Ep 214 Boogers: Digging for treasure

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

• 0:01Speaker 00

  This is exactly right.

• 0:06Speaker 01

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• 0:36Speaker 02

  This is Stugatz from Stugatz and Company Live. Buy smart, drive for less, and trade for more. That's Toyota affordability. And it all starts with a great deal on an all-wheel-drive Camry, Corolla Cross, or a Corolla sedan with the latest features and tech, or test drive a spacious Grand Highlander or adventure-ready RAV4. And with so many hybrid models available, you can enjoy longer trips without all the stops, while Toyota's legendary resale value means you can get more at trade-in. Get a great deal today and a great value tomorrow. Shop toyota.com for deals and details. Toyota, let's go places.

• 1:15Speaker 03

  During the late dry season, we noticed that a flu-like illness had become increasingly prevalent in the group. The symptoms of flu consisted of a hacking cough, frequent sneezing, a running nose, or a blocked nasal passage. Some affected individuals lay on their stomachs for prolonged periods while coughing and breathing through the mouth. By mid-September, at least 52 of the 82 chimpanzees in the group were suffering from this illness. An adult male, Kalunde, aged approximately 29 years, displayed the above flu-like symptoms between September 14th and October 3rd. During this period, he was observed on four occasions

• 1:54Speaker 03

  using a toothpick-like tool 10 to 18 centimeters long. On one additional occasion, he was also seen to make a tool, apparently without using it. He inserted the tool deeply into one of his nostrils, which often immediately stimulated him to sneeze. When he sneezed, a large amount of nasal mucus was discharged onto his upper lip. The mucus was then picked off and quickly ingested. On one occasion, he recovered a dry twig from the ground and removed the leaves from it. He tried to elicit sneezing by pushing the modified stem into one nostril, but in the course of 29 seconds, he failed to do so. He then discarded the tool, picked

• 2:35Speaker 03

  up a large dry leaf, removed the leaf blade with his teeth, and pushed the modified midrib into one nostril. Within five seconds, he sneezed, and his nasal passage was successfully cleared. Kalunde was one of several chimpanzees which, because of a badly blocked nasal passage, were breathing with difficulty only through the mouth because the normal air passage was blocked. The stimulus afforded by the use of this tool forced the accumulated nasal mucus out of his nose. Kalunde ceased to display this type of behavior after October 3rd, and by October 9th, he had recovered.

• 3:56Speaker 04

  Aaron, I love literally everything about that description.

• 4:02Speaker 03

  Isn't that glorious?

• 4:04Speaker 04

  It's so good. It's every toddler.

• 4:07Speaker 03

  It's every toddler. Toddlers stick tools up their nose to induce sneezing?

• 4:12Speaker 04

  Well, they stick their own fingers up their nose.

• 4:14Speaker 03

  Of course, of course. I love it.

• 4:17Speaker 04

  Yes, they often stick things up their nose as well, too.

• 4:20Speaker 03

  But what I love about this is that there, there seems to be, like, because this happened repeatedly, because he tried different tools, different approaches, it seems like it was a intention, like there was an intention behind this.

• 4:34Speaker 04

  Very much so, very much, it sounds like.

• 4:35Speaker 03

  Very much. And what's really interesting is that none of the other chimpanzees in the group copied him, although there was one that was like really intent and like really studying his behavior.

• 4:47Speaker 04

  Interesting, but he was the only one.

• 4:50Speaker 03

  He was the only one. So that was from a paper by Nishida and Nakamura from 1993 called Chimpanzee Tool Use to Clear a Blocked Nasal Passage.

• 5:05Speaker 03

  Uh, I love it. Hi, I'm Erin Welsh.

• 5:08Speaker 04

  And I'm Erin Omen Updike.

• 5:10Speaker 03

  And this is This Podcast Will Kill You.

• 5:12Speaker 04

  Welcome to Boogers.

• 5:14Speaker 03

  Welcome to Boogers. I'm so excited for this.

• 5:18Speaker 04

  Me too.

• 5:19Speaker 03

  I, I think we chose it because we were like, what sounds?

• 5:23Speaker 04

  Fun.

• 5:23Speaker 03

  Fun?

• 5:24Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 5:25Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 5:25Speaker 04

  Yeah, we do a lot of dark on this podcast.

• 5:28Speaker 03

  We do. We need a little, we need a little bit of levity from time to time.

• 5:33Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 5:33Speaker 03

  This provides that.

• 5:36Speaker 04

  It does. Yeah. I mean, there's, there's, you could get into some real darkness about mucus.

• 5:41Speaker 03

  Of course you could.

• 5:42Speaker 04

  But we won't today.

• 5:44Speaker 03

  I'm, I'm certainly not.

• 5:45Speaker 04

  For the most part.

• 5:47Speaker 03

  It's gonna be a really fun episode. There's, I, I have no idea what you're gonna be talking about. I'm sure you have no idea what I'm gonna be talking about.

• 5:55Speaker 04

  Not a clue.

• 5:56Speaker 03

  Great. Because I had no idea when I was like, wait, what?

• 6:01Speaker 04

  The history of boogers? Yeah.

• 6:05Speaker 03

  It's gonna be great.

• 6:06Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 6:06Speaker 03

  But first, before we get into all of the greatness of boogers.

• 6:09Speaker 04

  It's corny time.

• 6:10Speaker 03

  It's corny time. What are we drinking this week?

• 6:12Speaker 04

  We're drinking the snot rocket.

• 6:14Speaker 03

  The snot rocket. So I absolutely love this. I was like, I was thinking, okay, we could do like Jell-O, something like that.

• 6:24Speaker 04

  Chia seeds, something.

• 6:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, chia seeds, uh, psyllium husk just sitting in water for a while.

• 6:31Speaker 03

  But, but there are recipes out there for how to make your own snot at home. That's like, I mean, we can all make our, we're making our own snot currently.

• 6:43Speaker 04

  We sure are.

• 6:43Speaker 03

  Yep. Yeah. So the British Society for Immunology has a recipe, a PDF, you can find it on their website, called the Gruesome Snot Recipe. We're, we're calling it the Snot Rocket.

• 6:55Speaker 04

  Snot Rocket, yeah.

• 6:56Speaker 03

  But it basically follows the same, the same principle. You can find this recipe anywhere if you look up homemade snot. And it's gelatin powder and corn syrup and food coloring.

• 7:07Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 7:07Speaker 03

  To make it whatever stage of the process you want. Do you want green? Do you want more yellow?

• 7:13Speaker 04

  You could probably add some like lemon or lime juice or like some other juice to like make it more flavorful. Cause otherwise it's going to be pretty bland.

• 7:22Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 7:23Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 7:23Speaker 03

  It's going to be pretty, you could do, because it calls for hot water too. So you could do a little bit less hot water and just a little bit of flavor of something.

• 7:30Speaker 04

  Exactly. There you go.

• 7:31Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 7:31Speaker 04

  Just like, you know, the Jell-O's you used to make in college, for example.

• 7:35Speaker 03

  Exactly, exactly.

• 7:39Speaker 03

  But you can find the recipe for this on our website, thispodcastwillkillyou.com, our social media channels. And then there's also on the British Society for Immunology.

• 7:49Speaker 04

  Shout out.

• 7:49Speaker 03

  Shout out.

• 7:50Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 7:51Speaker 03

  Thank you for your service.

• 7:56Speaker 04

  Speaking of our website.

• 7:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 7:58Speaker 04

  We have one. It's called thispodcastwillkillyou.com. You've heard us talk about it literally. So there's no way this is the first episode that you've ever listened to, boogers.

• 8:05Speaker 03

  Wow, thank you. Welcome. This is exciting.

• 8:09Speaker 04

  But we do have a website and on it, you can find transcripts, you can find sources for all of our episodes. You can find a Goodreads list, a bookshop.org affiliate account. You can find merch, you can find our Patreon, you can find Bloodmobile, who does our music, and much more.

• 8:22Speaker 03

  Much more.

• 8:23Speaker 04

  The end.

• 8:24Speaker 03

  The end. Rate, review, subscribe. We're on YouTube. You can see that we chose shirts that were either fun. It's Erin's lovely striped shirt. Love it. And then I tried to get the, the snottiest in the spirit of boogers, green and yellow and orange.

• 8:41Speaker 04

  It's really good. I mean, I would never have called it a snotty shirt.

• 8:45Speaker 03

  Oh, I will now.

