WEBVTT - The Status of Flatus 0:00:03.080 --> 0:00:06.000 Welcome to stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:06.000 --> 0:00:13.960 Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to all your Mind. 0:00:14.000 --> 0:00:16.840 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. Julie, 0:00:16.880 --> 0:00:18.840 what does a fire breathing dragon have to do with 0:00:18.840 --> 0:00:21.800 the human digestion system? A lot, it turns out, and 0:00:21.880 --> 0:00:23.840 in fact, it has a lot to do with gas 0:00:24.079 --> 0:00:27.080 and belching. And you guys know that we we promised 0:00:27.120 --> 0:00:31.000 that we would roll out an episode about inflate us, 0:00:31.120 --> 0:00:35.000 about gas, the toutes parts, you name it. If you promised, 0:00:35.040 --> 0:00:37.879 it was like a blood oath to our listeners that 0:00:38.000 --> 0:00:40.080 we would do a fart episode for everyone. But no 0:00:40.159 --> 0:00:42.040 one asked for by the way, no well no one 0:00:42.080 --> 0:00:45.319 ever asked for it, but it happens, and so here 0:00:45.320 --> 0:00:49.360 it is an entire episode devoted to the interesting science 0:00:50.040 --> 0:00:54.360 of of cutting one as it were. You say that 0:00:54.400 --> 0:00:57.319 with a question mark. I think it's you know, it's 0:00:57.360 --> 0:00:59.520 definitely interesting science. I think it comes down to the 0:00:59.560 --> 0:01:01.880 individual a listener, I mean, what what is your individual 0:01:01.920 --> 0:01:06.039 relationship with gas? And are you the type of person 0:01:06.080 --> 0:01:08.720 who is repelled enough to where no amount of interesting 0:01:08.760 --> 0:01:12.800 science is really going to make you respect flateus in 0:01:12.840 --> 0:01:14.840 any way or do you or do you? Are you 0:01:14.840 --> 0:01:17.399 already totally on board? And in science the coding of 0:01:17.440 --> 0:01:21.160 science can only make flateus all the more exciting. My 0:01:21.240 --> 0:01:23.560 feeling is that everybody does it, so everybody should have 0:01:23.600 --> 0:01:26.679 an interest in it. Well, everybody does it, but people 0:01:26.720 --> 0:01:29.160 do it to different degrees, and people do it with 0:01:29.160 --> 0:01:34.680 with varying degrees of pride or or or disgrace. Well. 0:01:34.720 --> 0:01:37.240 As as I've shared before, I come from a various 0:01:37.240 --> 0:01:40.280 schatological family, so this is a topic that has been 0:01:40.280 --> 0:01:43.680 plumbed in the family. I'm not scared to talk about it. 0:01:43.760 --> 0:01:46.280 And uh, I feel like there's lots of really great 0:01:46.319 --> 0:01:50.160 information here. Uh, in particular this idea of this fire 0:01:50.360 --> 0:01:54.960 breathing dragon. And this is fascinating to me. This was 0:01:55.040 --> 0:01:58.520 in Mary Richard's Gulp. She spoke with herpetologist, Steven s 0:01:58.680 --> 0:02:02.560 cor who became infixated on the question of why a 0:02:02.680 --> 0:02:07.080 python or a boa um has an unusually large see 0:02:07.120 --> 0:02:09.639 some Okay, so I see someone like this little digestive pouch. 0:02:09.680 --> 0:02:13.360 It's near the colon and normally you see implant eating animals, 0:02:13.720 --> 0:02:16.239 and so he became obsessed with why, why which is 0:02:16.280 --> 0:02:19.280 a python have this? So he tried to figure out 0:02:19.320 --> 0:02:21.760 the role of the season, whether or not it was 0:02:21.800 --> 0:02:24.200 just there to break down the plant material in the 0:02:24.240 --> 0:02:28.320 animal that the python had just ingested. Um, And he 0:02:28.360 --> 0:02:32.000 began to actually measure the amount of hydrogen coming out 0:02:32.000 --> 0:02:34.639 of a python, ex like what it was exhaling after 0:02:34.720 --> 0:02:38.200 it was given a bunch of rats to eat. Okay, 0:02:38.240 --> 0:02:41.080 So he did that with something called a chromatograph, and 0:02:41.160 --> 0:02:45.040 that measured the amount of hydrogen alright. What he actually 0:02:45.080 --> 0:02:49.080 found out, though, was that the amount of hydrogen that 0:02:49.200 --> 0:02:52.440 was being exhaled by