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How Sneezing Works · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, it's us and we're here to talk to
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  Speaker 1: thank you in advice. Welcome to Stuff you Should Know,
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: a production of My Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey,
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: Chuck Ran over there. Jerry is a disembodied spirit, but
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: she's still with us, haunting us, and we are now
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: set up for achievement, which means this is Stuff you
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: Should Know. Set up for achievement. That sounds like very
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: eighties Reagan era campaign. It does, It definitely does. Uh
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: certainly not the kind of thing that would irritate you,
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: whether it be in your nose or your brain or anywhere.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: Not not the best segue, huh. I'm surprised you didn't
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: try and work uh, stern mutation in there. Somehow. I
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: love that word. Are you Were you familiar with that
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: word before? I don't think you know. I'm forty nine
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: years old. I don't think I've ever heard sneezing being
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: called stern mutation. I got oh, man, I just remembered.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: I'm forty four now, so you you got me beat.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: But I'm in the same boat with you. Yeah, I've
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: never heard that. But that is what if you're a scientist, Well,
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: if you're a scientist and you want to be a
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: real stuff, you probably say sternutation. If your scientists that
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: wants to be friends with people, you'll still probably say sneezing.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: And I mean, it sounds super clinical, but it's actually
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: really old. It's from I think the first appearance of
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: it is in a text from fifteen seventy six. Old.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: To me, it sounds clinical but there's also a couple
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: of derivative words stern mutative or stern you too, Tori
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: are things that make you sneeze and Howard Stern bubba
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: booe right chewy. So we're talking sneezing obviously, because we
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: just discoursed on stern youitation, I'm adding an extra syllable.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: There aren't I stern mutation. That's the Josh Clark way.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: Why do I have to complicate? Why do I have
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: to complimentate things? Uh, we're talking about sneez sin. It's
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: the sneezing, and sneezing is a really sort of and
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: I hate it when people call things like this elegant,
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: so I'm gonna refrain. But it's just a very efficient
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: system that the human body has worked out to basically
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: allow your your nose and we'll get into all the
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: ins and outs of how it all happens, but to
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: allow your nose and your nasal passage in your brain
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: to act as bouncers and just say get out of
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: my body. Fast, cut off pal like real fast, you're
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: cut off cigarettes, smoke, you're cut off Chanel number seven
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: that nobody likes, you know, Sure, Um, that's uh yeah,
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: that's a pretty pretty good way to put it. I mean,
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: and it's an ancient, ancient reflex too. I mean basically,
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: all mammals at least sneeze, some more than others. I
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: didn't realize this, but apparently iguanas um sneeze the most
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: because it's part of their digestion. Yeah. And then I
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: don't know what it's technically called, but you know when
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: dogs do what it's called the reverse knees. Yeah, Momo
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: has that bad. It's so scary, it is, it is.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: And we finally got her checked out out and um,
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: they verified she doesn't have a collapse trachia, which is
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: when it really is threatening. It's just something to do
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: with her nasal passages. Bracky a ceflick. Have you ever
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: had a dog that that has that? I mean I've
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: I've never had a dog that didn't do it occasionally. Um,
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: but Niko, I feel like goes and it's not often,
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: but it's it's like a you know, it's like can
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: be prolonged like for like a minute, and it just
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: seems like are you about to die? Yeah, it's terrible,
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: it's really bad. I think you're just supposed to leave
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: them alone. Too, right, just let him do it. Um, No,
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: we help her out. We'll we'll rub her throat um,
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: just kind of stroke it. It seems to help. Uh.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: And then sometimes we'll just lightly plug her nostrils to
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: kind of give her like a hitch to it, and
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: that that frequently cures it too sometimes though. Yeah, she
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: just has to work it out. But she gets it
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: every time she gets excited, and she gets excited a lot,
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: so it's sad for her. Yeah, But it's really not
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: a sneeze, uh, actually, because a sneeze is when you
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: were you're trying to get something out of your nose,
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: and that nose is it's a pretty amazing little system.