• 8:47Speaker 04

  Yeah. Yeah, now. Forevermore.

• 8:49Speaker 03

  Forevermore.

• 8:50Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 8:50Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 8:51Speaker 04

  Shall we?

• 8:51Speaker 03

  Let's do it.

• 8:52Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 8:53Speaker 03

  After this break.

• 8:55Speaker 05

  Hey, it's Lunchbox from the Bobby Bones Show. Buy smart, drive for less, and trade for more. That's Toyota affordability, and it starts with a great deal on an all-wheel-drive Camry, Corolla Cross, or a Corolla sedan with the latest features in tech. Or test drive a spacious Grand Highlander or an adventure-ready RAV4. And with so many hybrid models available, you can enjoy longer trips without all the stops. While Toyota's legendary resale value means you could get more at trade-in, get a deal today and great value tomorrow. Shop toyota.com for deals and details. Toyota, let's go places.

• 9:33Speaker 06

  Hello, hello, I'm Malcolm Gladwell, host of Smart Talks with IBM. I spoke with IBM's Ana Paula Assis about what digital sovereignty actually means in the age of AI.

• 9:44Speaker 07

  AI now moves from somebody operating a system to the technology actually making decisions. So you have to have a much better visibility of what AI is touching, data it is accessing, and where.

• 10:00Speaker 06

  Hear the full conversation wherever you get your podcasts.

• 10:17Speaker 04

  I started off this section with the question, what are boogers? And I do, I kind of want to know where the term boogers comes from. And I didn't, are you going to tell me that later?

• 10:28Speaker 03

  I am.

• 10:29Speaker 04

  Yes, I was hoping so, because I do not know. What I do know, and I think what we all actually know, is what a booger is. It's one of those you know it when you see it relationships, right?

• 10:42Speaker 03

  I mean, dried nasal mucus. I was like, what is the medical term for booger? Dried nasal mucus.

• 10:49Speaker 04

  There's not like a good medical term.

• 10:51Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 10:51Speaker 04

  But yeah, they are dried or sticky bits of our snot, our nasal mucus. So to talk about boogers, we first have to talk about our snot. And to talk about our snot, we have to talk about mucus. Now, on this podcast, I have used the term mucous membranes a lot of times because so many infections that we have covered on this podcast, we can get infected by contact with our mucous membranes. But I don't think I've ever really defined the term. I usually just say something like mucous membranes, for example, our nose, our eyes, our mouth. So let's talk about our mucous membranes, shall we?

• 11:29Speaker 03

  Let's.

• 11:30Speaker 04

  Our whole entire body has to protect itself from pathogens all the time. And we do this in a whole bunch of different ways, but we really, our bodies rely very heavily on barrier methods. So our skin is this thick, relatively hard protective layer made up of keratin. It's not actually very thick, but in the scheme of things, it is compared to a bacteria. And our stomach, which also contacts the outside world, is full of acid to kill things that might get in there. And then we have our mucosal surfaces. These are areas of our body that are protected via, you guessed it, mucus.

• 12:12Speaker 03

  Mucus.

• 12:13Speaker 04

  So our mucosal membranes or our mucosal surfaces are these wet epithelial cells that rely at least in very large part on mucus to protect us against infections. Now, our nose, and really our entire respiratory system, which connects between our nose, our mouth, and then down into our lungs, is one of these mucosal surfaces.

• 12:37Speaker 03

  Wait, hold on. Wet epithelial cells?

• 12:40Speaker 04

  Wet epithelial cells.

• 12:41Speaker 03

  Are you gonna tell me more about what wet, what that means?

• 12:45Speaker 04

  Well, no, like, our skin is an epithelial barrier, but it's not wet.

• 12:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, but where's the wetness coming from?

• 12:52Speaker 04

  From the mucus.

• 12:55Speaker 03

  And where's the mucus coming?

• 12:56Speaker 04

  Let me tell you.

• 12:57Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 13:03Speaker 03

  So it's the moisture that make these cells wet?

• 13:05Speaker 04

  It's the moisture.

• 13:07Speaker 03

  But the cells are making the moisture?

• 13:10Speaker 04

  The cells are making the moisture and the moisture is the mucus and the mucus makes them wet.

• 13:14Speaker 03

  So chicken and egg?

• 13:17Speaker 04

  Yeah, I don't know. Don't ask me which came first, Erin.

• 13:19Speaker 03

  Okay, okay. I'm just trying to, so it's wet. Okay, okay.

• 13:23Speaker 04

  I'm just saying that's part of how we define, like, a mucus membrane is a wet surface that has mucus on it.

• 13:29Speaker 03

  Oh, okay, okay.

• 13:29Speaker 04

  That's all. It's not that deep.

• 13:31Speaker 03

  Okay, okay. I was really thinking it was deep.

• 13:35Speaker 04

  It's not, it's not really. It's surface layer, but I'm just kidding.

• 13:39Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 13:41Speaker 04

  Okay, anyways, that was too much.

• 13:42Speaker 03

  That was a very dry epithelial cell.

• 13:46Speaker 04

  We're going too far, Erin. This is unhinged. Okay. I want to talk a little bit more about our nose, since that's what we're focusing on today, our nose mucus, all right?

• 13:57Speaker 04

  We know that we use our nose to breathe. We use our nose to smell. I'm not talking about those two aspects of the function of our nose today. I'm focusing on the layer of protection that our nose affords the rest of our lower respiratory system from pathogens, from toxins, and from other stuff that would harm our lungs. Snot, our mucus, is the thing that allows our nose to protect us. If we could take a short detour into the anatomy of our nose?

• 14:27Speaker 03

  I would love that. I would love nothing more.

• 14:30Speaker 04

  Okay, good. So our nose, obviously, we have a septum that divides the middle of our nose into these two nasal passages. If you've never seen a cross-sectional, like, cut-open view of our face, then you might not know that our nasal passages connect posteriorly, so like, towards the back of our face, and open up into this relatively large nasal cavity. And our nasal cavity has these, like, grooves, these kind of like projections in the walls of them that further serve to increase surface area. That's the same thing that our septum does, right? Instead of just one hole, we have two, so we have more surface area for epithelial cells to be on.

• 15:11Speaker 04

  And then that nasal cavity connects even more posterior, like almost towards our neck, with a chamber called the nasopharynx, and that lies just above our oral cavity or our mouth. The walls of this entire cavity are lined with specialized cells, and these cells, a lot of them, have teeny tiny projections that are kind of hair-like that are called cilia. Now, this is not the same as the actual hair that we have in the very first part of our nose, which is very normal, and also a layer of protection, but these are teeny tiny little hair-like projections. We also have interspersed these specialized types of cells called goblet cells.

• 15:54Speaker 04

  Our goblet cells' job is to make mucus. So that is the vast majority of where our mucus is coming from, is from these goblet cells. And then also, below the first layer of epithelial cells, there's another layer of submucosal cells. That's also where our blood vessels, our nerves, and all of the other good stuff in our nose exists. But we also have a whole bunch of glands, specialized cells that form these nasal glands. They also make a bunch of different types of secretions, including some types of mucus. All right?

• 16:28Speaker 03

  Why are goblet cells called goblet cells? And are goblet cells the same, like, these are mucus producers everywhere where we make mucus?

• 16:38Speaker 04

  Correct. Goblet cells are the cells that make mucus everywhere. They're all over our guts, they're all over all of our mucus membranes. I think, and I could be misremembering this, but I think they're called goblet cells just because they kind of look like a goblet, like, you know, imagine a chalice, they kind of look like that. They're like, robust.

• 16:55Speaker 03

  Fancy.

• 16:56Speaker 04

  Fancy.

• 16:57Speaker 03

  Fancy cells.

• 16:58Speaker 04

  And they hold fluid. I don't know. That's my best remembrance. All right, so.

• 17:04Speaker 03

  Erin's etymology. Done.

• 17:09Speaker 04

  So let us get more into detail on this mucus blanket, as I saw it described in one paper.

• 17:17Speaker 03

  That's lovely.

• 17:18Speaker 04

  Really.

• 17:18Speaker 03

  Really.

• 17:19Speaker 04

  Beautiful. It's so good. So inside of our nose, covering all of the cells and covering those teeny tiny hair-like projections is a wet cushiony, two-layered, actually, blanket that is made of mucus. Mucus is mostly water, okay? 97% water. There's also a bunch of salts in there, ions. But the thing that makes mucus mucousy are these things called glycoproteins. And these are molecules that are made up of sugar and proteins all stuck together. And we call these type of glycoproteins mucins. That's how we got the name mucus.

