handkerchiefs, ask when the
[52:01] Speaker 1: handkerchief was invented, and you'll get one hundred different answers. Oh, like,
[52:05] Speaker 1: maybe it was when cloth was invented. Maybe it was
[52:07] Speaker 1: an ancient China, ancient Rome. Maybe it was invented by
[52:10] Speaker 1: King Richard, who reigned from thirteen seventy seven to thirteen
[52:14] Speaker 1: ninety nine. He requested, apparently quote small pieces of linen
[52:17] Speaker 1: made to be given to the Lord king for blowing
[52:20] Speaker 1: and covering his nose. Okay, quote, And this might be
[52:25] Speaker 1: a case of like a difference in when a thing
[52:28] Speaker 1: was invented and then when a name for it was
[52:31] Speaker 1: like everyone had a little small piece of cloth, who
[52:34] Speaker 1: thought to be like, this is a chain for y right,
[52:38] Speaker 1: And so people long before King Richard the second were
[52:41] Speaker 1: likely blowing their noses and wiping their brows with small
[52:44] Speaker 1: pieces of cloth, wiping their hands, you know, before eating food.
[52:49] Speaker 1: But it seems that at the time of his request
[52:51] Speaker 1: there wasn't a specific word for it in English, and
[52:54] Speaker 1: handkerchief didn't show up until the early sixteenth century, though
[52:58] Speaker 1: kerchief is earlier. So just yeah, interesting.
[53:03] Speaker 2: Interesting.
[53:04] Speaker 1: The handkerchief holds this interesting position where on the one hand,
[53:09] Speaker 1: it's an object of practicality, but it's also one of
[53:13] Speaker 1: powerful symbolism and a sign of like it's a communication device,
[53:19] Speaker 1: but also a sign of like a status symbol.
[53:22] Speaker 2: Almost okay.
[53:23] Speaker 1: So Renaissance studies scholar doctor Bella Marabella uses these two
[53:28] Speaker 1: quotes in this chapter I read about handkerchiefs to show
[53:30] Speaker 1: this like strange juxtaposition of handkerchiefs. So from a fifteen
[53:34] Speaker 1: fifty eight book on manners quote and when you have
[53:37] Speaker 1: blown your nose, you should not open your handkerchief and
[53:40] Speaker 1: look inside as if pearls or rubies might have descended
[53:43] Speaker 1: from your brain.
[53:45] Speaker 2: Okay, wait, wait wait. One of my co I don't
[53:47] Speaker 2: have a lot of memories from childhood, but one of
[53:51] Speaker 2: my clearest is watching an episode of one of the
[53:56] Speaker 2: Mary Kate Nashley Olsen shows where they were like in
[54:00] Speaker 2: middle school and they were talking about a kid that
[54:03] Speaker 2: they got like assigned to be in a project with,
[54:05] Speaker 2: and they were like, yeah, you know that kid who
[54:07] Speaker 2: blows his nose and then spends too much time looking
[54:09] Speaker 2: at the brothers.
[54:10] Speaker 1: Haha, that's amazing.
[54:12] Speaker 2: And that description has always stuck with me, especially every
[54:15] Speaker 2: time that I'm like showing my kid his boogers after
[54:17] Speaker 2: he blew his nose.
[54:22] Speaker 1: Too long, looking as if pearls or rubies have descended
[54:25] Speaker 1: from their brain.
[54:26] Speaker 2: That's so funnier.
[54:28] Speaker 1: Okay, so that's one, right, Like, yeah, you use a
[54:32] Speaker 1: handkerchief to use it, and then it's not something it's
[54:35] Speaker 1: not pretty down there. Yeah, it's not something to admire.
[54:39] Speaker 1: But then also from a fifteen eighty book quote Maids
[54:43] Speaker 1: and gentlewomen gave their favorites as tokens of their love,
[54:47] Speaker 1: little handkerchiefs of about three to four inches square, wrought
[54:51] Speaker 1: round about with a tassel at each corner. Men put
[54:54] Speaker 1: the handkerchiefs in their hat bands.
[54:56] Speaker 2: End quote.
[54:56] Speaker 1: So these snot rags, could also be indications of love
[55:00] Speaker 1: or flirtation or like devotion. In Shakespeare's Othello, the plot
[55:06] Speaker 1: hinges kind of around a handkerchief, so basically Iago is
[55:11] Speaker 1: the bad guy. Also the parrot in Aladdin Yah is
[55:13] Speaker 1: the bad guy. Classic manipulates Othello by telling him that
[55:18] Speaker 1: he saw another man with the handkerchief of a fellow's wife, Desdemona.