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: It's uh, it's an amazing filtration system. How it's designed
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: with those narrow nasal passages. It's not like we have
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: these big face holes like that. They're narrow for a
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: very good reason, and that is to create turbulence inside
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: your nasal passages. And you know that turbulence shoves all
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: that air that you're inhaling to the sides of your
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: nasal passages, the nasal mucosa, and that's got tiny little
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: hairs called cilia and the sillia mainly is sort of
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: like a pre doorman, just saying like, yeah, your I
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: D S good. Why don't we just move you to
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: the back of the throat and we'll flush you out
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: that way. But if it's too much, that's when you
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: need to call him the big bouncer to initiate that
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: sneeze response. Yeah, sometimes they're just like, no, I'm staying here,
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: I'm not leaving. You can't kick me out. I hate
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: the back of the throat. Super drunk. Yeah, yeah, so
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: I didn't realize that, But it makes sense that we
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: swallow a lot of the particles that we inhale through
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: our nose, which is gross but effective. We poop it
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: out eventually, right, But yeah, if they get if they
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: get stuck in the nose, then they do something magical,
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: almost as magical as soap. But um, when it's when
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: they're sticking to the sides and they're they're not going anywhere,
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: it's clear they're not going where. They actually like irritate
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: some specialized cells that are in that nasal mucosa mast
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: cells and uh erie nfls I think, But basically they're
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: they're there to look out for little particles that decide
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: they don't want to leave. And when those things get irritated,
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: they release histamines which trigger this reaction like an allergic reaction,
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: basically where your nose is running and um. They also
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: simultaneously start sending signals to your brain saying, hey, we
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: we got one. We need some help. Yeah. And I
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: know we talked about this a little bit with I know,
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: the pollen episode and I feel like we did another
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: allergy centric one but I can't remember. But the whole
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: thing takes about a second for the single sneeze. Uh.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: And you know it's gonna send that message, like you said,
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: that chemical message to the sneeze center of the brain,
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: which is in the lateral medulla. And uh, you know,
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: the lateral medula gets like everything in the brain, it
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: gets at signal and says, you know, all I gotta
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: all I gotta do is react fast whenever the body
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: tells me to do something, and in this case, it's
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: to jet out whatever is in the nose as fast
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: as possible. Right. So, And I was looking this up.
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: If you want to get super clinical, if you're the
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: kind of person who uses words like stern mutation instead
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: of sneezing, there's actually something called an afferent phase and
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: an efferent phase and an afferent phases when you get
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: ready to sneeze, like your your nerves have been um
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  Speaker 1: tickled and are triggered and are itching, and they're sending
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  Speaker 1: messages to your brain uh in your sneeze center. And
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  Speaker 1: then that the efferent phases, when your sneeze center goes okay,
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: it's go time. And that's actually pretty interesting stuff. And
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  Speaker 1: the way that that happens is basically, from what I
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: can tell, through a system of nerves olfactory nerve uh
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: ethmoidal nerve just a terrible word. And then um, your
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: triedgeminal nerve, which is basically responsible for most of the
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: sensation in your face and your ability to bite and chew.
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  Speaker 1: And when these nerves spring into action, they hit that
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  Speaker 1: message or the sneezing center in your brain, and your
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: sneezing center sends it back over these this kind of
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: same switchboard of nerves in your face and all this
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: is happening and just you know, a very short amount
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: of time. Yeah, I mean, like I said, the whole
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: thing takes place in less than a second. Um, and
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: it's got to reach you know, in order for it
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: to reach that sneeze center, it's got to be past
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: a certain threshold of irritation basically. Uh. And once it
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: does reach that irra irritable point, which of which there's
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: no going back. He's had too much to drink. Everybody
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  Speaker 1: in the bar knows it. That's when it finally sends uh,
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: that impulse down through the head and neck to initiate
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: that response. That involves a lot of muscle groups. Uh.
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: You know, if you when you sneeze, it's a and
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: especially with some people, can be a pretty violent um
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: action for the body. Yeah. Like if you stop and
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: take stock of what you're doing right, then you might
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: find that you're hunched over. One of your legs is
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: in the air, like, your knees kind of pulled up.
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  Speaker 1: Um you you your face is all scrunched up, your
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: neck is tight. Uh. There's a lot of muscles involved
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: in the reason why is because you're taking in a
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: bunch of air and then you're expelling a bunch of
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: air with a lot of force to to get that
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: thing that won't leave out of your nose. Yeah, like
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: you can and I've seen professional athletes that have been
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: sidelined from sneezing h Uh. If you've got a bad
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: back or something like, it can it can really hurt. Luckily,
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: I don't have back problems, but occasionally I have, and
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: a sneeze can really tweak it to where you're like,
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: that's when you know you're an old man territory. You
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: have a sneeze and you're like, hold on, I can't
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: get up. Yeah, I'm gonna have to lay down this weekend.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: But your abdomen, your chest, your diaphragm, uh, your vocal chords.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: You know you mentioned that you take that deep inhalation,
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: that's that like right before you go, and that builds
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: up a lot of pressure in your chest. And that
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: happens because your vocal cords just initially clamp shut, right Yeah,
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: So you're sucking in a bunch of air holding it,
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: and so the pressure is building in your thorax um
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: and then when you release it, your your vocal cord
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: openings open up to allow the air out. But then
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: also your your diaphragm is pushing that air out really violently,
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: so that it's going out in your mouth and your nose.
