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