• 18:04Speaker 04

  And what mucins do is the same thing that chia seeds do if you put them into liquid. They hold on to that water and turn it into a gelatinous substance. So they are the things that make our snot snotty.

• 18:18Speaker 03

  Okay, yeah.

• 18:19Speaker 04

  Uh huh. Now, the other thing that we have a lot of in our mucus is immune cells, immune particles, antibodies, especially IgA, which is the main antibody that helps to block pathogens from entering our nasal cells and our respiratory tract. This is in super high concentrations in our nasal mucus. But we have other...

• 18:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, what does IgA do? Like, where does it stand in the other, among the other Ig's?

• 18:45Speaker 04

  It's basically, it is the highest concentration antibody in our, the mucus membrane areas. So it is, it is like an associated with mucus membranes, especially in the respiratory tract antibody, just like IgG or IgM, the other major antibodies. There's other ones as well, too. It is highly specific to like a particular part of a particular pathogen.

• 19:07Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 19:08Speaker 04

  And you can have memory with your IgA, like you can with IgG, which is like a main memory type. And all of the other ones are present, too, in our nose. But that's just like, it's at really high concentration. So it's usually the first line of defense in our mucus membranes.

• 19:21Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 19:22Speaker 04

  So for people who have like IgA deficiencies, for example, then they might be at more susceptible to certain types of, especially respiratory pathogens, because they're not going to block those as easily before it even gets into your lungs.

• 19:37Speaker 03

  Amazing.

• 19:37Speaker 04

  So interesting.

• 19:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 19:39Speaker 04

  So that's what our mucus is made out of. And I said already that we have these little hair-like projections, these cilia, dee dee dee, that kind of line most all of our respiratory tract, especially our nasal passages and our nasal cavity back there. And these things wave like grass in the wind, or really like sea grass in the ocean, kind of.

• 20:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, beautiful.

• 20:03Speaker 04

  It's so beautiful. And in doing so, they serve, along with the mucus, to propel all the stuff in our mucus back to where it needs to go. So in the very front part of our nasal passage, that might be propelling it out towards our nose holes or our nostrils. But most of our mucus and this cilia is propelling stuff backwards towards our nasopharynx and our oropharynx so that we can swallow it.

• 20:34Speaker 03

  Right. It is upsetting, but it is the truth. And, okay, but you said that sometimes it will propel forward and sometimes backwards.

• 20:42Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 20:43Speaker 03

  Why, why?

• 20:44Speaker 04

  It's mostly just anatomically.

• 20:46Speaker 03

  Oh, okay.

• 20:47Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah. Most of the time it's going back, but the very front ones might sometimes go forwards. Just, yeah, anatomically.

• 20:53Speaker 03

  Just because that's where the motion.

• 20:56Speaker 04

  Easier output is.

• 20:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 21:00Speaker 04

  So our mucus blanket does three major things in our nose. Number one, it filters the air that we breathe. Literally, because it is sticky, a lot of the larger particles, including bacteria, but also allergens, toxins, et cetera, get stuck in the stickiness of our mucus. That's the first thing it does. Number two, it serves as the first line of defense against pathogens, both because we have so much immune system stuff in our mucus, immunoglobulins, but also, you know, white blood cells and other inflammatory markers. But also because when these pathogens get stuck to and interact with the mucin proteins in our mucus,

• 21:44Speaker 04

  it actually stimulates our immune response.

• 21:47Speaker 03

  Right, which is why you can have some vaccines that are through your nose.

• 21:51Speaker 04

  Really, really good through your nose.

• 21:53Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 21:53Speaker 04

  Especially if you need an IgA response. And number three, this one's really important. Our mucus helps to humidify the air that we breathe and keep our cells moist as well.

• 22:07Speaker 03

  It's a big one.

• 22:08Speaker 04

  It's a huge one because if we were sucking dry air into our lungs, we would get super sick. But our, the air that we breathe is completely like, it reaches 100% humidity by the time it hits our nasopharynx.

• 22:24Speaker 03

  Beautiful.

• 22:25Speaker 04

  Isn't that beautiful?

• 22:26Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 22:26Speaker 04

  Even when you're in Colorado and it's like 2% humidity or whatever.

• 22:32Speaker 03

  You've got the crustiest bugs on the planet.

• 22:34Speaker 04

  The crustiest bugs on the planet.

• 22:35Speaker 03

  My nose hurts.

• 22:36Speaker 04

  Right? What's so interesting too, is that it does the opposite on the way out. So as we are breathing out through our nose, we are taking back that water and we're really, really good at it. We lose 42% more water if you're mouth breathing compared to nose breathing. Did you know that?

• 22:55Speaker 03

  Fascinating. Okay, this is why I remember being, learning that you're, when you run, you're supposed to breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth.

• 23:03Speaker 04

  Oh, that's interesting.

• 23:05Speaker 03

  That's what I always remember being, hearing. I can't do it. I have to mouth breathe the whole time.

• 23:10Speaker 04

  The whole time. That makes sense.

• 23:12Speaker 03

  And so I'm just wondering how dehydrated, how more dehydrated I am.

• 23:15Speaker 04

  42% according to one paper that I read.

• 23:17Speaker 03

  That's a lot.

• 23:18Speaker 04

  I know.

• 23:21Speaker 03

  That is, okay, so your nose is both humidifying and dehumidifying depending on the context.

• 23:27Speaker 04

  Correct. In inhale, it humidifies and exhale, it reabsorbs that water.

• 23:32Speaker 03

  That water. And, okay, so tell me, so now we're still talking about mucus.

• 23:39Speaker 04

  Yeah, we are.

• 23:39Speaker 03

  As a wet thing.

• 23:40Speaker 04

  A wet thing.

• 23:42Speaker 03

  But then what makes it boogers? What dries it out?

• 23:46Speaker 04

  What dries it out? Honestly, I don't have a great explanation for that.

• 23:50Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 23:51Speaker 04

  That's the short answer. I'm sure I could keep talking because that's kind of what I do. Really, I think a lot of it comes down to how dehydrated we are to begin with. Okay, so if you are dehydrated, then it is more likely that your boogers or your nasal mucus is going to become more dehydrated. There's a lot of different ways that we can have trouble with our nasal mucus. Right? When we get sick, a lot of us are like, I'm making way more boogers. I'm making way more snot than I should. We make like two liters of snot a day.

• 24:24Speaker 03

  It's, it's why we all need to be hydrated.

• 24:28Speaker 04

  It's why we all need to be hydrated. There's a lot of reasons. See our poop episode for more. But yes, it is one reason that we need to be hydrated. And a lot of times it can feel like we're constantly blowing our nose. We must be making way more mucus. I actually have no data. There is no data in the literature that I found to suggest that we actually produce any more mucus when we're sick. But what does happen is that the blood vessels in our nose are swelling, which allows more blood flow, so could potentially have more water component to that mucus because of plasma extravasation, basically. We also have more inflammatory markers, which can contribute to water because it's inflammation, which brings ions, which brings water.

• 25:11Speaker 04

  But also, what we know is that common cold viruses really mess with that mucociliary transport. So our cilia are not doing a good job bringing that mucus back towards our throat where it's supposed to go so that we can swallow it. And this can last for weeks after exposure. And so that might be part of why it feels like we're blowing our nose so much because our mucus just isn't going back how it should.

• 25:35Speaker 03

  Shooting down.

• 25:36Speaker 04

  Right?

• 25:36Speaker 03

  What about like post nasal drip though? Because that always increases a lot. I feel like during colds, respiratory infections.

• 25:42Speaker 04

  But is that also just because it's not transporting it all the way back the way that it should? Because that cilia lines the entirety of our tract.

• 25:49Speaker 03

  Oh, so it's just.

• 25:50Speaker 04

  So it's just kind of hanging out there and drip dropping rather than moving along the, you know, seagrass the way that it ought to.

• 25:57Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 25:58Speaker 04

  Okay. But that was the opposite question of what you asked me, Erin, which is what about boogers?

• 26:03Speaker 03

  Well, I have more snot questions if you're so willing, but if we want to get to the boogers.

• 26:08Speaker 04

  Let's keep going and then let's see if you have, if I answer.

• 26:11Speaker 03

  It's about color. You'll, you'll get there.