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: I saw about a hundred miles an hour is the
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: the speed that that can hit yeah, easily, um, around
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: a hundred miles an hour. That is crazy to think
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: about your eyes closed. But you know, we can go
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: ahead and to spell the the old myth that, um,
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: you can pop your eyes out if you keep your
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: eyes open during a sneeze, right, Yeah, not true. And
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: apparently there are some people who do keep their eyes
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: open when they sneeze, and they show quite clearly that
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: your eyes don't pop out. That's just that's just would
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: be impossible. Plus they usually close anyway, just shatically. Yeah. There,
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: it's a very small group of people who sneeze with
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: their eyes open. Most people just it's like involuntary. Um,
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: it's part of the involuntary process of sneezing. I don't
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: know if we said that or not. Sneezing is an
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: involuntary reaction to an external stimuli in your nose. Yeah,
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: like you can't. I mean, you can try and trigger
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: a sneeze, and we'll talk about certain things that can
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: trigger a sneeze, but you definitely can't make yourself sneeze
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: like full stop. Yeah no, no, I mean, yeah, there's
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: funny things you can do to make yourself sneeze, like
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: you're saying, but there are things you can do to
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: keep yourself from sneezing. Whether you want to or not
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: is a different question, because you know, sneezing can feel
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: pretty good if you don't throw your back out. All right, Well,
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: we'll talk about my sneeze pattern later. I know I've
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: talked about it before, but okay, I find it fascinating
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: you you accidentally um, tap out, drink your ovaltine and
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: morse code to your sneezes. Is that your thing? Very nice? Thanks?
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: Should we take a break. Let's take a break, Chuck,
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: and then we'll come back and talk more about sneezing,
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: Josh and Shock. So well, now we're on the road,
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: driving in your truck. Want to learn a thing or
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: two from Josh Camp Chuck. It's stuff you should know.
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: All right, hey man, before we get back into it
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: too far, I realized I didn't give a shout out
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: to the guy who gave me the idea for this episode. Yeah,
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: Dr Todd g sneeze a lot um No. One of
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: my neighbor friends, Wesley Uh was like, hey man, he
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: actually listens and he's like, hey man, have you guys
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: ever done one on sneezing? And I'm like sure, of
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: course we have. It's like, oh, because if you haven't,
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: you know, you really should. That's a great one. And
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: I went back and looked into my astoundment. We had
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: never done one on sneezing, Like never. I just can't
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: believe that that wasn't like one of the first ten.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: You know, Yeah, that seems like it would be an
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: early stuff you should know for sure, and like it.
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: It kind of feels like one of those right now
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: as we're doing it. But um, you know, my neighbors
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: think of unemployed. It's great. Yeah, but hats off to
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: West for coming up with that one. Thanks Wes. Yeah,
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: I leave Josh alone. He's one. He's the one that
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: we got the the Love your Mama dot com stuff
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: for and he's like halfway done with our room spray.
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: We need some more because we're using it so fast,
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: and you're you're the pusherman. Yeah. I was like, first
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: of one's on me, the next you're gonna cost you. Yeah,
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: I don't correct my neighbors. They think I'm I'm down
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: on my luck, so that's all good, Yeah, opinion, No,
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: that's definitely the way to go. He's very nosy, so
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: he um he found out I had to finally just
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: stop lying, Oh, that's good stuff. So we're we're back
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: to sneezing. We're talking sneezing and UM. One of the
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: things we mentioned was the sneezing center, which is this,
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: up until not too many years ago, a theoretical part
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: of the brain that um causes us to sneeze, that
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: coordinates this involuntary response because you're not like your brain
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: is not consciously saying like, okay, now, diaphragm, expel the air,
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: like this is all like we said, involuntary um that
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: every time you wanted to sneeze, right, expel air. UM.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: So it makes sense that there would be a region
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: that was responsible for this. And because we've already we'd
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: already seen it in cats. Don't ask how we knew
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: where it is in cats, but in cats it's in
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: the medulla, and so it was hypothesized that it was
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: in the lateral medulla in humans too. And finally, I
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: think around two thousand five, there's basically incontrovertible evidence that
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: came in the form of this fisherman. I believe he
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: might have been Spanish UM who had the sneezing fit
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: one day of like about twenty really violent sneezes in
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: a few minutes, and then all of a sudden he
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: stops sneezing and couldn't walk right like he his gait
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: was affected, almost like he had a stroke. And apparently
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: either he caused a lesion on his lateral medulla from
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: the sneezing, or that violent sneezing was like an initial
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: symptom of a lesion, kind of like here's your last
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: sneeze as ever, And he went to the doctor and
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: they started testing them, and they would do things like
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: put cap sasan in his nose, like red hot chili
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: pepper in his nose, which makes everybody sneeze. It's like
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: a universal um stern to Tori, right, makes everyone sneeze,
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: And it wouldn't make this guy sneeze. It would burn
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: his nose and it would make his nose running, but
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: it wouldn't make him sneeze. On the other side, it
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: would make him sneeze the other nostril, but not the
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: not the right, I think. And so they found this
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: lesion on his lateral medula, and they said, sneezing center,
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: welcome to our understanding. At such a bad red hut
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: Chili Pepper's joke that is sat on through the whole spield.
