WEBVTT - From the Vault: Fingernails, Part 1 0:00:05.720 --> 0:00:08.200 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. This is 0:00:08.320 --> 0:00:11.520 Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday. Time 0:00:11.560 --> 0:00:13.399 to go into the vault for an older episode of 0:00:13.440 --> 0:00:15.760 the show. This time we are airing the first part 0:00:15.760 --> 0:00:18.599 of our series on finger nails. This originally came out 0:00:18.840 --> 0:00:26.320 September one. Yeah, let's dive right in. Welcome to stot 0:00:26.400 --> 0:00:35.600 to Blow Your Mind production of My Heart Radio. Hey, 0:00:35.680 --> 0:00:37.680 you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name 0:00:37.720 --> 0:00:41.080 is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and today we're 0:00:41.120 --> 0:00:44.000 going to be embarking on part one of an exploration 0:00:44.280 --> 0:00:47.080 of nails, not nails like you hit with the hammer, 0:00:47.120 --> 0:00:48.720 though I guess you could hit him with the hammer, 0:00:48.760 --> 0:00:51.000 though that would be really bad. Talking about the kind 0:00:51.000 --> 0:00:54.200 of nails on the human body. And I was thinking 0:00:54.600 --> 0:00:58.040 just the other day about how nails are sort of 0:00:58.080 --> 0:01:03.240 the mascot for or idleness, for human idleness, because when 0:01:03.320 --> 0:01:05.920 humans are idle, what part of the body is going 0:01:05.959 --> 0:01:09.000 to get the most attention. I think it's almost always 0:01:09.080 --> 0:01:11.720 going to be the nail. Right, You're either some people 0:01:11.760 --> 0:01:14.399 bite their nails. If you're not biting your nails, you're 0:01:14.400 --> 0:01:17.800 often like looking at your nails, kind of observing like oh, 0:01:17.840 --> 0:01:20.000 they're too long, or like, oh, there's some kind of 0:01:20.040 --> 0:01:23.520 weird thing here. Perhaps this is idiosyncratic psychology of mind, 0:01:23.560 --> 0:01:26.160 but but I think this is pretty common, right, Yeah. 0:01:26.160 --> 0:01:27.720 I mean even if you're not even looking at them, 0:01:27.760 --> 0:01:29.400 sometimes you just sort of feel them, like you're just 0:01:29.400 --> 0:01:32.880 sort of feeling the edges of your nails and you know, see, 0:01:33.080 --> 0:01:35.640 making sure everything's lined up there. For my own part, 0:01:35.680 --> 0:01:38.119 I tend to find that I noticed them the most 0:01:38.880 --> 0:01:41.920 when I am more in the more in the past. Really, 0:01:42.240 --> 0:01:44.399 but if I was driving into work and I'd be 0:01:44.400 --> 0:01:46.360 stuck in a light or something, and then I would 0:01:46.440 --> 0:01:48.720 notice my nails and I would be and that's when 0:01:48.720 --> 0:01:50.640 I would notice that I need to trim my nails, 0:01:51.000 --> 0:01:52.520 and I would of course be in a position where 0:01:52.560 --> 0:01:55.640 I really shouldn't be trimming my nails. Um, And then 0:01:55.720 --> 0:01:57.080 you know, the rest of the time, I'm not really 0:01:57.120 --> 0:02:01.320 noticing them. That's why the Good Lord made teeth. Well, yeah, 0:02:02.120 --> 0:02:05.680 we'll get into that. Uh, that's not particularly my style, 0:02:05.720 --> 0:02:08.080 but I know a lot of people do it. My 0:02:08.160 --> 0:02:11.720 cat is a big, big fan herself. I'm also not 0:02:11.760 --> 0:02:14.320 a nail biter, but I there are people very close 0:02:14.360 --> 0:02:17.200 to me who are and I have observed the behavior 0:02:17.280 --> 0:02:20.040 for many years up close and with a lot of 0:02:20.320 --> 0:02:23.680 thoughts about it. Yeah, so so much like our two 0:02:23.760 --> 0:02:26.640 episodes on Tomatoes last week, this is gonna be a 0:02:26.639 --> 0:02:28.760 pair of episodes that that are going to get into 0:02:28.800 --> 0:02:32.040 some real weirdness. It's and and so I urge you 0:02:32.080 --> 0:02:34.040 to stick with us, even if you think, oh, fingernails, 0:02:34.080 --> 0:02:36.160 I have those, I don't want to hear two episodes 0:02:36.160 --> 0:02:38.079 about it, But really, I think I think you do. 0:02:38.639 --> 0:02:41.160 And I think a great place to start would be 0:02:41.240 --> 0:02:44.560 just to just touch on sort of the the obvious 0:02:45.040 --> 0:02:49.320 weird aspects of our fingernails. I was thinking about this 0:02:49.400 --> 0:02:52.519 today because they're they're obviously living. They are, you know, 0:02:52.600 --> 0:02:55.240 they're part of our body, and yet they're not living 0:02:55.240 --> 0:02:58.000 in a way right there, like these things these like 0:02:58.080 --> 0:03:02.600 little uh you know, almost like like stones that come 0:03:02.639 --> 0:03:06.200 out of our our fingers, right Yeah, Well, I mean 0:03:06.280 --> 0:03:09.400 we think of ourselves as non clawed animals. I think 0:03:09.440 --> 0:03:12.240 this is a pretty common intuitive grouping of animals that 0:03:12.240 --> 0:03:14.600 people make. Is like the kind with teeth and claws 0:03:14.639 --> 0:03:16.720 and the kind without, and a lot of them have 0:03:16.800 --> 0:03:18.679 teeth and claws because you got to it's a hard 0:03:18.720 --> 0:03:21.359 world out there. But humans, you know, we've got tools, 0:03:21.360 --> 0:03:24.000 and we've got social relationships, and we've got language and 0:03:24.000 --> 0:03:25.960 all that, so we don't really need claws, but we 0:03:26.040 --> 0:03:28.480 kind of do because we kind of do have claws, 0:03:28.520 --> 0:03:31.720 and nails are not super formidable in a claw sense, 0:03:31.760 --> 0:03:35.000 but they're kind of claw like. Yeah, yeah, I was 0:03:35.040 --> 0:03:38.360 thinking about how they're Our nails are definitely functional, and 0:03:38.400 --> 0:03:40.080 we'll get into a lot of those functions as we 0:03:40.280 --> 0:03:43.240 progress here. They do play a very real role in 0:03:43.280 --> 0:03:45.960 our lives and yet on the same time, at the 0:03:46.000 --> 0:03:49.240 same time, they're very ornamental, so that their condition and 0:03:49.240 --> 0:03:54.200 their upkeep inevitably communicate something about ourselves to the world. 0:03:54.320 --> 0:03:57.280 You know, Um, we we can't help but think about 0:03:57.280 --> 0:03:59.640 our own nails at times when we're encountering other people, 0:04:00.080 --> 0:04:02.440 and like it or not, you're gonna notice other people's nails. 0:04:02.480 --> 0:04:05.440 Are they Are they all done up? Are they bright 0:04:05.520 --> 0:04:08.240 and colorful? Are they are they really making a statement? 0:04:08.640 --> 0:04:11.240 Are they Are they kind of grimy? Are they you know? 0:04:11.280 --> 0:04:14.600 They're they spotted with paint? Did they show where? And tear? Like? 0:04:14.680 --> 0:04:16.600 These are these are some of the things that are 0:04:16.680 --> 0:04:20.840 nails communicate and and it's it's it's like if you're 0:04:20.880 --> 0:04:23.239 having a bad hair day or your hair is weird 0:04:23.320 --> 0:04:24.960 for whatever reason, you know, you can put on a 0:04:25.040 --> 0:04:28.359 cap and that's in many circumstances, and you know you 0:04:28.800 --> 0:04:31.680 kind of get by. But a bad nail day or 0:04:31.760 --> 0:04:34.279 bad bad nail days or months or what have you, 0:04:34.640 --> 0:04:37.880 that's often kind of difficult to ignore. But on both sides, right, 0:04:37.920 --> 0:04:40.839 I mean, you can wear gloves everywhere, but that's gonna 0:04:40.920 --> 0:04:44.200 communicate something else entirely. You're gonna look like you're ready 0:04:44.200 --> 0:04:47.960 to do some strangling or your bond villain or something, right, 0:04:48.400 --> 0:04:51.000 or you know, there actually is another type of nail 0:04:51.040 --> 0:04:53.160 that you didn't get to that has always stood out 0:04:53.160 --> 0:04:54.880 in my mind ever since I saw this movie when 0:04:54.880 --> 0:04:57.640 I was a little kid, Which are the cyborg nails 0:04:57.640 --> 0:05:00.920 in Paul vere Joven's Total Recall. Remember the lady who 0:05:01.000 --> 0:05:03.640 has nails that she's like touching with the stylus from 0:05:03.640 --> 0:05:08.680 her computer and the changing Yeah, very cool. When will 0:05:08.720 --> 0:05:13.680 they invent that? Yeah? And