• 26:13Speaker 04

  That's what I'm on my way to. Great. So we also can have trouble in the opposite direction where instead of having too much mucus, we have the really gross, boogery, hard mucus. And there's several different ways that this can end up happening. Dehydration, I already mentioned, is a really big one. But there also might be some reasons, be they genetic, or be they just, I don't know, changes in how our body is responding, that if we start secreting more of these mucins, inside of our cells, these mucins, the proteins that make our mucus, mucus, they are stored as solids, but they are secreted and then

• 26:54Speaker 04

  hydrated by the water lining ourselves. But in any case, that could be one reason, right? If you're either secreting more of these, or like we already said, if we just don't have enough water, then all of these mucins are forming this thick, goopy, sticky, rubbery mucus, rather than a nice slippery one. The other way that this can happen is if we have issues with ion balance. So we can have a huge throwback for like OG listeners. If you remember all the way back to our cystic fibrosis episode, people with cystic fibrosis have a defect in an ion channel, which means that they are not transporting sodium chloride and bicarbonate across our cell membranes

• 27:36Speaker 04

  in your mucus membrane cells, in a way that leads to less water on those cells and thus thicker mucus in your airways. So that's another way that you can have thicker, stickier mucus. And then also, if we are sick, then our mucus also has a bunch of inflammatory cells. There's increased permeability of our blood vessels, and there's just more junk in our mucus. So sometimes we get that thick, hard to clear mucus because it's just so full of other junk. Including bacteria or viruses, but also our own immune system stuff. And that gets an errant to the question that you didn't quite ask, because I didn't let you, which is what's up with the color of our mucus?

• 28:18Speaker 03

  What's up with the color?

• 28:19Speaker 04

  Everyone wants to know, because there's this like idea that, oh, green or or yellow means that you have a bacterial infection. And that's not really the case. Green or dark yellow mucus means that you have a bunch of white blood cells and inflammation going on. So yes, that's probably often associated with some type of infection, but not necessarily a bacterial infection. You can get plenty gross mucus with just a viral infection.

• 28:47Speaker 03

  I feel like I want to know where this notion came from.

• 28:52Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 28:53Speaker 03

  Maybe we'll explore it on a health myths.

• 28:55Speaker 04

  That's a great question. I love that idea, because I don't know.

• 28:58Speaker 03

  I have definitely heard this over the years.

• 29:00Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 29:01Speaker 03

  And times when I'm like, I know for certain that this is not a bacterial infection.

• 29:06Speaker 04

  Right. And you have grody mucus.

• 29:08Speaker 03

  Absolutely appalling.

• 29:10Speaker 04

  Yeah. Yeah. And you can have a viral or a bacterial infection and have totally clear snot as well, too.

• 29:16Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 29:16Speaker 04

  Right?

• 29:17Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 29:17Speaker 04

  The other color that you might see is brown or red, kind of bloody mucus. And sometimes that might be concerning, but it also might just mean that you've been blowing your nose so hard for so long that you've got some capillaries leaking. So there's a little bit of blood mixed in there. It runs the gamut, really.

• 29:35Speaker 03

  A rainbow of mucus.

• 29:37Speaker 04

  It really, it really is.

• 29:38Speaker 03

  Maybe not blue, but.

• 29:40Speaker 04

  Not blue.

• 29:41Speaker 03

  Can imagine almost any other color.

• 29:43Speaker 04

  Yeah, pretty much. I mean, red, yellow, brown, green.

• 29:48Speaker 03

  Orange.

• 29:49Speaker 04

  Orange-ish, for sure.

• 29:50Speaker 03

  Maybe not purple either.

• 29:52Speaker 04

  Well, if you had a lot of blood in there, it could potentially be purplish.

• 29:56Speaker 03

  I guess you're right, yeah.

• 29:57Speaker 04

  Maybe. Anyways.

• 29:58Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 29:59Speaker 04

  So that's our boogers, Erin, and our mucus.

• 30:04Speaker 04

  Do you have other questions? I feel like you probably do.

• 30:06Speaker 03

  I do. Nose picking.

• 30:08Speaker 04

  Nose picking.

• 30:09Speaker 03

  Yep. And children pick their nose constantly. Children get lots of nosebleeds.

• 30:16Speaker 04

  They do. Yeah. Those two things are in fact associated.

• 30:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, okay.

• 30:20Speaker 04

  Yeah. So I tried to get an understanding of like, how many people really pick their nose? A lot of people pick their nose, Erin.

• 30:29Speaker 03

  I have a paper.

• 30:31Speaker 04

  Oh, good. Okay. I found a few. There was a survey of adolescents and only 3% of them reported never picking their nose. And they probably lied.

• 30:40Speaker 03

  3% were liars.

• 30:41Speaker 04

  3% were liars. Because, or they just didn't remember that, like, they definitely picked their nose as a kid, right?

• 30:46Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 30:47Speaker 04

  In surveys of adults, anywhere from like 9 to 15% report never picking their nose. Again, that just means never recently, right? Because pretty much all kids are going to pick their nose at some point. And really, like, I get it. I have two small kids who, we tried from very young age to teach them to blow their nose.

• 31:13Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 31:13Speaker 04

  And they, bless them, still just kind of suck at it, you know? Well, and sometimes they're just too sticky and dried out to actually get those boogers out with just blowing your nose. Like, you gotta do something else. There are some risks associated with nose picking. There is an increased risk of infection. Like, if you have small abrasions, then you can get bacteria or viruses that get into your nose that can cause either a local infection or can put people at higher risk for other respiratory infections, right? Since, again, your nasal mucus is there to protect you against infections. Also, there's been studies that show that people who do pick their nose more regularly are more likely to carry staph aureus in the nose.

• 31:55Speaker 03

  That makes sense.

• 31:56Speaker 04

  So that's something. And of course, nose picking puts you definitely at higher risk of nosebleeds and things like that. I didn't see a ton of data that said that like picking your nose puts you at risk of getting other people infected, but theoretically it's possible because you're gonna have stuff on your fingers from picking your nose if you don't wash your dang hands afterwards.

• 32:16Speaker 03

  That'd be a hard study to carry out.

• 32:18Speaker 04

  Exactly. Like, I don't even know.

• 32:21Speaker 03

  Do our boogers change as we get older?

• 32:24Speaker 04

  I mean, certainly, because everything about our immune system changes as we get older. But I don't have great data to say like your boogers get X, Y, and Z way versus when you're younger. So, that's boogers, Erin.

• 32:37Speaker 03

  Boogers.

• 32:38Speaker 04

  What you got for me?

• 32:39Speaker 03

  Okay, before I tell you all about boogers in what I could find, the medications that we use to dry up.

• 32:47Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 32:48Speaker 03

  Boogers, not.

• 32:49Speaker 04

  Yeah, uh huh, okay.

• 32:50Speaker 03

  What works, what doesn't work. I know that there's some that don't work at all.

• 32:54Speaker 04

  Yeah, there's a lot that don't work at all, especially most of the over the counter stuff doesn't work at all. One that does is phenylephrine.

• 33:05Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 33:06Speaker 04

  Okay, that's not the same thing as the other. It's the one that you have to get behind the pharmacy counter in the US, okay? You have to have an ID for it. What that does is causes blood vessel constriction.

• 33:16Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 33:17Speaker 04

  And so that's going to reduce blood flow, it's gonna reduce inflammatory response, and so that's gonna also help to clear things up. That's the same thing too, that like a nasal steroid or something is gonna do is just reduce overall inflammation rather than directly affecting the cilia or mucus production itself. Hypertonic saline, or even just isotonic saline, so like saline nasal sprays or saline nasal washes also help to stimulate our cilia. Plus, they're providing hydration, which can help double if you're dealing with that really thick or hyper-concentrated mucus.

• 33:50Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 33:51Speaker 04

  One that people use a lot, even though the data is meh at best, is guaifenesin. That's what's in like a mucinex or whatever.

• 33:59Speaker 03

  Right.

• 34:00Speaker 04

  Uh, no affiliation here. That claims to thin the mucus. It's what's called an expectorant. So people usually use it if they have like a lot of chest congestion to try and help cough out. We didn't even talk about the cough reflex, but to try and cough out that mucus by making it thinner.

• 34:16Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 34:17Speaker 04

  There is some data that shows that it does help. Most of that data is like based on surveys of did you feel like you were coughing out more stuff versus looking at the actual like mucus layers or anything like that, so.

• 34:32Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's all I got, Aaron. There are other ones too, but that's, those are the main functions.