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: That's a very grown up of you. Should I say it? Sure?
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: Whoever said we were grown ups? I was just thinking
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: the doctor would did the capsasan and ask him how
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: he feels, and he'd say, well, I don't know. Sometimes
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: I feel like I don't have a partner. That's pretty good,
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: you know, than fight like a brave. I don't know.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to think of Chili Pepper songs. What if
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: the doctor came in wearing nothing but one of those
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: reflector headbands in a sock on his penis. I saw
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: that coming and that was it. Oh, that'd be great
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: that that. You know, you got the right doctor. Yeah,
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: you do the party duck. So things that can make
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: you sneeze. I know you kind of rattle off some
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: jokes about perfume and smoke earlier. Oh I wasn't joking,
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: But those are all realities. That the most common cause
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: of sneeze is and that the collective term is rhinitis
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: r H I and I T I S. And that
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: is just your sort of standard inflammation and swelling of
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: your mucous membrane when you got allergies when pollens in
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: the air, when you have a cold. But they are
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: all kinds of other things that can cause a sneeze too,
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: that are all different types of rhinitis. Yeah, speaking of
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: rhinitis too, I ran across a term. This the clinical
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: term for a running nose is rhin a rhea. Yeah
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: didn't that crody Like that makes it at least twelve
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: or fifteen times worse than running nose, you know. Yeah,
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: So there's um occupational rhinitis, which is basically when stuff
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: you're working around makes you sneeze or irritate your nose. Um,
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: things like cleaning supplies or you know, flower I saw
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: was a pretty common occupational rhinitis. Uh, sternitatory or sternitative,
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: depending on your preference. Um. Cigarette smoke, if you're work
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: in a place where they let you smoke, like maybe
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: a cigarette factory, although I heard that they don't allow
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: smoking inside some cigarette factories now in like North Carolina.
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: Isn't that just the end all be all? You think
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: they would allow you to do that while you're working.
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: They used to up until very recently. Oh yeah, I
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: have the impression you can just puck one off the
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: line and light it up. Wow, I guess if you're smoker,
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: that's a big perk. It is. But then now they're
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: like no smoking inside, which leads you to the follow
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: up question why why would what very dangerous you dummy? Uh,
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: let me see. You've also got the hormonal rhinitis, which
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: is women might experience that when they have high estrogen levels.
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: Maybe if you're pregnant, or you're on the pill, or
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: you're going through puberty, you might have some sort of
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: run on sneezing episodes. Sure, Um, there's drug induced rhinitis.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: There's certain drugs that are have been identified. Um, what
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: do you say the hippis kun right, Yeah, mushrooms will
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: make you sneeze. Um. Apparently I'm guessing that I didn't
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: see this anywhere, but this is an educated guest. Tell
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: me if you think it sounds convincing. Um, those drugs
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: probably stimulate your masts cells to release histamines, and that
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: that just basically almost like a phantom um allergen. Okay,
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: that's I'm going with. But apparently end SAIDs beta blockers
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: and some anti hypertensive drugs are the ones that are known.
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: Um drug induced rynitis. Stern tutores. Uh. If you are
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: of advanced age, you might have what's called geri attic
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: rhye rhinitis, which is that's when those uh submucoastal glands atrophy,
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: and that means your nose can get really irritated and
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: you might sneeze a lot. Right. Um. That is very
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: sad to me if you think about it, because there's
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: not much that can be done. I'm sure you're there's there.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: You just put like maybe vaseline or something in your nose.
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: That's got to be the cure for that. But that's
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: just that because it's like your your little bodies, you know,
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: running down. We should have a cure for that. Yeah,
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: Like our medicine is not far enough along in my opinion,
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: for too for this to be. It's kind of a
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: disappointing everybody, am I Right? Yeah? So we've talked before,
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: Chuck multiple times about photic sneezing, which I am a
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: photo sneezer, and I don't remember if you are or not.
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: I feel like I have, but I don't. It's not
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: like roundly something that happens to me. I don't think. So, Okay,
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: I am a photo sneezer more than I'm a native
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: born Toledo and even maybe they're tied. So how does
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: it get you? Like, any time you like turn on
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: a light, very rarely light, it's almost always sunlight, and
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: I think it's just because the intensity of it. But yeah,
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: like if I walk out, say, like if I go
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: see a movie in the middle of the day because
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: it's a slacker and come out and then nice and
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: I come out and it's very sunny, it is guaranteed
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: three sneezes in a row? Is that every usual pattern? Yeah? Usually?
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: And I looked into that, like why do we sneeze
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: multiple times? Apparently there's a very simple answer for it,
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: and that's that your your brain has to turn mean
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: that that the irritant hasn't been ejected yet. But with
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: photo sneezing, it's it's almost like it's mistaken identity, right. Yeah.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: I actually did see some other things too about the patterns,
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: because that's always fascinated me because I always sneeze in threes.