these creatures was enormous. I think 0:02:52.440 --> 0:02:58.359 about this hydrogen concentration is flammable. These guys and gals 0:02:58.560 --> 0:03:02.480 were exhaling something about Okay, so what does any of 0:03:02.600 --> 0:03:06.520 us have to do with belching or gas or inflate us. Well, 0:03:06.600 --> 0:03:10.360 it turns out Square has this really great theory that 0:03:10.919 --> 0:03:15.799 early man would stumble across, say a python that had 0:03:15.960 --> 0:03:19.000 just or it was in the middle of digesting a gazelle, 0:03:19.840 --> 0:03:22.880 and so, as you know, the python would be useless 0:03:22.880 --> 0:03:26.000 and trying to defend itself. Correct, you just eating this 0:03:26.080 --> 0:03:29.919 huge meal, bloated. It's not gonna amediately run off. I 0:03:30.000 --> 0:03:32.040 never room for another one, right, So early man says, 0:03:32.080 --> 0:03:34.839 a easy food. I've got dinner tonight. I have two 0:03:34.840 --> 0:03:37.840 things for dinner tonight. Right. I think that Mary rich 0:03:37.880 --> 0:03:43.160 had described it as Neanderthal for duncan. Okay, so early 0:03:43.200 --> 0:03:46.360 man or woman hauls us off to a campsite. There's 0:03:46.360 --> 0:03:50.520 a fire, someone is being you know, joyful, and they 0:03:50.600 --> 0:03:54.440 begin to say, step on this python's head or they 0:03:54.520 --> 0:03:57.760 kick it, and what happens. A huge flood of this 0:03:57.920 --> 0:04:02.080 hydrogen just rolls out of the mouth, meets the fire, 0:04:02.760 --> 0:04:07.200 and then and then you have a fire breathing reptile. Yeah, 0:04:07.400 --> 0:04:10.040 so s course says, think about the thousands and thousands 0:04:10.040 --> 0:04:12.720 of years of these tales of bringing down a fire 0:04:12.800 --> 0:04:16.280 breathing giant to your campsite. Because I could see, on 0:04:16.279 --> 0:04:18.360 one hand, someone could be like, whoa, that thing can 0:04:18.600 --> 0:04:21.080 can breathe fire? I was really I was. I was 0:04:21.160 --> 0:04:23.760 really lucky that I didn't get toasted back there, or 0:04:24.000 --> 0:04:25.960 they'd see what happened and they realized, well, this thing 0:04:26.000 --> 0:04:28.159 doesn't actually breathe fire, but it sure did look like it. 0:04:28.360 --> 0:04:30.480 And I'm going to claim that it does because I 0:04:30.560 --> 0:04:33.760 look all the more awesome for having killed it. Slated right, 0:04:33.839 --> 0:04:36.440 and I fast forward, you know, fifty thou years to 0:04:37.080 --> 0:04:39.600 modern humans in eight year olds all around camp fires 0:04:39.600 --> 0:04:42.479 trying to light their farts. Right there. We have a 0:04:42.520 --> 0:04:45.719 long tradition of this relationship with gas and man. Yeah, 0:04:45.720 --> 0:04:49.039 anybody who's read Mary Roaches Packing from Mars book about 0:04:49.080 --> 0:04:52.480 the space program and human space exploration, now, so there's 0:04:52.480 --> 0:04:55.200 a there's a lot of scatological content in here, because 0:04:55.240 --> 0:05:00.279 you're talking about sending humans and their digestive systems into 0:05:00.320 --> 0:05:03.160 a strange environment that doesn't necessarily play by the rules, 0:05:03.160 --> 0:05:04.960 and at the very least is contained within a very 0:05:04.960 --> 0:05:08.599 small space, and inevitably you have astronauts that are going 0:05:08.640 --> 0:05:11.400 to pass gas and uh. I believe it was measured 0:05:11.440 --> 0:05:13.240 out to be like three coke cans worth of worth 0:05:13.240 --> 0:05:16.599 of gas is coming out. So there were a couple 0:05:16.640 --> 0:05:21.240 of interesting bits there involving NASA research. One was a 0:05:21.360 --> 0:05:25.239 quest of by um Edwin Murphy UH in an attempt 0:05:25.240 --> 0:05:28.240 to find though what what the ideal fart profile for 0:05:28.279 --> 0:05:32.080 an astronaut would be um and basically they wanted a 0:05:32.080 --> 0:05:34.359 little or no methane or hydrogen, because, as we just 0:05:34.360 --> 0:05:38.920 touched on, hydrogen is explosive and methane is not desirable either. 