Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hi
Speaker 1: brain Stuff Lauren bog o Bam here with another classic
Speaker 1: episode from our archives. One of the things I love
Speaker 1: about this podcast is that we get to cover some
Speaker 1: really big important questions about our planet, our society's, our future,
Speaker 1: and also questions about boogers. Hey, brain Stuff, Lauren bog
Speaker 1: Obam here. You've probably caught someone in the act of
Speaker 1: picking their nose and inspecting the contents and disgusting, right,
Speaker 1: But you do it too, except maybe you opt to
Speaker 1: remove your boogers using a tissue in the privacy of
Speaker 1: your own home or car, or that empty elevator you're
Speaker 1: riding to the tenth floor. Whatever. We don't judge whether
Speaker 1: you know them as a bat in the cave or
Speaker 1: a nose goblin. There's a good reason for boogers, even
Speaker 1: when they stick around in gelatinous little lumps. The lining
Speaker 1: of the nose and sinus is also known as the
Speaker 1: epithelium produce at least one court. That's one leader of
Speaker 1: mucus every day. That's a lot of snot the mucus
Speaker 1: in your scientusys keeps the nasal linings moist and helps
Speaker 1: with your sense of smell. Most importantly, though, it traps dust, bacteria, pollen,
Speaker 1: and other contaminants. Mucus essentially acts as a sticky fly strip,
Speaker 1: grabbing pollutants and keeping them from getting into your respiratory system.
Speaker 1: Without mucus, most of these particles would end up in
Speaker 1: your lungs. The trapped mucus clinged miniature hairs called cilia.
Speaker 1: The cilia move the mucus toward the nearest exit, either
Speaker 1: toward the front of the nose or the back of
Speaker 1: the throat, where it's swallowed in small amounts. But sometimes
Speaker 1: the mucus has trouble fully exiting the nostrils. It begins
Speaker 1: to dry out and may become clumped together. Additional dust
Speaker 1: and other debris join forces with the drying mucus and huila,
Speaker 1: a booger is formed. Buggers form more frequently when you
Speaker 1: have the common cold or about with allergies. Dry, dusty
Speaker 1: or air conditioned air can cause an increase in booger
Speaker 1: formation too. Even with all this aired influence, a booger
Speaker 1: may remain soft and rife with airborne particles. Sometimes, however,
Speaker 1: a booger can become extremely hard and have rough edges
Speaker 1: that can pierce the nasal lining, causing it to bleed.
Speaker 1: Now for rather indelicate matter, the next time you see
Speaker 1: a child, or help us all, an adult, inspect the
Speaker 1: contents of his or her nasal cavities. Watch for surreptitious nibble.
Speaker 1: Turns out the people eating their boogers maybe taking a
Speaker 1: step forward on the evolutionary ladder. A biochemist at the
Speaker 1: University of Saskatchewan theorized that eating boogers is actually a
Speaker 1: way of introducing germs into and thus strengthening the immune system.
Speaker 1: This hygiene hypothesis asserts that dining on bits of mucus
Speaker 1: may actually build a superpowered immune response that could give
Speaker 1: booger eaters an edge over the rest of us. Bone
Speaker 1: up a teeth. Today's episode was originally produced by Tristan
Speaker 1: McNeil and is based on the article how do boogers
Speaker 1: form in your nose? On how Stuffworks dot com written
Speaker 1: by laure L Dove. Brain Stuff is production of by
Speaker 1: Heart Radio and partnership with how Stuffworks dot Com, and
Speaker 1: it is produced by Tyler Klang. Or more podcasts my
Speaker 1: heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows, h