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: And um, I did see where sometime some places said
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: that just once isn't enough, so it's like a setup.
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: Get it to the front of your nose and then
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: it get out. But I also saw where it could
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: be genetic. Yeah, like that you inherit a sneeze pattern,
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: and that like double sneezers beget to double sneezers. It
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: makes sense because there are like photos. Sneezing is one
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: of a couple ways that you can inherit a genetic
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: sneezing traits, So that would make sense. Yeah, that's right. Photo.
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry, photic sneeze reflexes passed on by autosomal dominant inheritance.
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: And it's and I love this, uh this acronym because
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: this is one of those reverse engineered ones that we
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: like so much. Do you like this one? I like
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: this one. I hated the other one. Yeah, man, with
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: a passion like I wouldn't even I wasn't gonna bring
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: that one up to be Okay, we'll just pass it
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: by and let everybody wonder for the rest of their lives.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: But autosamial dominant compelling helio up uphthalmic outburst syndrome at you,
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: it's a little rough, it is. I mean, there's a
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: whole d, a whole dominant in there that's missing. But okay, fine,
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: we'll go We'll go with that. But that's the that
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: is a term for photo sneezing that was um coined
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: at some some point by Someone's right for acronyms is
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: when they just sneak a word in there and don't
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: use it for a letter. Yeah, it's lazy, although I
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: mean I get where they were coming from. You don't
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: want to be ad chew. It's like why even why
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: even do it? But but you got to figure it out,
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: you know, I mean, just take dominant out, just go
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: with autosomal. You know. Yeah, no one who would know.
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't have noticed. So um you were saying, Uh,
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: was that it for the patterns and sneezing patterns. Yeah,
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: I mean they're just a couple of theories, either hereditary
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: or that it just takes that much. But I'm not sure.
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: I just don't know if I buy that for myself
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: because it's always threes and it's not like I have
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: a weak sneeze, so it takes three. I don't know
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: if it feels ingrained somehow, Yeah, like if you only
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: do two, you notice and it does it feel incomplete?
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: It does, but it that almost never happens. Occasionally I'll
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: do a forebanger, but I don't I don't know that
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: I ever sneeze once or twice, it's almost always three. Yeah,
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: And speaking of incomplete, if you actually go if you
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: experience the afferent phase, but the efferent phase isn't triggered,
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: but it's enough to drive you nuts. Um, there's things
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: you can do, and one of those things that's recommended
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: is to look at a bright light er look kind
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: of don't look directly at this on, but look towards
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: the sun um and that should help jump start that
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: efferent phase. The second part where the actual sneeze takes place, Okay,
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: that makes sense, But they think what's going on is
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: that there's a crossover between um, the sneeze reflex arc
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: and the pupillary light reflex arc, which basically is one
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: nerve becoming so um stimulated that it it um it
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: stimulates by proxy the the other nerve, the sneeze nerve.
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: So you're getting so overloaded with bright light when you
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: see that sunlight that it it accidentally jumps on over
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: to your sneeze reflection as well and makes you sneeze.
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: It's like, are you getting all this light? Are you
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: getting get a load of this? And I think they've
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: landed on about between twenty. Generally people have this photic
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: sneeze reflex, right, So that's I mean, that's pretty substantial.
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: There are some other, like small all identity groups of
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: sneezers that are far smaller than that. Um. Apparently there
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: are people who, um, there's a four families, not one
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: in four people, four families, as far as anyone knows,
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: who have something called um snatiation, which is where you
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: if they eat too much and they feel overly full,
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: it will trigger a sneezing attack. Yeah, I would call
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: that rare. Yeah, four families for sure, and we're just
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: gonna pass right on by, right chuck uh yes, acronym um.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: Getting back to the photo sneezing though, they think it
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: also could be a holdover and an evolutionary advantage from
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: when we were little babies. Because little babies don't have
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: they can't blow their nose. They don't know what that
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: even is, so the only um they can't pick their nose.
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: They can't they can't use any implement at all to
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: clear out their nose except the sneeze. They rely on
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: the sneeze to get that mucus out, or of course
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: parents who will suck that stuff out through it a
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: little device, yeah, which is no fun but necessary. Or
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: you hold them on their side and you blow in
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: their ear usually clears up in noo. But I should
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: probably just go ahead and say I don't do that.