• 34:37Speaker 03

  Those are the ones that actually, great.

• 34:38Speaker 04

  Big ones. Okay, so now tell me everything you know about boogers.

• 34:44Speaker 03

  There's so much.

• 34:45Speaker 04

  I can't wait.

• 34:48Speaker 05

  This is Colin Coward from the Colin Coward Podcast. Buy smart, drive for less, and trade for more. That's Toyota affordability. All starts with a great deal on an off-road ready Tacoma or a half-ton Tundra. Two of Toyota's most capable and longest-lasting trucks. Built on a reputation for quality and reliability, Toyota trucks are known for holding their value, which could mean big savings when it's time for your next Toyota. For a great deal today to a great value tomorrow. Shop toyota.com. Toyota, let's go places.

• 35:21Speaker 06

  Hello, hello. I'm Malcolm Gladwell, host of Smart Talks with IBM. Imagine your business depends on a system you didn't build and don't fully control. For years, it works perfectly. It's fast, reliable, affordable. So over time, more and more of your operations rely on it. Then one day, the terms change. What once felt flexible now feels difficult to leave. Moving to another provider or bringing those capabilities back under your own control could take years, cost millions, and disrupt the business in the process. That's the challenge of digital sovereignty. Businesses today rely on all sorts of third-party systems.

• 36:03Speaker 06

  Cloud platforms, data pipelines, AI models, software tools. Most days, these systems operate quietly in the background. But when something changes, like costs go up or rules shift, organizations are forced to confront how much control and flexibility they actually have. So to understand the challenge up close, I traveled to Paris to speak with IBM's Anapaula Assis and Axis CIO Giovanni Doniello, two people who think about these questions every day.

• 36:37Speaker 06

  Hear the full conversation at ibm.com/smarttalks or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 37:01Speaker 03

  You may or may not be surprised that the history of boogers is not the most robust area of study.

• 37:10Speaker 04

  Is it not one of the four humors, Erin?

• 37:13Speaker 03

  I mean, yeah, it is.

• 37:16Speaker 03

  But like, I didn't want to go down another humoral theory of disease pathway. But I really, because I was trying to find like, boogers, like references to boogers.

• 37:25Speaker 04

  Boogers.

• 37:25Speaker 03

  I don't know what I expected to find, but yeah, the literature was kind of sparse on like, the story of dried nasal mucus slash phlegm slash snot slash bogies over the ages.

• 37:37Speaker 04

  Bogies, goobers?

• 37:38Speaker 03

  Goobers.

• 37:38Speaker 04

  Sometimes people call them goobers?

• 37:40Speaker 03

  I just think of the chocolate-covered peanuts.

• 37:42Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 37:43Speaker 03

  That was my movie theater snack for a while.

• 37:46Speaker 04

  What's it?

• 37:46Speaker 03

  Goobers, yeah.

• 37:47Speaker 04

  Interesting.

• 37:47Speaker 03

  For a period of time.

• 37:48Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 37:49Speaker 03

  And then I went back to like, Sweet Tarts or something. Anyway, I tried a bunch of different search terms for this, for this episode, and I did find a few fun snippets on like, the etymology of boogers or bogies. So it turns out that booger, which is what we in the US often call dried nasal mucus, probably originated from bogey, which is often what is used in the UK to refer to what we call boogers, and goblin or hobgoblin or boogeyman.

• 38:19Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 38:20Speaker 03

  So something meant to frighten, especially little children.

• 38:22Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 38:23Speaker 03

  So I don't know if it was like, oh, and then also-

• 38:25Speaker 04

  This is scary stuff? That's so weird.

• 38:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, also, it was, it was used, booger has been used in the US, in the southern US especially, to mean ghost or spirit. And so how it got from like, scary, bogey, goblin, whatever, to-

• 38:44Speaker 03

  Booger in your nose?

• 38:45Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 38:45Speaker 03

  Maybe it's like, oh, there's a little bit of a, there's a goblin up there or something.

• 38:48Speaker 04

  Oh, interesting. It's a cave full of creepy crawlies.

• 38:52Speaker 03

  Goblin in your nose. Yeah.

• 38:54Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 38:55Speaker 03

  But in addition to bogey, to refer to dried nasal mucus, it's also a golf term.

• 39:00Speaker 04

  Oh, yes.

• 39:01Speaker 03

  Meaning one shot over par. So it was named after an imaginary golfer named Colonel Bogey in 1890. He was very good, so you were like trying to beat him. I like couldn't quite get my head around where Colonel Bogey came from. I guess it's like another, he was like the bogeyman, like this imaginary thing you're trying to beat.

• 39:22Speaker 04

  That's so random, Erin.

• 39:24Speaker 03

  Also bogey is referred to, or is used to refer to an unidentified aircraft.

• 39:29Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 39:29Speaker 03

  Sometimes, so like Top Gun.

• 39:30Speaker 04

  Top Gun.

• 39:31Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm. And in Australia.

• 39:34Speaker 04

  Bogey's on your left, sorry.

• 39:35Speaker 03

  There you go. In Australia, apparently bogey can mean swim or bathe or like swimming hole, maybe?

• 39:41Speaker 04

  Like we're going to the bogey? Or like, oh, my God, all of our Australian listeners, I'm so sorry.

• 39:46Speaker 03

  I don't know.

• 39:48Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 39:48Speaker 03

  I don't know.

• 39:49Speaker 04

  Please tell us. Can you guys tell us?

• 39:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, please send us an example of bogey in a sentence.

• 39:53Speaker 04

  How do you use the word bogey in a sentence?

• 39:55Speaker 03

  Yes. But yeah, this little, this little exercise in etymology was basically how the entire research for this episode went for me.

• 40:03Speaker 04

  I love it.

• 40:04Speaker 03

  Where I was just like, rabbit hole. Let's dig down here, rabbit hole. Try to understand this. Oh, gosh, is that where we're going now? So, so instead of doing one like comprehensive history of boogers, I decided to do three stories related to boogers.

• 40:18Speaker 04

  Love it.

• 40:19Speaker 03

  Number one, mucus in evolution.

• 40:21Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 40:22Speaker 03

  Number two, nose picking. And number three, handkerchiefs and facial tissue.

• 40:27Speaker 04

  Ooh.

• 40:28Speaker 03

  So it's basically just like a booger grab bag.

• 40:30Speaker 04

  I love it.

• 40:32Speaker 03

  There we go. Okay, number one, why mucus is great.

• 40:36Speaker 03

  One of the many fascinating booger facts you shared with us, Erin, is that our mucus that we produce in our nose helps to protect us from infection by acting as this little barrier to trap pathogens or other irritants that we might breathe in, not just bacteria and viruses, but also pollutants and just like junk.

• 40:57Speaker 04

  Junk.

• 40:57Speaker 03

  That's in your...

• 40:58Speaker 04

  All the junk that you're breathing in.

• 41:00Speaker 03

  Yeah. You know, when you blow your nose after you're gardening, or you are driving down a dirt road with the windows open, like, I've done that. And then what comes out is like, you're like, mud in my nose.

• 41:12Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 41:13Speaker 03

  Otherwise, that would be in your lungs.

• 41:14Speaker 04

  Right.

• 41:15Speaker 03

  So, that's pretty great. Thank you, mucus.

• 41:17Speaker 04

  Phenomenal. Thank you, mucus.

• 41:19Speaker 03

  Our nasal passages are just one place that mucus resides. Like you said, Erin, we have all these mucus membranes. You can find it in our intestinal tract, our lungs, our genital tracts. And humans are far from the only species to produce mucus. In fact, mucus is widespread.

• 41:34Speaker 04

  It's everywhere.

• 41:35Speaker 03

  In the animal kingdom. I mean, it's like, close to universal.

• 41:37Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 41:38Speaker 03

  Produced by vertebrates and invertebrates alike, from dogs to fishes to corals and comb jellies. The most distant animal relatives of humans produce mucus.

• 41:48Speaker 04

  Of course.

• 41:49Speaker 03

  And it serves far more purposes than just keeping our noses moisturized and infection-free. It helps with transport of substances. So, corals produce a kind of mucus that traps food, like zooplankton, that's then conveyed to their mouths to be digested and then excreted through that same mouth after digestion.

• 42:08Speaker 04

  Oh, I love that.