for the time being, we're 0:05:13.720 --> 0:05:16.960 just left with with paints, right, um, And we'll get 0:05:17.000 --> 0:05:20.680 into the use of paints and other ornamental techniques on 0:05:20.720 --> 0:05:23.880 our nails as well. In these episodes because ultimately, yeah, 0:05:23.960 --> 0:05:27.320 these these nails that we have um are kind of 0:05:27.360 --> 0:05:29.760 at this intersection of so many different aspects of the 0:05:29.800 --> 0:05:32.719 human condition. And if you look close enough, especially if 0:05:32.760 --> 0:05:35.800 you go far back into prehistory or or look around 0:05:35.839 --> 0:05:39.000 the world at different cultural treatments of nails, Uh, there's 0:05:39.040 --> 0:05:43.400 far more strangeness and magic and religious significance than than 0:05:43.480 --> 0:05:46.080 people might expect, especially if you're just an American who 0:05:46.120 --> 0:05:48.320 just kind of clips them into the trash can. But 0:05:48.360 --> 0:05:50.320 maybe we should start with a quick look at the 0:05:50.320 --> 0:05:52.120 anatomy of a nail. And now we're not going to 0:05:52.200 --> 0:05:56.040 go super deep on this, but the simple version is 0:05:56.120 --> 0:05:58.120 that you've got the hard part of the nail. This 0:05:58.240 --> 0:06:00.919 plays to fingernails. In tone nails, the hard part of 0:06:00.920 --> 0:06:03.440 the nail is known as the nail plate, and the 0:06:03.520 --> 0:06:07.080 nail plate is made out of these compressed layers of 0:06:07.240 --> 0:06:12.960 former epidermal skin cells that have been caratonized. Caratonized as 0:06:13.040 --> 0:06:15.719 kind of it's your body doing two skin cells. What 0:06:15.880 --> 0:06:19.440 Medusa does to people who invade her garden of rocks. Uh, 0:06:19.640 --> 0:06:22.000 you know, it's it's filling the cells with keratin, which 0:06:22.040 --> 0:06:25.840 is this tough, fibrous protective protein that makes up not 0:06:25.880 --> 0:06:28.360 only the nails but also the hair and UH and 0:06:28.640 --> 0:06:31.840 keratin is found in living skin cells as well, and 0:06:31.880 --> 0:06:35.240 then the caratonized cells in the nail plate make it 0:06:35.279 --> 0:06:39.120 not only tough, but relatively flexible and translucent. And the 0:06:39.160 --> 0:06:42.240 translucent quality of the nails is I think it's one 0:06:42.240 --> 0:06:44.640 of the most interesting things about them. If you look close, 0:06:44.680 --> 0:06:47.120 you can kind of see through it to the flesh underneath, 0:06:47.520 --> 0:06:50.280 and then to the capillary blood flow under that. If 0:06:50.320 --> 0:06:52.040 you look at it long enough, it might start to 0:06:52.040 --> 0:06:55.240 get a little creepy, yeah, because because there's a sense 0:06:55.279 --> 0:06:57.440 that the nail is strong. We know the nail is 0:06:57.440 --> 0:07:01.159 is strong, and yet the flesh that we see through 0:07:01.240 --> 0:07:05.080 that nail window looks very you know, soft and delicate 0:07:05.120 --> 0:07:07.720 and and and we all often know from experience that 0:07:07.800 --> 0:07:10.640 it is very sensitive under there. Absolutely, it's sort of 0:07:10.680 --> 0:07:14.600 like a window through your skin, but like a frosted 0:07:14.640 --> 0:07:18.640 glass window, you know, not exactly transparent, but translucent. But so, 0:07:18.680 --> 0:07:21.160 where does the nail plate come from. Well, it comes 0:07:21.200 --> 0:07:23.760 from the nail matrix, which is found at the base 0:07:23.800 --> 0:07:27.400 of the nail, and this is sort of the cellular factory. 