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: That was a joke. You can whisper sweet nothings, sure,
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: but don't Yeah, don't do that. Um. But babies are
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: are pretty sensitive to that photoclight reflex, and they think
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: that maybe a reason that basically we that's just sort
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: of a holdover from when we were babies. It makes sense.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: It also makes sense to me that babies might have
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: um more active or kind of raw or nerve pathways,
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: So maybe they're just more sensitive to that that jump
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: over that crossover. Maybe UM plucking nose hairs that ever
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: happened to you every time? So it doesn't make me sneeze,
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: but it makes my eyes water like I've just seen
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: every UM long distance commercial from the nineties all at once. Yeah.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: And it's interesting because those you talked earlier about the
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: trigeminal nerves that are all through the face. I think
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: it's just all related. Like you pluck, you could pluck
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: an eyebrow and it could make you sneeze and your
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: eyes are watering, and that's part of your face. Like
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: it's just all sort of one big nerve bundle that's
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: all interrelated, and it could any of those could trigger
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: either watering of eyes or or definitely sneezing. Even if
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: you like pluck a hair out of your head, that
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: could do it. That's never happened to me. But my
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: nose hair and my eyebrow hair, oh man, my eyes
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: will start watering. It's not a pleasant experience for sure.
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: I've never plucked an eyebrow hair. Oh. Every once in
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: a while I'll get one. Um, that's a big, fat,
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: long goat hair. It's just suddenly comes up overnight. I've
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: seen I've got those two. Okay, well I pluck those.
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: Just trim those, you know, is um, maybe I should
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: trim them. That's a good idea. Um. But have you
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: ever noticed if you get one and there's almost invariably
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: one on the other side too, like they come up
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: in pairs. Has does that happen to you? I have
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: not noticed that when you pull on one, does the
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: other one get shorter? That that was wonderful, that'd be great. Yeah,
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: it's like pulling that spaghetti through your nose. And out
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: your mouth. Don't do that either, Can you do that? Uh? No,
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: I've never tried to do I've never tried either. I
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: don't want to. Um. There's also a group of people
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: who sneeze when they become sexually aroused. Yeah, that's the
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: thing apparently, or if your orgasm, like after your orgasm,
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: it could trigger a sneezing fit. Yeah, it's an apparently
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: a bigger group than than you would expect. Some researcher
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: went around the internet chat rooms and said, hey, does
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: anybody sneeze when they become aroused or when they have
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: an orgasm? And she found seventeen people who sneeze from
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: sexual ideation and three who sneeze from orgasm, which is
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: that is ay more than I would expect from just
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: going around on internet chat rooms and asking people, you know.
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: And also, we should point out way not scientific, No,
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: not at all, but yeah, anecdotally it's still impressive. But
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: I read an explanation for this. It's a terrible explanation,
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: but it's an explanation by the Journal of the Association
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: of Physicians of India. It's an Indian uh journal. Coincidentally enough,
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: they suggest that it's because the nose contains erectile tissue,
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: which it does. Which erectile tissues just tissue that can
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: become larger engorged by blood flow. And yes, you have
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: erectile tissue and your genitalia. Um, yes you have it
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: in your nose, but they're not they're not in any
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: way related as far as anyone's ever even thought, aside
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: from the people in this journal. And that the most
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: bizarre thing you've ever heard. It's pretty bizarre. Like your
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: nose is becoming aroused, is basically what they're saying. And
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: so you sneeze fantastic. Uh. There's also intractable sneezing or psychogenic,
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: and that is something that's almost exclusive to young women, um, girls,
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: adolescents basically going through puberty. And these are girls who
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: may not suffer from allergies, they're not sick with a
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: cold or anything, but can go in these big sneezing
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: binges for days and days at a time. Yes, and
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: apparently the world, world, the world, oh my goodness. The
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: world record holder is a girl named Donna Griffiths who
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: was twelve when she started. She started in nineteen eighty
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: one January of nine eight one, and her sneezing fit
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: ended nine hundred and seventy seven days later in September
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: of nineteen eighty three. I remember hearing about this one
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: and as it I mean as it went on, I
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: was way too young for this. But you know, had
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: I had I been more aware, I would have felt
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: very bad for this girl, um, because as it went on,
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: she could if she sneezed once in a day, it
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: was considered part of the record, and I think that
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: that was kind of how it was towards the end.
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: But that first year sounds like a bear. Yeah, a
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: million sneezes in the first three d and sixty five days,
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: which is basically a sneeze a minute on average. And
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: chuck an it's impossible to sneeze in your sleep. You
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: cannot sneeze in your sleep. If you sneeze while you're sleeping,
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: you wake up to sneeze. Your brain just isn't functioning
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: correctly to sneeze while you're sleeping. So that means this
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: girl was averaging a sneeze a minute, um, just during
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: waking hours, but a sneeze a minute over twenty four
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: hours compressed into say ten or twelve hours that she
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: was awake that day or would she wake herself up sneezing.
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: I don't know if. If that's the case, then she
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: had a really, really rough year because she was sneezing
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: every minute and not getting any sleep. Yeah, I mean
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: it's disruptive no matter what, no one. I mean, you
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: can't hold on a job if you're sneezing every minute. Well,
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: luckily she was twelve, and this is after child labor
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: laws were passed. I'm hoping she did have that cigarette factory.
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: That's right. She has nimble little fingers for sorting cigarettes. Perfect.