0:05:39.240 --> 0:05:41.840 But in his work. This guy Murphy had apparently encountered 0:05:41.960 --> 0:05:45.320 one ideal astronaut candidate, and then this is the quote. 0:05:45.360 --> 0:05:47.960 A special interest for further research was the subject who 0:05:48.000 --> 0:05:53.640 produced essentially no flatus on one grounds dry weight of beans, 0:05:54.200 --> 0:05:56.880 as opposed to the average gut, which will during a 0:05:57.000 --> 0:05:59.480 peak of flash ones period five or six hours post 0:05:59.520 --> 0:06:02.640 being consider umption, pass anywhere from one to almost three 0:06:02.640 --> 0:06:07.560 cups of latest per hour. So, uh, that is particularly interesting. 0:06:07.720 --> 0:06:10.480 Interesting not only because NASA you know, wants that ideal 0:06:10.600 --> 0:06:13.599 fart profile for an astronaut, or or that you know 0:06:13.680 --> 0:06:17.160 you would given the chance, but that there are individuals 0:06:17.200 --> 0:06:21.520 that are almost non farters, which is interesting. It is 0:06:21.560 --> 0:06:27.760 amazing to me because I mean, presumably again everybody does this, 0:06:28.320 --> 0:06:30.040 and I do think it's very kind of NASA, by 0:06:30.080 --> 0:06:32.960 the way, to try to recruit people who don't do 0:06:33.000 --> 0:06:36.200 it so much, because, as we discussed in our Emotions 0:06:36.400 --> 0:06:39.800 in Space episode, can get dicey up there, and if 0:06:39.800 --> 0:06:42.479 you're next to someone who keeps putt putting, you know, 0:06:42.600 --> 0:06:46.240 for six months straight, that that can make things very tense. 0:06:46.920 --> 0:06:52.480 So let's talk about fart. What is it? Well, basically, 0:06:52.800 --> 0:06:54.680 the act of farting, of course, is the means by 0:06:54.680 --> 0:06:58.000 which the body rids the colon of unwanted gas, and 0:06:58.160 --> 0:07:00.800 by virtue of that unwanted pressure, you have this gas 0:07:00.839 --> 0:07:04.839 that builds up and the average person releases between five 0:07:05.320 --> 0:07:08.800 two thousand million liters of this per day. But but yeah, 0:07:08.839 --> 0:07:15.760 what does it consist of? Well, about its carbon dioxide, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, 0:07:16.160 --> 0:07:18.680 and methane and go again, varying degrees of that depending 0:07:18.680 --> 0:07:21.520 on the particular part part because some people don't produce methane. 0:07:21.960 --> 0:07:23.840 I think it's like only one third of us produce 0:07:23.920 --> 0:07:27.240 methane yep. And most of these gases are either swallowed 0:07:27.280 --> 0:07:30.560 inadvertently when you're eating your food or release from the 0:07:30.560 --> 0:07:34.840 food as it is digested. And uh, it's amazing because 0:07:35.480 --> 0:07:37.880 when it's in your body, it is odorless, and we 0:07:37.920 --> 0:07:40.080 don't think of it as being odorless. Right. And the 0:07:40.120 --> 0:07:42.760 other key thing that of the ingredients that are just 0:07:42.800 --> 0:07:47.360 listed that is odorless, all the hydrogen, the methane, oxygen, 0:07:47.400 --> 0:07:49.760 all of it, that is not the odor producing content. 0:07:50.280 --> 0:07:53.880 It is that one percent that is responsible for the smell. Yeah, 0:07:53.880 --> 0:07:56.119 we'll get to that one percent and a bit. Yeah, 0:07:56.560 --> 0:07:58.880 spend such a political term day as one percent. That's 0:07:58.920 --> 0:08:00.920 kind of funny thing one peron that stinking up the 0:08:00.920 --> 0:08:05.120 whole system exactly. Um, So, as you had mentioned, we 0:08:05.160 --> 0:08:07.240 do expel quite a bit of it. But the man 0:08:07.320 --> 0:08:11.000 who inspired really thoughtful study of how much we expel 0:08:11.200 --> 0:08:14.400 and even excessive gas is a man who in nineteen 0:08:14.480 --> 0:08:18.720 six complained of a five year epic bout of the 0:08:18.760 --> 0:08:23.160 twos he UM. He contacted gas from entrologist Michael Levitt, 0:08:23.760 --> 0:08:26.120 and in order to study the man, Lovett had to 0:08:26.160 --> 0:08:30.440 create a baseline of normal flattist output so or flatists, 0:08:30.440 --> 0:08:33.840 I should say. He