0:07:27.520 --> 0:07:31.600 It turns out new nail plate through cell division over time, 0:07:31.640 --> 0:07:33.960 and as new cells form at the base of the nail, 0:07:34.240 --> 0:07:36.960 it pushes the old nail out from the root, which 0:07:37.000 --> 0:07:40.080 is why nails grow. Now, it's interesting to note that 0:07:40.120 --> 0:07:43.480 there are nails are actually composed of three layers of 0:07:43.520 --> 0:07:47.760 that fibrous composite keratin. And and this is of course 0:07:47.800 --> 0:07:50.120 a fibrous protein. Like we said, it's found in hair 0:07:50.240 --> 0:07:55.440 and feathers and hoofs, claws and horns. Uh. But I 0:07:55.480 --> 0:07:58.240 was looking a little deeper into just the the structural 0:07:58.240 --> 0:08:01.360 integrity of the nail. I read an article from back 0:08:01.360 --> 0:08:04.400 in two thousand four that was published an Experimental biology 0:08:04.480 --> 0:08:08.080 by Firing at All, in which the researchers quote examine 0:08:08.120 --> 0:08:11.440 the structure and fracture properties of human fingernails to determine 0:08:11.440 --> 0:08:16.760 how they resist bending forces while preventing fractors running longitudinally 0:08:17.080 --> 0:08:20.440 in the nail bed. So we we've all cracked a 0:08:20.520 --> 0:08:23.720 nail before. I imagine it's not a fingernail than a 0:08:23.760 --> 0:08:28.360 toe nail. That's a quick thing for me. Yeah, um, 0:08:28.400 --> 0:08:30.160 And it's a you know, but you know, it's it's 0:08:30.160 --> 0:08:33.040 a wonderful thing that we tend to see far more 0:08:33.640 --> 0:08:37.760 latitudinal cracks than the opposite in other words, cracks tend 0:08:37.800 --> 0:08:41.880 to be more or less parallel to the edge of 0:08:41.880 --> 0:08:44.240 the nail, as opposed to straight up the middle, which 0:08:44.240 --> 0:08:47.000 would obviously be far more traumatic. Not to say it 0:08:47.000 --> 0:08:51.199 doesn't occur, but um, but generally you're gonna have one 0:08:51.240 --> 0:08:54.800 that's going across the nail. So that means that our 0:08:54.920 --> 0:08:59.160 nails are an isotropic, meaning the material has a different 0:08:59.280 --> 0:09:02.560 value when measured in different directions. And this is much 0:09:02.600 --> 0:09:05.360 like wood, you know, which is stronger along the grain, 0:09:05.800 --> 0:09:08.000 or like meat, you know, the direction in which you 0:09:08.080 --> 0:09:10.199 slice a piece of meat makes a difference in how 0:09:10.240 --> 0:09:12.560 tender it is. Uh. The same thing would probably be 0:09:12.640 --> 0:09:16.520 true of your nails, right, Uh. And that's exactly what 0:09:16.559 --> 0:09:18.720 they ended up doing in this experiment, like tested like 0:09:18.800 --> 0:09:22.120 cutting on nails, uh, not living nails, I believe they were. 0:09:22.120 --> 0:09:24.559 They were trimming so that they used in the experiment. 0:09:24.600 --> 0:09:29.680 But basically, there are long, narrow cells in the thick 0:09:29.720 --> 0:09:33.520 intermediate layer, while tile like cells in the thinner dorsal 0:09:33.600 --> 0:09:37.640 and ventral layers increase bending strength and prevents cracking from forming. 0:09:37.840 --> 0:09:40.760 Well that's very nice, and really all this lines up 0:09:40.800 --> 0:09:46.840 with just the way that we tend to use our nails, uh, scraping, prying, tweezing. 0:09:47.200 --> 0:09:49.880 If you've ever tried to use your fingernails as a screwdriver, 0:09:50.320 --> 0:09:52.440 you've hit up on some of the design limitations, but 0:09:52.520 --> 0:09:56.319 also some of the flexibility of the nail. You'll find that, uh, yeah, 0:09:56.360 --> 0:09:58.400 if you're just pressing on something, if you're trying to 0:09:58.480 --> 0:10:00.719 like dig something out of your own skin, and you 0:10:00.760 --> 0:10:02.920 probably shouldn't do that, but if you are, you'll find 0:10:02.920 --> 0:10:05.040 that you have a fair amount of you know, of 0:10:05.080 --> 0:10:07.440 pressure you can exert on that nail. Right, But if 0:10:07.440 --> 0:10:09.720 you start trying to go side to side with a 0:10:10.120 --> 0:10:12.760 with with the head of a screw, you're gonna find, oh, 0:10:12.800 --> 0:10:16.960 it's not really rigid enough to turn the screw. But fortunately, 0:10:17.000 --> 0:10:19.760 at the same time, um, it's not so brittle that 0:10:19.800 --> 0:10:22.520 I just ripped my nail to pieces when I'm trying 0:10:22.559 --> 0:10:25.040 and failing to do that. Oh. I've never thought to 0:10:25.040 --> 0:10:27.400 put it into words like that, but you're absolutely right, 0:10:27.440 --> 0:10:30.880 Like twisting pressure on the nail does