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: Should we take another break, Yeah, I think so. All right,
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: we'll talk about these the traveling Droplets right after this
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: great band Josh and Shock. Well, now we're on the road,
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: driving in your truck. Want to learn a thing or
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: two from Josh Damp Chuck. It's stuff you should know,
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: all right? All right, so this is pretty relevant now.
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: And I know and I think this was put together before.
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: I feel like we've been sitting on this one. Was
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: this before coronavirus? No? I think it was during? Was during? Ok?
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: And this is a Dave helped us out. Dave Russ
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: helped us out with this one. Yeah, so and uh
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: and I think we've all seen these videos by now,
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: um with everything that's going on. But in two thousand
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: sixteen and a researcher from m I T named Lydia.
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: Uh oh boy, goodness me Bubia sure bariba, I'm going
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: with buru buruba. It is. There's a couple of sounds
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: in there that follow one another. It makes it very difficult. Yeah,
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: whenever you pack three vowels in a row, it's always
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: sort of a dealer's choice. So she published some SloMo
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: two thousand frame per second uh film images of people
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: sneezing and what that looks like. That's where we get
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: and other people have done this too, and and measured
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: the sneeze. But that's one place where we get the
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: hundred miles per hour stat oh from that study. Yeah,
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: and other places. I mean that's pretty common knowledge now.
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: But um up Tott. You can blow a sneeze. It
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: can stay suspended in the air for a few minutes.
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: And they likened it too, if you would take a
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: bucket of paint and just throw the paint out out
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: of the can into the air sort of as how
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: a sneeze works. It's as they call it, sheets of fluids,
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: and you know, you've got these big, big hunks of
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: mucus and saliva that just sort of come out together
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: and then break apart little by little until you get
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: to the fine mists that sort of can hang in
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: the air. Yeah, it starts as a clump and then
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: turns into ropey filaments and then into increasingly smaller particles.
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: And those really small particles the air sulized stuff. That's
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: the scary stuff. I saw a Bristol study that said,
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: and this wasn't necessarily coronavirus, but that contagious germs can
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: stay in the air, suspended in the air for weeks possibly. Um,
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: that would have to be a very hardy contagious virus
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: or bacteria with the air flow, yeah, to just sit there.
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: But um, that the twenty seven feet which is kind
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: of common knowledge these days in the era of coronavirus,
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: that your sneeze can can project those particles up to
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: like twenty seven ft. There's little pockets of gas and
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: turbulence that are in a in a room, even a
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: room that seems still but certainly one that has like
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: the a c on or air flowing through it, and
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: those little particles can hitch rides on those pockets and travel. Um,
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: I saw two hundred times further than you expel them
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: with just your sneeze. So you know what prevents that
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: covering yourself, your mouth and your nose when you sneeze,
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: and or wearing a mask. Yeah, I mean they teach
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: I mean, this has nothing to do with coronavirus, but
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: it's especially important. But they teach little kids from the
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: moment they can even understand things in preschool to always
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: sneeze into your elbow and cough into your elbow because
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: that's something that kids can you know, you can't always
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: get to a tissue, which is what they say is
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: sort of the best thing to do. But that elbow
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: is pretty good. Uh, it's a pretty good system. I
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: think it's really cute to see a little kid do
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: that too, Yeah, because they're doing the right thing. It's
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: it's uh, it is adorable. I agree. Um, but yeah,
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: the the ideal is to to sneeze into a tissue. Um,
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: throw your tissue away and wash your hands thoroughly. That's
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: what you're supposed to do after you sneeze every time,
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: every single time, every single time. And I don't sneeze
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: a lot. Emily sneeze is a lot. Oh yeah, yeah,
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: because she's got the allergies. Oh yeah, she's got a lifelong,
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: persistent tickle in her nose. It's terrible. Does she have um,
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: what's it called the kind of sneezing where it's oh, psychogenic,
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: intractable sneezing. Well, no, because she's not, she's not thirteen man. No,
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: it's just allergy related. But lots of sneezing. Uh, when
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: it's when it's really bad, it's it's it's pretty tough
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: to be around, not to not tough for me, but
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: you know, right right yeah stop. Um. So that I
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: did look up to find out where we stood as
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: far as knowledge on sneezing and um contagion outdoors goes.
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: And from what I can tell, there was some study
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: that was done by some engineers that sprayed an aerosol
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: can running walking and then on a bike, and the
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: results showed that the stuff spreads really far and wide.