recruited volunteers to keep flat too, 0:08:33.960 --> 0:08:39.440 graphic lags flogs of gas activity, recording every stirring in 0:08:39.520 --> 0:08:43.160 every output. He prefers that actually, but he did, and 0:08:43.200 --> 0:08:47.880 others have relied on um studies that use a rectal 0:08:47.960 --> 0:08:52.040 tube in collection syringes to determine average output. That is 0:08:52.360 --> 0:08:55.080 year old way of trying to figure out how much 0:08:55.400 --> 0:09:02.439 people are expelling. So basically the farting jar scenario, Yeah, 0:09:02.520 --> 0:09:05.560 but a little bit more foolproof and a lot more 0:09:05.640 --> 0:09:08.000 going on. And the syringes there just to extract the 0:09:08.040 --> 0:09:10.520 molecules and then to to figure out what sort of 0:09:10.559 --> 0:09:15.360 molecules are in there. Um, these days. Hydrogen output is 0:09:15.400 --> 0:09:18.640 measured in the breath because a fixed percentage of hydrogen 0:09:18.679 --> 0:09:21.520 produced in the colon is absorbed into the blood and 0:09:21.880 --> 0:09:25.840 when it reaches the lungs, it's exhaled. Now, what he 0:09:25.960 --> 0:09:28.800 found was that this man was passing gas thirty four 0:09:28.840 --> 0:09:31.920 to forty two times a day. Okay, the baseline average 0:09:31.960 --> 0:09:36.640 here of the humans who doesn't have any lactose intolerance 0:09:36.640 --> 0:09:40.120 problems is about fourteen to twenty times a day in 0:09:40.160 --> 0:09:43.839 case you're wondering. So the problem that they finally figured 0:09:43.880 --> 0:09:46.320 out is that he was lactose intolerant, and as we 0:09:46.400 --> 0:09:50.200 learned before, lactose does not get broken down for some 0:09:50.280 --> 0:09:53.080 people in the digestive excuse me, in the small intestines 0:09:53.520 --> 0:09:57.120 hangs out in the colon, and then you have other 0:09:57.160 --> 0:09:59.559 bacteria which we're breaking that down, and then you've got 0:09:59.559 --> 0:10:01.240 the waste p act of that bacteria, and you've got 0:10:01.280 --> 0:10:04.480 a bunch of bunch of bunch of hydrogen being produced there. Yes, 0:10:05.120 --> 0:10:07.720 of course, we're talking about humans as a whole in 0:10:07.720 --> 0:10:12.080 regards to UH to flate us. But you can't help 0:10:12.120 --> 0:10:14.600 but get into gender scenarios when you start thinking about 0:10:14.679 --> 0:10:16.280 In fact, one of the articles that we were looking 0:10:16.320 --> 0:10:19.240 at um. Uh they are. The author made a point 0:10:19.320 --> 0:10:21.840 of of saying that men as as a whole, and 0:10:21.880 --> 0:10:24.559 she's really generalizing here and painting with a very broad brush, 0:10:25.080 --> 0:10:27.440 and I skilled her for it. U that all men 0:10:27.920 --> 0:10:31.160 are just enthusiastic about their gas and just love it 0:10:31.200 --> 0:10:34.840 and crave it and laugh at it all the time, yeah, 0:10:34.880 --> 0:10:37.800 and model it. Really, I am not one of those men. 0:10:37.880 --> 0:10:41.360 Like maybe that is the more baseline m relationship between 0:10:41.360 --> 0:10:44.160 men and fart, but I, for my own self, I 0:10:44.800 --> 0:10:47.720 don't engage that style of humor. For the most part, 0:10:47.760 --> 0:10:49.839 I will laugh at a fart joke if it is 0:10:49.880 --> 0:10:54.520 well crafted um or in some way, you know, insightful. Um. 0:10:54.679 --> 0:10:57.880 There have been occasionally they'll get me, like the instance, 0:10:57.920 --> 0:11:00.280 there was a Sarah Silverman Show episode that was very 0:11:00.320 --> 0:11:03.880 far heavy. She's she likes the farts. Yeah, and occasionally 0:11:04.160 --> 0:11:06.360 that will work. I mean, it's it's the right fartship. 0:11:06.440 --> 0:11:08.720 But as a whole, I do not. I'm more of 0:11:09.080 --> 0:11:11.360 a stereotypical if you're gonna go with these stereotypes, I'm 0:11:11.360 --> 0:11:14.800 more of a stereotypical woman when it comes to fart 0:11:14.840 --> 0:11:19.240 gags and self gas production than a stereotypical man. Okay, 0:11:19.240 --> 0:11:20.960 So what I'm hearing is that you don't have a 0:11:21.000 --> 0:11:25.480 cellar full of arrears. No I do not. Okay, all right, 0:11:25.480 --> 0:11:27.880 this is good, um. And it's interesting that you bring 0:11:27.880 --> 0:11:30.559 out the stereotypes because you know, if it's were the 0:11:30.640 --> 0:11:33.000 Victorian age, we would say, oh, well, women just don't 0:11:33.000 --> 0:11:36.840 produce gas at all, right, it wouldn't even be a question. 