not feel as 0:10:30.920 --> 0:10:34.280 as comfortable and easy as regular like tweezing or pressing 0:10:34.320 --> 0:10:36.640 pressure is. Yeah, I mean not to say you can't 0:10:37.040 --> 0:10:39.000 turn a nail, I mean turn a screw a little 0:10:39.000 --> 0:10:42.760 bit with your nail. But I think you'll find that 0:10:42.840 --> 0:10:44.520 if when it gets to the nitty gritty of trying 0:10:44.520 --> 0:10:47.760 to actually put some force into the rotation of the screw, 0:10:48.400 --> 0:10:50.360 you're going to realize that you should probably stop what 0:10:50.360 --> 0:10:52.839 you're doing and get an actual screwdriver. Now, there's a 0:10:52.920 --> 0:10:57.200 very interesting contradiction, a sort of psychological contradiction that comes 0:10:57.200 --> 0:10:59.280 with the nails which is that they're the parts of 0:10:59.320 --> 0:11:01.520 our body that would be the toughest, you know, the 0:11:01.520 --> 0:11:04.280 ones we would put out front as as defensive parts, 0:11:04.320 --> 0:11:08.960 the teeth, the nails. There there are defense mechanism. But 0:11:09.840 --> 0:11:11.840 one thing you've noticed if you if you ever tried 0:11:11.880 --> 0:11:16.679 to trim a dog's toenails, is that they generally do 0:11:16.760 --> 0:11:19.560 not like this at all. They do not want their 0:11:19.559 --> 0:11:21.920 toenails to be messed with, even though it's the hardest 0:11:21.960 --> 0:11:23.839 part of their body, and you can mess around with 0:11:23.880 --> 0:11:26.040 the soft parts of their body. They're usually fine with it. 0:11:26.080 --> 0:11:27.760 But you start going in for the nails and they 0:11:27.800 --> 0:11:30.680 get all squirmy and say, I want to clatter around 0:11:30.679 --> 0:11:33.480 on the floor forever. Uh, And you will not get 0:11:33.480 --> 0:11:36.560 a chance to do this. And there's actually a similar 0:11:36.679 --> 0:11:38.920 kind of contradiction. I think that goes on in human 0:11:38.960 --> 0:11:43.000 psychology because think about all of the horrifying images that 0:11:43.360 --> 0:11:46.080 people you know, they occur in movies, of course, unfortunately 0:11:46.120 --> 0:11:49.440 sometimes they're practiced in reality, and they all probably just 0:11:49.480 --> 0:11:54.079 occur to us naturally when you imagine something bad happening 0:11:54.120 --> 0:11:57.200 to your nails or your teeth, it's like a particular 0:11:57.640 --> 0:12:02.080 kind of vulnerability obsession. Yeah, and and I should add, 0:12:02.120 --> 0:12:04.000 if you don't want to hear about any of this, 0:12:04.440 --> 0:12:06.440 you know, feel free to skip, like maybe you know, 0:12:07.360 --> 0:12:09.720 ten fifty seconds. But we're not gonna dwell on this 0:12:09.760 --> 0:12:12.959 long or in great detail. But but yeah, it should 0:12:12.960 --> 0:12:16.280 be noted that fingernail based torture goes back quite a 0:12:16.320 --> 0:12:20.760 ways given the delicacy. And certainly there are a lot 0:12:20.800 --> 0:12:24.160 of nerves in our fingers, and the nail actually makes 0:12:24.160 --> 0:12:26.960 our finger more sensitive, which is something that that I 0:12:26.960 --> 0:12:28.880 hadn't really thought about before. But this was pointed out 0:12:28.880 --> 0:12:33.040 by Evan Writer, assistant professor in the Ronald O. Pearlman 0:12:33.120 --> 0:12:36.320 Department of Dermatology, n y U langon health, quoted in 0:12:36.360 --> 0:12:40.920 a Mental Floss article by Jordan Rosenfeld from two thousand eighteen. Yeah, 0:12:41.000 --> 0:12:44.000 the way I've read it put is that by providing 0:12:44.040 --> 0:12:47.520 a counter pressure to your fingertip. It gives you special 0:12:47.559 --> 0:12:50.880 sensitivity in the skin cells in your fingertip that wouldn't 0:12:50.920 --> 0:12:54.000 be there otherwise. Yeah, which is something to keep in 0:12:54.040 --> 0:12:56.280 mind the next time you have some sort of issue 0:12:56.320 --> 0:12:59.439 with your nails where you find yourself asking that question, 0:12:59.520 --> 0:13:02.719 why do I have these What is what good are 0:13:02.760 --> 0:13:04.839 these nails doing me