[55:23] Speaker 1: So Othello then murders does Demona totally normal reaction to
[55:27] Speaker 1: some handkerchief? To a handkerchief? He was lying it was
[55:31] Speaker 1: a mess, classic.
[55:35] Speaker 2: One of his tragedies, that one might be a tragedy.
[55:40] Speaker 1: The handkerchiefs were used to signify not only love but status.
[55:44] Speaker 1: They were sprayed with perfume, they were decorated ornately, They
[55:48] Speaker 1: were printed with historical scenes. In Dickens's Oliver Twist handkerchief
[55:53] Speaker 1: or some variation of that word is used fifty times.
[55:56] Speaker 2: Wow, which is a lot of it.
[55:59] Speaker 1: It's a lot. So the handkerchief, over time transcended its
[56:04] Speaker 1: original use as like a booger receptacle. It was embroidered
[56:09] Speaker 1: with gold and silver threads made from silk or decorative lace.
[56:12] Speaker 1: I mean, who would blow their nose into that? And
[56:15] Speaker 1: so I think people probably, And I don't know this
[56:17] Speaker 1: for sure, but I would guess that people carried two
[56:20] Speaker 1: versions of handkerchiefs, right, one practical and one decorative. But
[56:25] Speaker 1: if your hanky was the practical one, it had better
[56:28] Speaker 1: be stark white. Otherwise that was considered gross interesting But
[56:32] Speaker 1: which makes sense though, because.
[56:34] Speaker 2: Like otherwise, it looks like it's been used.
[56:36] Speaker 1: It looks like it's been used.
[56:37] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[56:37] Speaker 1: Over time, handkerchiefs fell out of style and lost much
[56:41] Speaker 1: of their significance, with with one notable exception being the
[56:44] Speaker 1: hanky code, where different colored bandanas or handkerchiefs represent interest
[56:49] Speaker 1: in different sexual activities. But pineapple exactly. Yeah, And I
[56:57] Speaker 1: think also handkerchiefs were just sort of like not It
[57:00] Speaker 1: was not seen as hygienic, which is funny because they
[57:02] Speaker 1: were for a while and then they weren't, and they
[57:05] Speaker 1: weren't and then once disposable tissues came on, the scene,
[57:08] Speaker 1: they took a further hit. So the first disposable facial
[57:11] Speaker 1: tissue was made by Kleenex in nineteen twenty four. The
[57:15] Speaker 1: story according to the Kleenex website, because that's the only
[57:18] Speaker 1: real source I could find on this, so just caveat.
[57:22] Speaker 2: They wrote this story.
[57:23] Speaker 1: They wrote the story. It goes at. The parent company,
[57:25] Speaker 1: Kimberly Clark, adapted gas mask paper filters from World War One,
[57:31] Speaker 1: first into menstrual paths cotexts, and then into thinner sheets
[57:35] Speaker 1: called Kleenex, and they were intended to be used to
[57:38] Speaker 1: remove cold cold cream. Initially, oh interesting, And then a
[57:43] Speaker 1: few years later, allegedly after people wrote in saying I
[57:46] Speaker 1: love Kleenex to blow my nose into during colds, they
[57:49] Speaker 1: began marketing it as absorbent kerchiefs.
[57:52] Speaker 2: And the rest of funny is his history.
[57:55] Speaker 1: Yeah, but for real, that's basically all I have on
[57:58] Speaker 1: the history of books.
[58:00] Speaker 2: I learned so much. I'm really curious to hear from
[58:06] Speaker 2: listeners anyone who wants to actually tell us about your
[58:10] Speaker 2: experience with nose picking or booger eating, or like, really, like,
[58:16] Speaker 2: how are Booger's scene. I do think that there's probably
[58:19] Speaker 2: a lot of cultural differences in how nose picking is
[58:22] Speaker 2: like around the world. If it's cool, if it's frowned upon,
[58:26] Speaker 2: if it's everywhere, if it's hidden.
[58:28] Speaker 1: All the hip cats are picking their nose.
[58:30] Speaker 3: You know those nose pickers over there, leather jackets and
[58:34] Speaker 3: nose pickings.