0:11:37.040 --> 0:11:39.280 But we do have data on it, and it turns 0:11:39.320 --> 0:11:43.760 out that women have are seemed to be expelling more 0:11:43.800 --> 0:11:49.440 gas than men, as measured by the hydrogen exhaled. But 0:11:49.800 --> 0:11:53.839 Mary Roach questions this and says in her book, could 0:11:53.880 --> 0:11:57.960 it be that the suppression of gas could lead to 0:11:58.160 --> 0:12:03.280 a higher input of hydrogen exhalation? So maybe if you're 0:12:03.280 --> 0:12:05.839 going with the stereotypical um I almos don't want to 0:12:05.840 --> 0:12:08.160 say stereotypical female, but let's say, let's go with you. 0:12:08.160 --> 0:12:12.840 If you're going with a fart avoidant person like myself, 0:12:13.360 --> 0:12:15.679 then they are going to be less inclined to just 0:12:15.800 --> 0:12:18.080 let it rip whenever the mood hits them. Right, So 0:12:18.120 --> 0:12:20.480 if you suppress it, then you're going to absorb more 0:12:20.480 --> 0:12:23.040 of it through your bloodstream and then you're going to 0:12:23.080 --> 0:12:26.199 exhale mark. Oh, so the way, you're kind of reversing 0:12:26.200 --> 0:12:29.880 it and farting into your body, into your blood. You're 0:12:29.920 --> 0:12:32.920 just breath farting, okay, right, and that makes it really 0:12:32.920 --> 0:12:35.800 a lovely thought, doesn't it. Do I think about that 0:12:35.840 --> 0:12:39.920 next time you give your significant other nice little kiss? Yeah, 0:12:40.360 --> 0:12:42.280 you know, I I do. I should. At one point 0:12:42.320 --> 0:12:44.840 about about ladies and farting. I did work in a 0:12:44.840 --> 0:12:48.280 newspaper once and an individual in the front office was 0:12:48.480 --> 0:12:52.080 terminated for engaging in a farting contest with a with 0:12:51.720 --> 0:12:56.560 a with a customer. It was it was quite it. It 0:12:56.480 --> 0:12:58.880 It seems like it was mutual farting, so I guess 0:12:58.920 --> 0:13:00.800 it was just like, hey, this is we're going to 0:13:00.880 --> 0:13:03.880 make an example of you. We just fart with the customer. Maybe, 0:13:03.880 --> 0:13:05.600 you know, there could have been some other politics involved, 0:13:05.679 --> 0:13:07.240 or maybe it was just kind of this unwritten rule 0:13:07.320 --> 0:13:10.480 where if your customer comes in and celebrates his or 0:13:10.520 --> 0:13:13.760 her farts, that's fine, but then you are not supposed 0:13:13.800 --> 0:13:17.120 to then engage with them in a contest of farts 0:13:17.360 --> 0:13:19.880 or you know, it's it's kind of like it's it's okay, 0:13:20.000 --> 0:13:23.280 the customer uses foul language to a point, but you're 0:13:23.280 --> 0:13:25.079 in then not supposed to engage them in that kind 0:13:25.080 --> 0:13:28.280 of behavior, I guess. Or maybe maybe she showed him up, 0:13:28.280 --> 0:13:31.120 maybe she shamed him and they lost the customer because 0:13:31.240 --> 0:13:34.240 it was this a gastrontrology office. No, this was a 0:13:34.240 --> 0:13:38.880 newspaper with we didn't even have a flatest section, you know, 0:13:39.080 --> 0:13:42.480 just business and sports. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know that 0:13:42.480 --> 0:13:43.960 I can recover from that store. I feel like I 0:13:44.000 --> 0:13:46.199 need time to think about that and chuckle. But we 0:13:46.280 --> 0:13:49.480 must go on, so I'm just gonna chuckle about that later. Um. 0:13:49.520 --> 0:13:53.800 All right, so let's talk about this one. Yes, or 0:13:53.840 --> 0:13:56.880 should we take a break? Oh? Yeah, let's take a break. 0:13:56.880 --> 0:13:58.800 Why not? When we come back, we will discuss the 0:13:58.880 --> 0:14:01.960 one percent of the fart it is responsible for the smell. 