when they're causing me so much 0:13:04.880 --> 0:13:08.080 discomfort right now? UM? I know, for for my own part, 0:13:08.160 --> 0:13:11.920 I in the past had ingrown tonenails on both of 0:13:11.960 --> 0:13:15.160 my my big toes and uh, and had to have 0:13:15.200 --> 0:13:18.200 the thing where the the podiatrist goes in and like 0:13:18.400 --> 0:13:20.760 removes a section of the toenail and kills the nail 0:13:20.800 --> 0:13:23.920 bed underneath it. Um to to prevent that kind of 0:13:23.960 --> 0:13:26.880 thing from happening. And I kind of get the impression 0:13:26.920 --> 0:13:29.200 that this is not all that uncommon because I have 0:13:29.559 --> 0:13:32.760 other friends who we've compared toes and we're like, oh, yeah, 0:13:32.760 --> 0:13:36.000 you had the same thing done. Well, I'm sorry you 0:13:36.000 --> 0:13:38.280 had to endure that, Robert. But I also do find 0:13:38.280 --> 0:13:40.600 it quite amusing that you have you have toe parties 0:13:40.640 --> 0:13:43.040 with your friends. Well, you know, I have to say 0:13:43.080 --> 0:13:46.120 that the procedure is far preferable to an ingrown toenail. 0:13:46.480 --> 0:13:48.959 Uh So if if you uh, you know, if you're 0:13:48.960 --> 0:13:52.040 having issues like that, and you should definitely try and 0:13:52.040 --> 0:13:54.559 get some some help with it. That is not yourself 0:13:55.080 --> 0:13:57.600 toying around and trying to perform some sort of amateur 0:13:57.600 --> 0:14:00.400 surgery on yourself in the bathroom, because that's only going 0:14:00.440 --> 0:14:04.080 to result in more pain. Um. Speaking of which, I 0:14:04.120 --> 0:14:05.920 have to admit that I did not have the stomach 0:14:05.960 --> 0:14:09.600 to really dive into this topic of of nail torture 0:14:09.640 --> 0:14:12.600 in depth. I know there's a book, famous book by 0:14:13.040 --> 0:14:16.439 George Riley Scott, The History of Torture throughout the Ages, 0:14:17.000 --> 0:14:19.560 and I skimmed that a little bit and quickly realized 0:14:19.600 --> 0:14:21.160 that my eyes were a little bigger than my stomach 0:14:21.200 --> 0:14:23.920 on that one. Um. But basically you have a lot 0:14:23.960 --> 0:14:26.440 of accounts of de nailing in there, either by just 0:14:26.480 --> 0:14:29.680 pulling the nails out or by first using the insertion 0:14:29.720 --> 0:14:32.680 of a red hot nail beneath the fingernail as a 0:14:32.720 --> 0:14:37.480 precursor to de nailing. George Riley Scott, by the way, 0:14:37.520 --> 0:14:40.640 also wrote a history of prostitution in the early twentieth 0:14:40.640 --> 0:14:42.720 century that I understand was one of one of, if 0:14:42.760 --> 0:14:46.360 not the first histories of prostitution. That was not like, uh, 0:14:46.600 --> 0:14:50.080 it was not coming from a super judgmental standpoint, like 0:14:50.120 --> 0:14:54.520 a moralizing standpoint. H Well, that's interesting. So we're done 0:14:54.520 --> 0:14:57.800 with the nail torture that others inflict on us, I 0:14:57.840 --> 0:15:00.240 think at this point. But let's come back to that 0:15:00.320 --> 0:15:03.640 other form of sort of nail punishment that we sometimes 0:15:03.720 --> 0:15:06.840 do it ourselves, nail biting. Oh yeah, So, as I 0:15:06.840 --> 0:15:09.480 said before, I am not a habitual nail biter, but 0:15:09.520 --> 0:15:12.000 I have observed a bunch of it up close over 0:15:12.000 --> 0:15:14.400 the years, and so I don't know, I've I've sort 0:15:14.440 --> 0:15:17.120 of like mused on it for a long time. So 0:15:17.480 --> 0:15:22.600 habitual nail biting is known clinically as on ecophagia, and 0:15:22.760 --> 0:15:26.880 studies have found somewhere between maybe twenty to thirty percent 0:15:26.960 --> 0:15:29.320 of people in total do it, though it varies a 0:15:29.360 --> 0:15:32.880 lot by age um. So the twenty to thirty percent 0:15:32.960 --> 0:15:35.680 figure comes from a study published in twenty seventeen and 0:15:35.720 --> 0:15:40.440 the Journal of Dermatological Treatment by Pierre Halte at All. 0:15:40.560 --> 0:15:44.880 But according to some sources, nail biting peaks