[58:37] Speaker 2: Oh oh, it's like, oh my god, Yeah, it's natural.
[58:44] Speaker 1: I can't believe the audio. Listens, we're doing that thing
[58:49] Speaker 1: where it's like your hair color, your.
[58:51] Speaker 2: Hair colors, Yeah, it was what color your color, and
[58:55] Speaker 2: you say it's natural, it's natural. And then when you
[58:57] Speaker 2: were with green hair, yeah it's natural.
[59:00] Speaker 1: We're quite skilled.
[59:02] Speaker 2: Listen. You can tell that we grew up in the nineties.
[59:05] Speaker 1: It's true.
[59:08] Speaker 2: Anyways.
[59:09] Speaker 1: Anyways, if you want to learn, there and there's more
[59:13] Speaker 1: to learn. If you are not tired of hearing about
[59:15] Speaker 1: boogers or mucus or nose picking handkerchiefs, there's more.
[59:20] Speaker 2: So out there.
[59:21] Speaker 1: Okay, I have a bunch of sources. I'm going to
[59:24] Speaker 1: shout out one from each kind of story. So by
[59:27] Speaker 1: Miles Taylor from nineteen seventy four. The Origin and Functions
[59:31] Speaker 1: of nasal mucus plus those sweet fish mucus review papers
[59:35] Speaker 1: I found then by Fabree at All from twenty twenty three,
[59:40] Speaker 1: a review of nose picking in primates, with new evidence
[59:43] Speaker 1: of its occurrence in Dabotonia, Madagascar and Madagascariensis. Toughy, I'm
[59:50] Speaker 1: guessing that's I.
[59:51] Speaker 2: I yep, yep, yep.
[59:54] Speaker 1: And then by Bella Marabella from twenty eleven. It's a
[59:58] Speaker 1: chapter in the book Ornamentalism the Art of Renaissance Accessories,
[1:00:03] Speaker 1: and the chapter is called Embellishing Herself with a Cloth
[1:00:06] Speaker 1: The Contradictory Life of the Handkerchief.
[1:00:09] Speaker 2: I love that. I have a few papers for this episode.
[1:00:14] Speaker 2: One by Fayhe and Dicky from twenty ten in the
[1:00:17] Speaker 2: New England Journal Medicine called Airway mucus Function and Dysfunction.
[1:00:22] Speaker 2: If you want to really, really really deep dive on mucus,
[1:00:28] Speaker 2: how deep eighty one pages deep by Hill at All
[1:00:32] Speaker 2: from twenty twenty two, called Physiology and Pathophysiology of Human
[1:00:36] Speaker 2: Airway mucus in Physiological Reviews. It's like there's too much there.
[1:00:41] Speaker 2: I really enjoyed a paper from the Proceedings of the
[1:00:43] Speaker 2: American Thoracic Society from twenty eleven called Anatomy and Physiology
[1:00:46] Speaker 2: of the Upper Airway. There's like it's quite a lot
[1:00:49] Speaker 2: of fun stuff about your nose, and then there's a
[1:00:51] Speaker 2: few more about medicines that we use about nose picking
[1:00:55] Speaker 2: and things like that. You can find them all on
[1:00:57] Speaker 2: our website, This podcast will Kill You dot com under
[1:00:59] Speaker 2: the episodes tap.
[1:01:01] Speaker 1: You certainly can. Thank you to Bloodmobile for preventing the
[1:01:04] Speaker 1: music for this episode and all of our episodes.
[1:01:07] Speaker 2: Thank you so much. Thank you to Leanna and Tom
[1:01:11] Speaker 2: and Mark and Pete and everyone else at exactly Right
[1:01:14] Speaker 2: for everything that you do to make this podcast possible.
[1:01:16] Speaker 1: Thank you, Thank you, and thank you to you listeners.
[1:01:19] Speaker 1: Let us know what you think of this.
[1:01:22] Speaker 2: Did you like it? Did you like it? Tell us
[1:01:24] Speaker 2: about yours? Yeah, we don't judge. We've all picked our notes.
[1:01:28] Speaker 2: Literally everyone true, it is true. And thank you as
[1:01:32] Speaker 2: always to our patrons for all of your support over
[1:01:35] Speaker 2: on Patreon. It really really does mean the world to us.
[1:01:37] Speaker 1: It does. Until next time, wash your hands, please, Filthy animals.

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