0:14:02.640 --> 0:14:06.000 We'll talk about extraordinary cases of flateust. We'll talk about 0:14:06.400 --> 0:14:10.800 people who have elevated um passing gas to an art form. 0:14:10.880 --> 0:14:14.679 And also the big question, if you're in microgravity, can 0:14:14.760 --> 0:14:18.600 you propel yourself across a spaceship just by virtue of 0:14:18.640 --> 0:14:31.160 your own uh slatest? All right, we're back. So as 0:14:31.160 --> 0:14:36.640 we've discussed of flateut is, carbon dioxide, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, 0:14:36.680 --> 0:14:39.880 and methane, and uh these are coming from stuff that 0:14:40.320 --> 0:14:42.760 either gases that are inadvertently swallowed or it is released 0:14:42.760 --> 0:14:44.960 from the food is we're digesting it. But none of 0:14:45.000 --> 0:14:49.360 it produces the signature odors and it varies certainly, as 0:14:49.360 --> 0:14:52.640 we can all attest to. Uh. None of these elements 0:14:52.720 --> 0:14:55.760 contribute to the odor. Is just of tiny one that 0:14:56.080 --> 0:14:59.280 makes the gas so foul, that's right, that creates that 0:14:59.400 --> 0:15:04.320 singular a bouquet of smell. Micro Has really live for 0:15:04.320 --> 0:15:06.560 the most part in the colon where they attack and 0:15:06.640 --> 0:15:11.680 consume undigested food and in turn generate their own waste products. 0:15:11.800 --> 0:15:15.240 So in the case of microorganisms, waste usually means gas, 0:15:15.280 --> 0:15:18.760 and in the case of these microorganism organisms, that gas 0:15:18.760 --> 0:15:22.880 can be the really ripe stuff, usually molecules containing sulfur 0:15:23.520 --> 0:15:29.560 like dimethyl sulfide and method methyl um. These are waste 0:15:29.560 --> 0:15:32.600 products that ferment and they build up to a sufficient 0:15:32.680 --> 0:15:34.560 level and then they're released with the rest of the 0:15:34.600 --> 0:15:37.040 gas in the bowels. And by the way, we talked 0:15:37.040 --> 0:15:40.320 about this before, the birth of the fart happens when uh, 0:15:40.400 --> 0:15:44.920 you're stretch receptors um in your colon send a signal 0:15:44.960 --> 0:15:48.000 to your brain, Hey, I'm having some discomfort, and then 0:15:48.120 --> 0:15:51.640 this finkter is loosened up, and and then the message 0:15:51.640 --> 0:15:54.960 maybe when you get a chance, please do something about this, 0:15:55.200 --> 0:15:58.040 or maybe this is really important. So the next time 0:15:58.520 --> 0:16:00.840 you even have like a heavy thought in the back 0:16:00.840 --> 0:16:02.840 of your head, um, we're going to just go ahead 0:16:02.840 --> 0:16:06.480 and let it go even have you Yeah, yeah, that's right. 0:16:06.480 --> 0:16:08.640 The brain will sit there and respond and say, okay, 0:16:08.760 --> 0:16:11.720 now you gotta tampa down, sorry, swincter, or yep, we're 0:16:11.760 --> 0:16:17.520 overloaded here alright. So what brave soul figured out the 0:16:17.560 --> 0:16:22.000 scent profile of late us. Well, the same Michael Levitt 0:16:22.040 --> 0:16:25.320 who helped to determine the output of late US also 0:16:25.600 --> 0:16:29.880 studies the qualities of of gas. These smell profiles, he 0:16:29.960 --> 0:16:34.240 recruited volunteers to detect the three main elements of a 0:16:34.360 --> 0:16:38.040 fart so hydrogen sulfide which is described as the scent 0:16:38.120 --> 0:16:43.240 of rotten eggs uh metha nephiel that is described as 0:16:43.520 --> 0:16:48.080 rotting vegetation, and dimethyl sulfide, which is oddly described as 0:16:48.080 --> 0:16:51.920 sweet m Yes. So he didn't do this as a 0:16:52.040 --> 0:16:55.120 cruel joke. I mean, he wasn't just trying to you know, 0:16:55.560 --> 0:16:58.720 terrorize people with smells. He wanted to see if the 0:16:58.840 --> 0:17:02.840 noxiousness of the scent would correlate with the combined concentrations 0:17:02.920 --> 0:17:06.840 of these three types of sulfur gases, and it did. So. 0:17:07.960 --> 0:17:09.960 The best part of this, all this information is he 0:17:10.000 --> 0:17:14.160 took the data and he reversed engineer to