• 42:10Speaker 03

  It helps with gas and ion exchange. So, this is crucial for fish to maintain how much water and solutes are in their bodies. So, when salmon travel from the ocean, salt water, to their breeding grounds upriver, which is freshwater, their mucus composition changes. Does that help to protect against different pathogens that they're exposed to? Does it help with that ion exchange?

• 42:32Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 42:33Speaker 03

  Mucus also helps with communication. So land snails might use mucus as a cue to like where to go. They're like, oh, there are studies done that's like snails of the same species will follow the tracks of the same species of snails.

• 42:50Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 42:50Speaker 03

  But then they'll maybe avoid the mucus tracks of non-related.

• 42:54Speaker 04

  I love that.

• 42:56Speaker 03

  Fish also use mucus. There's a lot about fish and mucus. I've downloaded a few review papers in case you're interested. Fish use mucus to communicate in a bunch of different ways, like from signaling alarm, reproduction, to repel predators. There's even like mucus traces up waterfalls or like up streams to be like this is where to go.

• 43:15Speaker 04

  Oh, wow.

• 43:16Speaker 03

  Hagfish in particular are well-known for the absolutely ridiculous amounts of slime that they produce. There's, I have a whole paper on this too.

• 43:24Speaker 04

  When is it going to be like hagfish mucins instead of snail mucins that they're putting in skincare? I just can't wait for that, I'm sure.

• 43:31Speaker 03

  Well, hagfish also produce these like, these fibers that like help the mucus be more coagulate. I don't, it's really.

• 43:38Speaker 04

  I love it.

• 43:39Speaker 03

  It's cool stuff, yeah. Mucus helps with adhesion. So for instance, there are some types of birds like swallows and phoebes that build nests made out of mud mixed with their saliva, which contains mucin that basically acts as glue to cement the nest.

• 43:55Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 43:55Speaker 03

  It's really cool.

• 43:56Speaker 04

  That's really cool.

• 43:57Speaker 03

  I love to, like, how did that evolve?

• 44:00Speaker 04

  We have so many questions.

• 44:02Speaker 03

  It helps with lubrication.

• 44:04Speaker 04

  Of course.

• 44:04Speaker 03

  Earthworms use mucus to move through the earth. We use it to help our digestion move smoothly. It's critical in reducing friction injuries. And of course, mucus helps to prevent infection. Not just as a barrier, but mucus itself contains many different antimicrobial compounds, even within corals, jellyfish, fish. The quantity and overall composition of these compounds, as well as the mucus microbiome, might change along with changing environments. Again, think of the salmon going from saltwater to freshwater. Saliva contains mucus that helps to fight pathogens that cause cavities. Doesn't always do a great job. See our fluoride episodes?

• 44:46Speaker 04

  Right.

• 44:47Speaker 03

  These antimicrobial properties of mucus have garnered a lot of attention as a potential in like non-toxic protective coating agents for implants, for example, because it's like, well, these are things that are naturally found.

• 45:01Speaker 04

  Right. Our bodies are already making them.

• 45:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, but there are other avenues for antimicrobial applications of this. There's snail mucin, maybe we'll go down that pathway sometime.

• 45:11Speaker 04

  I have a bottle.

• 45:12Speaker 03

  Do you really?

• 45:13Speaker 04

  I'm a little bit embarrassed to say, yeah. I know, it's like just any other lotion, let's be honest.

• 45:20Speaker 03

  I mean.

• 45:20Speaker 04

  It's just a little stickier.

• 45:22Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 45:22Speaker 04

  So.

• 45:23Speaker 03

  Unfortunately, I think skincare mostly comes down to genetics and sun exposure.

• 45:27Speaker 04

  Sun exposure, yep.

• 45:28Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 45:30Speaker 03

  Clearly, mucus is a vital substance for most of animal life on this planet. And that's also evidenced by how often it has evolved independently. Like, one recent paper found 15 cases of parallel evolution. So like, mucin genes keep evolving because it's so important.

• 45:49Speaker 04

  Yeah. It's so useful. Wow.

• 45:52Speaker 03

  Mucus is pretty rad. Okay, you ready for number two?

• 45:56Speaker 04

  I love it. I just, can we sit with that? Mucus is pretty rad.

• 45:59Speaker 03

  Mucus is rad.

• 46:00Speaker 04

  Yeah, so our boogers are pretty rad.

• 46:01Speaker 03

  100%.

• 46:03Speaker 04

  100%. People just try and get rid of them all the time. It's like, thank you.

• 46:07Speaker 03

  Well.

• 46:08Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 46:08Speaker 03

  People try to get, speaking of trying to get rid of boogers.

• 46:11Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 46:11Speaker 03

  Nose picking.

• 46:13Speaker 04

  Nose picking.

• 46:15Speaker 03

  A 1995 survey of 254 adult residents of Dane County, Wisconsin.

• 46:21Speaker 04

  Seen this one.

• 46:21Speaker 03

  I'm sure you've read this one. Revealed that 91% were nose pickers.

• 46:26Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 46:27Speaker 03

  Although only 75% thought that everyone else picked their nose.

• 46:32Speaker 03

  This would come, these findings would come as a great, though probably not entirely unsurprising, upset to Albert Seltzer, M.D., who is author of a 1963 paper titled Nosepicking, in which he says, quote, "The average person would consider it insulting to be advised not to pick his nose. Nosepicking is not done in polite society. It is in a class with nail-biting, ear-picking, sniffling, and other mannerisms that simply are not done by the well-bred person. Perhaps it would be more correct to state that people, even the most well-bred, ought not to pick their noses, but do far too often. If you do not believe it, look

• 47:14Speaker 03

  around you the next time you are at a public gathering, at a ballgame, or a lecture, or at church. This matter deserves the attention of all people who wish to be in good taste and to remain in good health."

• 47:25Speaker 04

  So he's saying, everyone is out there picking their nose, but none of you should be doing this.

• 47:33Speaker 03

  No one is doing, everyone's doing it in private. No one, no one should be doing it at all, but everyone does it. And it's like, it's so funny. It's when I, when I read that thing about like, just go to a ballgame or whatever. And it is amazing, airports, driving around, and you look around at the intersection, and there's just like, I feel like nosepicking is, is on display all the time.

• 47:55Speaker 04

  It really is. If you look for it, it's there.

• 47:57Speaker 03

  It's there.

• 47:58Speaker 04

  Not just the toddlers.

• 47:59Speaker 03

  Not, it's really not. It's really not. Yeah. So nosepicking is not a thriving area of research, as far as I could find.

• 48:09Speaker 04

  No.

• 48:10Speaker 03

  Unfortunately, I guess. Most articles seem to focus either on how common it is, which is exceedingly common, extreme cases, so like compulsive nosepicking, rhinotalexomania, which is, I think you mentioned that, sometimes leading to injury and blood loss, and like a septum. Deviation, perforation, that's what it is.

• 48:33Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 48:33Speaker 03

  And some, some papers have looked at the health effects, like nose picking and infection rate, or other things like that. But not so much about the history of nose picking, or cultural variations.

• 48:45Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 48:45Speaker 03

  Nose picking might be widespread, even among adults, but it's not seen as culturally acceptable in many places around the world. And why that is, might come down to the same reasons that we see other bodily excretions or fluids, as, you know, like unacceptable, or like the disgust there. They can harbor pathogens. So if someone with a case of flu, or a cold, or COVID picks their nose, and wipes their runny snot on their hand, and then touches a shopping cart, a door handle, or god forbid, shakes your hand, that makes transmission of that pathogen more likely.

• 49:18Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 49:19Speaker 03

  And so it's possible that our feeling of disgust regarding nose picking, and booger eating, which I could not find statistics on,

• 49:28Speaker 03

  that helps prevent the spread of certain diseases. And it certainly seems like this disgust is something we have to learn. Like, spend any time with a child under five, 10 years of age, and you'll see that right away.

• 49:42Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 49:43Speaker 03

  I read a frankly bizarre chapter of a book, that asked the question, the chapter specifically asked the question, why is eating snot socially unacceptable?

• 49:57Speaker 04

  What was their conclusion?

• 49:58Speaker 03

  Well, mostly, the chapter seemed to be a defense of the practice.

• 50:02Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 50:03Speaker 03

  Like, defending it, or at least kind of took the stance of, like, this is no different than swallowing snot, which we do all day, every day. And also, we exchange bodily fluids all the time, with other people.

• 50:15Speaker 04

  With other people.

• 50:16Speaker 03

  So why would you not want to consume somebody else's snot? I did not particularly...