in early years, 0:15:44.960 --> 0:15:48.040 especially in teenage years, with some estimates as high as 0:15:48.080 --> 0:15:51.480 forty five percent. Of teenagers doing it regularly, which sounds 0:15:51.640 --> 0:15:53.760 very high. But then again, I guess I don't know 0:15:53.800 --> 0:15:56.120 what teenagers do. I do have to come back to 0:15:56.400 --> 0:16:00.800 um the name of the habitual nail bite though, because 0:16:00.880 --> 0:16:04.840 the uh, the actual meaning of that is is the 0:16:04.880 --> 0:16:08.160 eating of of fingernails, right, I mean it, which is 0:16:08.160 --> 0:16:10.920 not actually what's going on, right at least not in 0:16:10.920 --> 0:16:13.000 most cases. I don't know. Maybe who knows what some 0:16:13.040 --> 0:16:16.160 people swallow, But yeah, phagia, that's you know, that's used 0:16:16.160 --> 0:16:18.600 in the terms for the eating of all kinds of things. 0:16:18.600 --> 0:16:22.560 Into my phegia is the eating of insects and so forth, copperphagia. 0:16:22.640 --> 0:16:27.080 We don't need to get into hogegias, the eating of hogs, 0:16:27.240 --> 0:16:31.360 of great sandwiches. But even if you're not swallowing the nails, 0:16:31.880 --> 0:16:35.720 nicophagia can have a lot of negative consequences. For one thing, 0:16:36.200 --> 0:16:39.320 that your nails are very dirty. They are sort of 0:16:39.360 --> 0:16:43.600 a hot spot for bacteria on your body and uh, 0:16:43.640 --> 0:16:45.800 and so I was reading several articles about this. One 0:16:45.840 --> 0:16:48.280 thing I was reading was an article in The Verge 0:16:48.360 --> 0:16:51.880 by Alessandra Potenza, and the author here pointed out that 0:16:52.200 --> 0:16:56.080 nail biding can also have dental consequences, So she pointed 0:16:56.120 --> 0:16:59.120 to some dental health blogs that I was looking at. 0:16:59.240 --> 0:17:01.520 Several of these had dentist citing an estimate from the 0:17:01.560 --> 0:17:05.560 Academy of General Dentistry that quote, nail biting can result 0:17:05.600 --> 0:17:09.119 in up to four thousand dollars in additional dental bills 0:17:09.200 --> 0:17:12.880 over one lifetime. Because there are a number of reasons. 0:17:12.880 --> 0:17:15.879 But apparently it's not good for your teeth to be 0:17:16.040 --> 0:17:19.479 chewing too much in any case, and it's especially not 0:17:19.520 --> 0:17:23.120 good to be always putting chewing pressure down with your 0:17:23.160 --> 0:17:25.040 front teeth. I mean, you think about it, that's not 0:17:25.119 --> 0:17:27.600 normally how you chew. Normally, you chew kind of like 0:17:27.720 --> 0:17:31.080 with the pressing of your back teeth, But when you're 0:17:31.080 --> 0:17:34.040 biting with your nails, you're kind of aligning your jaw 0:17:34.119 --> 0:17:36.520 in a strange way to bring your front teeth together 0:17:36.920 --> 0:17:40.200 and turn them into clippers. But beyond that, there's also 0:17:40.440 --> 0:17:45.159 just the the exchange of bacteria from one place to 0:17:45.240 --> 0:17:48.000 the other and it and it actually does go both ways. 0:17:48.040 --> 0:17:51.080 So you're getting bacteria from under your fingernails and your 0:17:51.080 --> 0:17:54.680 fingertips into your mouth, but you're also getting bacteria from 0:17:54.720 --> 0:17:58.280 your mouth under your fingernails, which can cause infections there 0:17:58.720 --> 0:18:01.600 and apparently it can be bad both ways. Yeah, so 0:18:01.720 --> 0:18:05.679 there's really no upside to doing it. Um, obviously just 0:18:05.720 --> 0:18:10.000 stopping is easier said than done. But but but yeah, 0:18:10.359 --> 0:18:13.600 from from a purely health standpoint, um, it's best to 0:18:13.600 --> 0:18:16.040 stay away from it. But that leads to the interesting 0:18:16.119 --> 0:18:19.520 question of why we bite our nails in the first place, 0:18:19.520 --> 0:18:23.600 and why some people, especially in engage in o nicophagia 0:18:23.760 --> 0:18:27.920 like the habitual, repetitive biting of the nails. I was 0:18:27.960 --> 0:18:31.000 reading an interesting article about this in Fox by the 0:18:31.000 --> 0:18:35.159 science writer Joseph Stromberg, and so he cites that there 0:18:35.160 --> 0:18:38.000 were several early theories on nail biting, of course, before 0:18:38.000 --> 0:18:41.920 we had modern psychology. One of course, was Freud, and 0:18:42.000 --> 0:18:46.120 Freud grouped nail biting as one of the obsessions that 0:18:46.200 --> 0:18:50.280 fell under the oral receptive personality. And in Freudian theory, 0:18:50.320 --> 0:18:53.720 the idea was that if a if a child nursed 0:18:53.760 --> 0:18:56.879 too much during infancy, they would grow up to have 0:18:57.160 --> 0:19:01.720 this oral fixation, the oral receptive fixation, and which caused 0:19:01.760 --> 0:19:04.479 them to always like chew on their nails and like 0:19:04.560 --> 0:19:06.280 put objects in their mouth. You know the kind of 0:19:06.280 --> 0:19:07.960 people who are always like putting a stick in their 0:19:08.000 --> 0:19:11.040 mouth or something. But again, you know, this is Freudian 0:19:11.119 --> 0:19:13.399 is um. There's no real evidence for this, and as 0:19:13.440 --> 0:19:15.800 far as I could tell, there's never been any evidence 0:19:15.840 --> 0:19:19.280 that's turned up that there's any connection whatsoever between nursing 0:19:19.280 --> 0:19:22.399 in early childhood and and so called oral fixations. It 0:19:22.480 --> 0:19:24.119 just seems to be another one of those things that 0:19:24.160 --> 0:19:26.600 you know, Freud kind of said it, but there's no 0:19:26.640 --> 0:19:28.960 reason to believe it's true unless you're one of those 0:19:28.960 --> 0:19:30.920 people that has one of those bumper stickers that says 0:19:30.960 --> 0:19:33.840 Freud said it, I believe it. That settled it. Now. 0:19:33.880 --> 0:19:36.760 More recently, nail biting has been listed in the d 0:19:36.880 --> 0:19:38.919 s M is a form of o c D of 0:19:39.320 --> 0:19:43.159 obsessive compulsive disorder, but not all experts agreed that this 0:19:43.240 --> 0:19:46.439 is the best categorization for it, as not all forms 0:19:46.440 --> 0:19:50.520 of nail biting or universally considered really obsessive UM. And 0:19:50.600 --> 0:19:54.320 so another theory has emerged that nail biting is sort 0:19:54.320 --> 0:19:58.239 of a form of emotion regulation. Just one example of 0:19:58.280 --> 0:20:02.080 this is a study from published in the Journal of 0:20:02.119 --> 0:20:06.160 Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry by Sarah Roberts at All 0:20:06.760 --> 0:20:10.400 called the Impact of Emotions on Body Focused repetitive behaviors 0:20:10.480 --> 0:20:14.119 evidence from a non treatment seeking sample. And this is 0:20:14.160 --> 0:20:18.240 a whole class of of behaviors, body focused repetitive behaviors 0:20:18.240 --> 0:20:22.880 that can involve nail biting, hair pulling, you know, various 0:20:22.920 --> 0:20:26.360 things that were sort of often grooming related, skin picking, 0:20:26.960 --> 0:20:29.520 that kind of stuff. And so in this study they 0:20:29.560 --> 0:20:32.080 tested people in several different kinds of scenarios that were 0:20:32.119 --> 0:20:37.760 trying to elicit certain emotional reactions. One was a frustration situation, 0:20:37.840 --> 0:20:40.800 in which subjects would be given a difficult job to 0:20:40.840 --> 0:20:43.959 do that that could not possibly be done in the 0:20:44.000 --> 0:20:47.280 time they were given to do it. Um. Another one 0:20:47.520 --> 0:20:50.560 was a boredom scenario where people were left in a 0:20:50.680 --> 0:20:53.919 room with nothing to do. Another one was an anxiety 0:20:53.960 --> 0:20:57.440 scenario where they were asked to watch an extremely terrifying 0:20:57.560 --> 0:21:00.320 movie scene. I think it was a plane crash scene 0:21:00.359 --> 0:21:03.840 from the movie Alive. I've never seen it. Is that 0:21:03.880 --> 0:21:08.200 the one where the soccer players resort to cannibalism? Yeah, 0:21:08.280 --> 0:21:11.840 that's the one based on true occurrences, But but certainly 0:21:11.880 --> 0:21:14.320 is notable for having just a very terrifying and at 0:21:14.400 --> 0:21:18.960