fart so 0:17:14.359 --> 0:17:18.840 he could use the combined concentrations in other scenarios. Would 0:17:18.880 --> 0:17:21.960 would it be safe to call this a frank and fart, Yes, 0:17:22.080 --> 0:17:24.640 it would be absolutely Um it's a frank and part. 0:17:24.720 --> 0:17:28.520 And he wanted to figure out the absorptive properties of 0:17:28.600 --> 0:17:32.080 charcoal underpants or seat pads, which, by the way, is 0:17:32.320 --> 0:17:36.520 of interest to the airline industry. Which makes sense, right, 0:17:36.560 --> 0:17:39.560 I think that I said, go airline industry, put charcoal 0:17:39.600 --> 0:17:42.840 in the seat pads. Any degree to which you can 0:17:43.080 --> 0:17:45.679 cut down on the on the amount of flatus in 0:17:45.680 --> 0:17:48.840 that enclosed space on a long flight, the better, Yeah, exactly. 0:17:48.880 --> 0:17:52.200 In speaking of a long flight or a spacewalk, NASA 0:17:52.240 --> 0:17:56.120 actually has used filters in the air circulation in space 0:17:56.160 --> 0:18:01.320 suits with charcoal to help bind sulfur and then prevent 0:18:01.400 --> 0:18:03.800 the astronauts from getting drive by farted every time the 0:18:03.840 --> 0:18:06.400 air is recirculated. Yeah, because if they build up enough 0:18:06.440 --> 0:18:10.200 along enough space walk, then fart madness ensues. I've heard 0:18:10.200 --> 0:18:12.600 about madness. It isn't earth. There are a lot of 0:18:14.000 --> 0:18:16.240 I was looking on snopes to see if there were 0:18:16.280 --> 0:18:20.040 any particular urban legends related to the farting of note, 0:18:20.160 --> 0:18:23.240 and one of them was this bit that occasionally circulates 0:18:23.240 --> 0:18:26.040 and emails about a man who who died because he 0:18:26.160 --> 0:18:29.119 farted under the covers and uh and had the covers 0:18:29.160 --> 0:18:32.560 up over his head. But that's just complete malarkey. That's 0:18:32.600 --> 0:18:35.640 just a Dutch Oven. Yeah, so so yeah, so death 0:18:35.720 --> 0:18:39.240 by by death by by Dutch Oven not really a thing. Yeah, 0:18:39.280 --> 0:18:41.520 And you can't try to, I mean, just for fun 0:18:41.680 --> 0:18:45.119 Dutch Oven astronauts, right, No, No, I mean they'd go 0:18:45.200 --> 0:18:47.000 through enough in the training. I'm sure they were, like, 0:18:47.240 --> 0:18:49.760 you know, after you've been in that spinny thing long enough, 0:18:49.800 --> 0:18:52.119 and I mean we've all seen the right stuff. They 0:18:52.200 --> 0:18:55.760 went through a lot of horrible things to prove themselves 0:18:55.760 --> 0:18:57.720 and and to you know, to get their bodies in 0:18:57.720 --> 0:19:00.440 shape and prepare themselves for this this experience in orbit. 0:19:00.480 --> 0:19:02.400 So and keep in mind that the air in their 0:19:02.400 --> 0:19:05.520 space suits is actually recirculated three times a minute. So 0:19:06.600 --> 0:19:10.639 now another interesting bit from Mary Roch's book, Packing for Mars. 0:19:10.680 --> 0:19:13.040 She talked to an astronaut by the name of Roger Crouch, 0:19:13.600 --> 0:19:17.040 and he was particularly interested in the idea of propelling 0:19:17.080 --> 0:19:20.639 yourself through a microgravity environment like a board the space 0:19:20.680 --> 0:19:25.400 station via your own farts. And he said that the 0:19:25.480 --> 0:19:28.080 math and velocity of the expelled gas is very small 0:19:28.119 --> 0:19:30.320 compared to the mass of the human body. So he 0:19:30.359 --> 0:19:33.199 tested it out found that it produced no real effect, 0:19:33.440 --> 0:19:36.159 though he did, uh, he did have this theory that 0:19:36.280 --> 0:19:40.640 the underpants and the pants might be prohibiting the expulsion 0:19:40.640 --> 0:19:42.840 of gas, and so he but he did not get 0:19:42.880 --> 0:19:47.120 to test this naked, but he apparently has lingering thoughts 0:19:47.160 --> 0:19:52.480 that that nude farting in microgravity would potentially give you 0:19:52.520 --> 0:19:54.600 at least a little push across the cabin. Yeah, that 0:19:54.720 --> 0:19:57.240 really is not going to win the hearts and minds 0:19:57.240 --> 0:20:01.120 of your fellow astronauts and face if you just drop 0:20:01.200 --> 0:20:04.399 trial and then try to propel yourself with your own parts. 