• 50:26Speaker 03

  Enjoy. This shopping made me uncomfortable. And there was a quote that sought to explain why admitted booger eaters did what they did. It haunts me.

• 50:37Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 50:38Speaker 03

  And so I'm passing, passing along this curse.

• 50:41Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 50:42Speaker 03

  God help me. Okay. Quote, "It should not be forgotten that among human preferences concerning food texture, crunchiness is highly significant. And as regards flavors, salty and sweet tastes are the favorite ones. It so happens that dry nasal exudations possess both characteristics, as well as proteins and traces of lipids." End quote. Yeah.

• 51:13Speaker 04

  I

• 51:15Speaker 03

  I want to go back to the person I was before I read that.

• 51:17Speaker 04

  I have two things that I want to say about that, Erin.

• 51:20Speaker 03

  Please.

• 51:20Speaker 04

  Number one, I, you know that I tried to record my kids to see if they had any stories about boogers that we could use for our firsthand account. And they're too into poop jokes right now, so their stories just devolved into poop and it didn't work at all. But they said multiple times that they eat their boogers, because they do, both of them.

• 51:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 51:41Speaker 04

  20 years from now, they're gonna hate me for this, but they, they said that they eat them because they're delicious. And I'm like, I don't believe you.

• 51:50Speaker 03

  Crunchiness, salty, sweet flavors, this is

• 51:53Speaker 04

  I don't know, man, it's, you know, you're right, we do, we do swallow, you know, over a liter of our own mucus, a liter and a half of our own mucus every day. But it does somehow feel different to like, take it out and then eat it intentionally. Feels different, feels different to me.

• 52:10Speaker 03

  I just, yeah, like, there's, is the disgust learned? Is it

• 52:17Speaker 04

  Right.

• 52:17Speaker 03

  Right?

• 52:18Speaker 04

  Is it warranted? I don't know.

• 52:22Speaker 03

  I can't help but feel that it is warranted, but this disgust that we feel is not universal. It's not universal across the globe. It's not universal across our lifespan. It's not universal in other primate species, as evidenced by our firsthand account.

• 52:39Speaker 04

  Oh, bless him.

• 52:40Speaker 03

  I read a review of nose picking in primates.

• 52:43Speaker 04

  OK.

• 52:43Speaker 03

  That revealed that at least 11 species not only pick their nose, but also eat what comes out, eat the mucus.

• 52:51Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 52:51Speaker 03

  This spans from chimpanzees, like our firsthand, to capuchins, from macaques to aye ayes, all of which have pretty good dexterity. So it seems like the species that have good dexterity that have been observed are nose pickers and booger eaters.

• 53:06Speaker 04

  So you're telling me that our fingers evolved so that we could pick our nose and eat our boogers?

• 53:11Speaker 03

  Well, so is that the case?

• 53:13Speaker 04

  Is that what that means?

• 53:14Speaker 03

  Yeah. But some don't use their fingers directly. They'll use sticks or tools like our firsthand. But some do use fingers. So aye ayes.

• 53:25Speaker 04

  Aye ayes.

• 53:26Speaker 03

  You know how aye ayes have that super long middle finger that they use to dig out grubs and trees? They also use that finger to pick their nose and eat their boogers. So the scientists who observed this were like, where the finger is totally, it's disappeared. It's all the way up there. Where the heck did it go? It's like a very, very long finger. A CT scan revealed that it goes all the way up the nose until it reaches the throat. Your pharynx.

• 53:51Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 53:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, and then they lick.

• 53:55Speaker 04

  Pull it out and just... They're just moving it from one place to another.

• 53:59Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yep.

• 54:02Speaker 04

  Fascinating, Erin. I love this.

• 54:06Speaker 03

  Given the widespread nature of nose picking in those species who have the dexterity in the fingers to do so, in primates, the authors suggest that maybe nose picking and booger ingestion is an adaptive grooming or cleaning behavior rather than a harmful one.

• 54:22Speaker 04

  OK.

• 54:23Speaker 03

  The jury is out. Jury is out. I also want to know if other species that have fingers, like raccoons, for instance, pick their noses.

• 54:32Speaker 04

  Do they pick their nose?

• 54:33Speaker 03

  I don't know.

• 54:33Speaker 04

  I think raccoons have little claws, you know? Ouch.

• 54:39Speaker 03

  I mean, oh, so like it's too sharp?

• 54:42Speaker 04

  Sharp, yeah.

• 54:43Speaker 03

  Like if they had blunted?

• 54:44Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 54:44Speaker 03

  I mean, I don't know.

• 54:45Speaker 04

  I don't know.

• 54:45Speaker 03

  If an aye aye can pick its nose to its throat.

• 54:48Speaker 04

  To its throat.

• 54:49Speaker 03

  I, I don't know.

• 54:53Speaker 03

  And there's one last nose picking fact that I want to share.

• 54:56Speaker 04

  Give it to me.

• 54:57Speaker 03

  You already know this, but maybe it's just a reminder.

• 55:01Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 55:02Speaker 03

  I want to give a shout out to the tick species that crawls up the nostrils of chimpanzees, as well as the occasional human, potentially to avoid being groomed or being removed during grooming, which chimpanzees frequently engage in. I'm not sure if they're able to get the tick out with their fingers, but there have been, you can see pictures of chimpanzees with the ticks.

• 55:23Speaker 04

  In their nose.

• 55:24Speaker 03

  Right in there.

• 55:24Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 55:25Speaker 03

  And humans discovered it in theirs, like researchers have discovered it over the years, and they're like, there's something in my nose that I can't get out. So just wanted to leave you with that.

• 55:34Speaker 04

  Maybe that's why we should all be picking our nose.

• 55:38Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 55:39Speaker 04

  And eating it?

• 55:40Speaker 03

  It's great.

• 55:43Speaker 04

  No judgment here.

• 55:44Speaker 03

  Oh. Number three.

• 55:47Speaker 04

  Number three.

• 55:48Speaker 03

  Blowing your nose.

• 55:50Speaker 04

  Blowing your nose.

• 55:52Speaker 03

  Nose picking is just one strategy to rid yourself of the pesky nasal mucus, or you can use a twig if you want to be the chimpanzee in our firsthand account. You can also use pressure to evacuate your nostrils, perhaps into the air, the aptly named snot rocket.

• 56:08Speaker 04

  Snot rocket.

• 56:09Speaker 03

  Or into a receptacle, such as a handkerchief or a tissue. But people have been emptying their nose into handkerchiefs and tissue for quite some time, well, handkerchiefs. Ask when the handkerchief was invented and you'll get 100 different answers.

• 56:25Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 56:25Speaker 03

  Like maybe it was when cloth was invented, maybe it was in ancient China, ancient Rome, maybe it was invented by King Richard, who reigned from 1377 to 1399. He requested apparently, quote, "small pieces of linen made to be given to the Lord King for blowing and covering his nose."

• 56:42Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 56:43Speaker 03

  End quote. And this, this might be a case of like a difference in when a thing was invented and then when a name for it was.

• 56:51Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 56:52Speaker 03

  Like, everyone had a little small piece of cloth who thought to be like, this is a specific name for it.

• 56:58Speaker 04

  Yeah, right.

• 56:59Speaker 03

  And so people long before King Richard II were likely blowing their noses and wiping their brows with small pieces of cloth, wiping their hands, you know, before eating food. But it seems that at the time of his request, there wasn't a specific word for it in English. And handkerchief didn't show up until the early 16th century, though kerchief is earlier. So, I just, yeah.

• 57:22Speaker 04

  Interesting.

• 57:24Speaker 03

  Interesting. The handkerchief holds this interesting position where, on the one hand, it's an object of practicality, but it's also one of powerful symbolism and a sign of, like, it's a communication device, but also a sign of, of like a status symbol, almost.

• 57:44Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 57:45Speaker 03

  So Renaissance Studies scholar Dr. Bella Mirabella uses these two quotes in this chapter I read about handkerchiefs to show this like strange juxtaposition of handkerchiefs. So from a 1558 book on manners, quote, "And when you have blown your nose, you should not open your handkerchief and look inside, as if pearls or rubies might have descended from your brain."

• 58:05Speaker 04

  Okay, wait, wait, wait. One of my, I don't have a lot of memories from childhood, but one of my clearest is watching an episode of one of the Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen shows.

• 58:19Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 58:20Speaker 04

  Where they were like in middle school and they were talking about a kid that they got like assigned to be in a project with, and they were like, yeah, you know that kid who blows his nose and then spends too much time looking at the boogers?