0:20:04.520 --> 0:20:06.359 Can you imagine the dude's doing like the crying in 0:20:06.400 --> 0:20:10.560 space videos and all the different viral videos of Colonel Hatfield. Yeah, 0:20:10.640 --> 0:20:13.000 I wonder, I wonder if he's on board for this. 0:20:13.600 --> 0:20:15.560 That's going to be a big shock when that when 0:20:15.560 --> 0:20:18.000 that YouTube video rolls out that might be the one 0:20:18.040 --> 0:20:21.240 that never really makes it too right. So though, if 0:20:21.280 --> 0:20:24.240 you were going to do that experiment without underpants and 0:20:24.400 --> 0:20:26.680 really truly test it, you would want to eat the 0:20:26.880 --> 0:20:31.440 gasest inducing foods that you could. And it turns out 0:20:31.520 --> 0:20:36.480 that the most eruptive edibles are beans, carrots, raisins, bananas, 0:20:36.800 --> 0:20:40.159 which is odd to me. Onions not odd milk and 0:20:40.200 --> 0:20:43.240 milk products for the very reasons that we talked before 0:20:43.280 --> 0:20:46.640 about milk being hard to digest and break down as 0:20:46.640 --> 0:20:52.920 opposed to something like um, let's say meat, fish, grapes, berries, 0:20:53.280 --> 0:20:56.280 these are these have the least amount of complex carbohydrates. 0:20:56.720 --> 0:21:01.360 It's it's this, uh, this really damning conundrum that that 0:21:01.400 --> 0:21:03.280 I that I have encountered, and then I think a 0:21:03.320 --> 0:21:05.960 number of people encountered that the healthier that you try 0:21:05.960 --> 0:21:07.640 to eat, you know, you're trying, you're trying to eat 0:21:07.640 --> 0:21:12.040 all these vegetables and these whole grains and lintels and beans, 0:21:12.160 --> 0:21:14.560 and it's just it's making you're gassier, and you feel 0:21:14.560 --> 0:21:17.879 like you're being punished for this diet. Uh. Dr Robert 0:21:17.960 --> 0:21:20.200 Lustig even put it this way. He said, in life, 0:21:20.200 --> 0:21:26.160 you have two choices. It's either fat or fart. So yeah, 0:21:26.280 --> 0:21:28.960 it's true, like if you were to radically change your 0:21:28.960 --> 0:21:32.760 diet from say a meat and very little um vegetable 0:21:33.200 --> 0:21:36.840 diet to grains and vegetables, you would really need to 0:21:36.880 --> 0:21:39.240 set aside a couple of days to transition into that. 0:21:40.320 --> 0:21:43.480 Kid you not, Well, there's that great Portlandia sketch where 0:21:43.480 --> 0:21:45.720 they go to the restaurant that has the raw food. 0:21:45.760 --> 0:21:47.560 It's like an all raw food places may actually have 0:21:47.600 --> 0:21:52.680 a a flateist patio with fans the fat patio. That 0:21:52.840 --> 0:21:55.240 is just one of my favorite things, one of those 0:21:55.280 --> 0:21:58.440 that that clip is just great because it's not hearty 0:21:58.480 --> 0:22:01.119 horror laugh laugh, but it kind of speaks to that 0:22:01.200 --> 0:22:03.560 whole experience when you do go to a rough foods 0:22:03.600 --> 0:22:08.000 restaurant or a vegan restaurant and the result of that afterwards, 0:22:08.000 --> 0:22:10.200 they just kind of brought it more to the forefront. Yeah, 0:22:10.200 --> 0:22:12.439 it's it's a clever it's a clever bit of of 0:22:12.520 --> 0:22:15.680 parody there and uh and and commentary. So that's that 0:22:16.040 --> 0:22:19.280 is a fart gag that I at least chuckle that sure, 0:22:19.320 --> 0:22:21.240 because really, when you get down to it, every restaurant 0:22:21.240 --> 0:22:25.320 should have a fart patio. Now, as we mentioned before, 0:22:25.359 --> 0:22:28.280 you you have a very rare individual like the individual 0:22:28.359 --> 0:22:32.159 that NASA uncovered who barely farted at all. Just the 0:22:32.160 --> 0:22:35.040 one person in the world, the one person that's a 0:22:35.119 --> 0:22:38.480 mutant that that barely produces any flatus. But then there 0:22:38.560 --> 0:22:41.080 is there's another side of that coin as well. There 0:22:41.119 --> 0:22:46.000