• 58:31Speaker 03

  That's amazing.

• 58:33Speaker 04

  And that description has always stuck with me, especially every time that I'm like showing my kid his boogers after he blew his nose.

• 58:39Speaker 03

  Like, Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen booger episode.

• 58:42Speaker 04

  Don't spend too long looking.

• 58:43Speaker 03

  Don't spend too long looking. As if pearls or rubies have descended from your brain.

• 58:47Speaker 04

  That's so funny, Erin. Okay.

• 58:50Speaker 03

  So that's one, right? Like, you use a handkerchief.

• 58:53Speaker 04

  You use it and then, oof.

• 58:55Speaker 03

  It's not something, it's not pretty in there.

• 58:58Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 58:59Speaker 03

  It's not something to admire. But then also, from a 1580 book, quote, "Maids and gentlewomen gave their favorites, as tokens of their love, little handkerchiefs of about three to four inches square wrought round about with a tassel at each corner. Men put the handkerchiefs in their hatbands," end quote. So, these snot rags could also be indications of love, or flirtation, or like devotion. In Shakespeare's Othello, the plot hinges kind of around a handkerchief. Oh. So, basically, Iago, who's the bad guy, also the parrot in Aladdin. Yes. The bad guy. Classic. Manipulates Othello by telling him that he saw another man with the handkerchief

• 59:41Speaker 03

  of Othello's wife, Desdemona. So, Othello then murders Desdemona. Totally normal reaction to something like that, to a handkerchief. Yeah. He was lying. It was a mess. Classic. One of his tragedies. That one might be a tragedy. The handkerchiefs were used to signify not only love, but status. They were sprayed with perfume. They were decorated ornately. They were printed with historical scenes. In Dickens's Oliver Twist, "handkerchief," or some variation of that word, is used 50 times. Wow. Which is... It's a lot. It's a lot. So, the handkerchief, over time, transcended its original use as like

• 1:00:26Speaker 03

  a booger receptacle. It was embroidered with gold and silver threads, made from silk or decorated with lace. I mean, who would blow their nose into that? No. And so, I think people probably, and I don't know this for sure, but I would guess that people carried two versions of handkerchiefs, right? One practical and one decorative. But if your hanky was the practical one, it had better be stark white, otherwise that was considered gross. Interesting. But, oh, which makes sense, though, because like... Yeah. Otherwise, it looks like it's been used. It looks like it's been used, yeah. Over time, handkerchiefs fell out of style and lost much of their significance, with one notable exception being the hanky code, where different colored bandanas or handkerchiefs represent interest in different sexual activities.

• 1:01:11Speaker 03

  Hmm. But once... Like the pineapple. Exactly. Yeah. And I think also handkerchiefs were just sort of like not, it was not seen as hygienic, which is funny because they were for a while and then they weren't anymore. And then, once disposable tissues came on the scene, they took a further hit.

• 1:01:30Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:01:30Speaker 03

  So, the first disposable facial tissue was made by Kleenex in 1924. The story, according to the Kleenex website, because that's the only real source I could find on this, so just caveat.

• 1:01:42Speaker 04

  Right, they wrote this story about themselves.

• 1:01:45Speaker 03

  It goes that the parent company, Kimberly Clark, adapted gas mask paper filters from World War I, first into menstrual pads, Kotex, and then into thinner sheets called Kleenex. And they were intended to be used to remove cold cream initially.

• 1:02:02Speaker 04

  Oh, interesting.

• 1:02:03Speaker 03

  And then, a few years later, allegedly, after people wrote in saying, "I love Kleenex to blow my nose into during colds", they began marketing it as absorbent kerchiefs.

• 1:02:13Speaker 04

  Oh, my God, that's so funny.

• 1:02:14Speaker 03

  And the rest is history.

• 1:02:15Speaker 04

  It's history.

• 1:02:17Speaker 03

  But for real, that's basically all I have on the history of boogers.

• 1:02:20Speaker 04

  I love it. I learned so much.

• 1:02:26Speaker 04

  I'm really curious to hear from listeners, anyone who wants to actually tell us about your experience with nose picking.

• 1:02:33Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:02:34Speaker 04

  Or booger eating, or like, really, like, how are boogers seen? I do think that there's probably a lot of cultural differences in how nose picking is, like, around the world, if it's cool, if it's frowned upon, if it's everywhere, if it's hidden.

• 1:02:48Speaker 03

  All the hip cats are picking their nose.

• 1:02:51Speaker 04

  You know, those nose pickers over there.

• 1:02:54Speaker 03

  Leather jackets and nose picking.

• 1:02:58Speaker 04

  Oh, oh, oh, it's like, one of those, you know?

• 1:03:01Speaker 03

  Oh, my God, yeah, it's natural.

• 1:03:03Speaker 04

  It's natural.

• 1:03:05Speaker 03

  Can't believe we both. Okay, for the audio listeners, we're doing that thing where it's like, your hair color?

• 1:03:12Speaker 04

  Your hair color is? Yeah, it was what your color, and you say it's natural, it's natural, and then one person with green hair had...

• 1:03:19Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:03:20Speaker 04

  It's natural.

• 1:03:21Speaker 03

  We're quite skilled at...

• 1:03:23Speaker 04

  Listen, you can tell that we grew up in the 90s.

• 1:03:26Speaker 03

  It's true.

• 1:03:29Speaker 04

  Anyways.

• 1:03:30Speaker 03

  Anyways.

• 1:03:31Speaker 04

  We have a lot.

• 1:03:32Speaker 03

  There's a lot there and there's more to learn. If you are not tired of hearing about boogers or mucus or nose picking, handkerchiefs, there's more.

• 1:03:40Speaker 04

  So much more.

• 1:03:41Speaker 03

  Uh huh. Okay, I have a bunch of sources. I'm going to shout out one from each kind of story. So by Miles Taylor from 1974, "The Origin and Functions of Nasal Mucus", plus those sweet fish mucus review papers I found. Then by Fabre et al. from 2023, "A Review of Nose Picking in Primates with New Evidence of Its Occurrence in Dabatonia Madagascaran Madagascarensis", Tuffy, I'm guessing that's I, I?

• 1:04:13Speaker 04

  Yep, yep, yep.

• 1:04:14Speaker 03

  And then by Bella Mirabella from 2011. It's a chapter in the book Ornamentalism: The Art of Renaissance Accessories, and the chapter is called "Embellishing Herself with a Cloth: The Contradictory Life of the Handkerchief."

• 1:04:30Speaker 04

  I love that. I have a few papers for this episode. One by Fahy and Dickey from 2010 in the New England Journal of Medicine called "Airway Mucus Function and Dysfunction", if you want a really, really, really deep dive on mucus.

• 1:04:49Speaker 03

  How deep, Erin?

• 1:04:50Speaker 04

  Eighty-one pages deep by Hill et al. from 2022 called "Physiology and Pathophysiology of Human Airway Mucus in Physiological Reviews". It's like, there's too much there. I really enjoyed a paper from the Proceedings of the American Thoracic Society from 2011 called "Anatomy and Physiology of the Upper Airway". There's like, it's quite a lot of fun stuff about your nose. And then there's a few more about medicines that we use, about nose picking and things like that. You can find them all on our website, thispodcastwillkillyou.com, under the Episodes tab.

• 1:05:21Speaker 03

  You certainly can. Thank you to Blood Mobile for providing the music for this episode and all of our episodes.

• 1:05:28Speaker 04

  Thank you so much. Thank you to Leanna and Tom and Mark and Pete and everyone else at Exactly Right for everything that you do to make this podcast possible.

• 1:05:37Speaker 03

  Thank you, thank you. And thank you to you listeners. Let us know what you think of this.

• 1:05:43Speaker 04

  Did you like it?

• 1:05:44Speaker 03

  Did you like it?

• 1:05:44Speaker 04

  Tell us about your nose picking habits.

• 1:05:46Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:05:47Speaker 04

  We don't judge. We've all picked our nose. Literally everyone.

• 1:05:50Speaker 03

  It's true. It is true.

• 1:05:52Speaker 04

  And thank you, as always, to our patrons for all of your support over on Patreon. It really, really does mean the world to us.

• 1:05:58Speaker 03

  It does. Until next time, wash your hands, please.

• 1:06:02Speaker 04

  Filthy animals.

• 1:06:31Speaker 06

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