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: But they didn't take into account a lot of different things,
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: a lot of different factors. So that if you are outdoors,
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: as long as somebody doesn't sneeze at you basically in
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: your face or in your direction within you know, twenty
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: or thirty feet um directly toward you. You're probably not
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: going to catch enough of a viral load of something
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: like coronavirus to become sick from it. Um, especially if
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: you're not in a crowded group. If you're just walking
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: outside and somebody else is walking, you know, fifteen ft
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: ahead of you and they're just breathing and they're on
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: the other side of the street, you're probably going to
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: be fine just because that stuff is gonna dissipate so
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: much because of all the factors, the environmental factors that
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: exist outdoors rather as opposed to indoors. Indoors is a
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: totally different ballgame. Outdoors, you're much safer. Yeah, I mean
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: I haven't, uh, I haven't been around a human that sneezed,
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: aside from my wife and you know, four or five months,
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: like I would, even when I've gone to the store
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: and like I'm on the lookout for that stuff. Oh yeah,
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: and um, like I think we all are. But I
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: haven't even been in a store, like on an aisle
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: where someone's like sneezed, because I would and probably unreasonably,
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: you know, freak out a little bit. Sure, I think
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: you're allowed to yell at that person. But I haven't
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: even seen anyone been around anyone that sneezed. Uh, so
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: that's been a comfort. Yeah, you mean you me went
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: to the store and came back and said, somebody sneezed
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: twice in the whole store. Just started looking around like
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: where that come from. Yeah, it's weird. Huh. Yeah. Yeah,
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: there's basically like a stampede or something to get away
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: from that thing. It's it is. It's a weird, weird
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: time to be alive. We're all going to be very
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: very weird even after things go back to normal. I think, yeah,
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: you know it's gonna I know I will be. Yeah.
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: So should we talk a little bit about a culture
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: and you know, sort of what people say all around
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: the world. I know here in America it's sort of
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: customed to say God bless you or bless you, uh
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: and that. You know. There's some different explanations, but um
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: one of them that seems to hold water I think
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: dates back to the Middle Ages with the Black Plague,
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: when Pope Gregory seven basically said, hey, everyone, you know,
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: things are pretty bad. We should just we should say
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: God bless you if someone is sneezing because they might
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: be dying. Yeah, which is a from what I saw,
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: A big departure from um earlier Christian teachings which taught
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: people to just totally ignore these or say God is dead,
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: which I right, which I find very weird, Like why
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: would you teach people to ignore sneezes? I didn't get that.
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: But I found this really awesome article called Romance and
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: Tragedy of Sneezing by Dr Wilson D. Wallace in Scientific
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: Monthly from nineteen nine, and he cited that that earlier
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: Christians were like just ignored it, just pretend it didn't happen. Yeah,
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: i'm a i'm a i'm ana. Bless you guy. Um,
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: and don't do the gazoom tight or salute which is
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: Spanish to your health, that kind of thing. It's also
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: a toast, Yeah I say that. I don't. I don't
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: say that ever. Really. Sometimes I'll say it when I toast,
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: but it's been I don't know. I don't remember what
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: I did it with anyone anymore, you know, it's I
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: don't I forgot to deal with people. I always raise
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: my glass and say it's time to get toe up
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: from the flow up, I say, made Jupiter bless you, right.
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: I saw another one from the Greeks too. I love
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: that one. Um, live zeus, preserve you. I think you
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: and I should bring back both of those. That's fantastic.
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: Can't you imagine everyone in greased just like being like,
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: don't sneeze, don't sneeze? If everyone's all twitchy and shaky
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: from people yelling that at them. Yeah, I mean it's
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: weird too because it's a it's a very kind thing
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: to do to a stranger. It's uh, this one, um,
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: I guess Dave just says an academic. But they called
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: it a micro affection, which is nice. You know. It's
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: just a little quick, nice thing to say to a stranger.
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: If and I'll always do it. We've we've done it
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: during our live shows when someone sneezes. It's uh, and
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: not to be funny, it gets a laugh, but it's
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: just sort of a it's almost like an involuntary micro
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: affection I think for most you know, non monsters for sure. Yeah,
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: where people just kind of have a brief connection, right
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: and you know they don't know each other. But now
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: it's like you're a human being. What is it now? Well,
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: just bless you and get pleased, get very far away
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: from again, bless you over there. Um. So there's also
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: a very common understanding that people thought that a demon
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: was trying to get in or your soul was trying
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: to get out. And I kept seeing like other cultures
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: or old ancient cultures that kind of thing. The closest
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: one I could find that seemed like that was um
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: in Persia. Um zoro asters believed that your body was
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: fighting off a fiend that had invaded, like an invading
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: demon or spirit, and that a sneeze was basically your
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: body signaling that it had been victorious in fighting this
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: fiend and getting this fiend out, and that that that
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: deserved a prayer, and that if you ever heard somebody sneeze,
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: you would say the same prayer with him. I couldn't
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: find what prayer though. Yeah, it seems to be a
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: good luck thing, and a lot of cultures throughout the years,
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: according to the Talmud, it's a good omen if you
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: sneeze when you're praying. Uh. In China and Japan, if
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: you sneeze, it means someone's sort of like your ears
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: are burning, someone's talking about you, and one sneeze means
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: they're saying nice things to two means they're spreading gossip.
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: I don't know what they would think about me with
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: my three. Three means you die, right? What would three mean?
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, because there's only two ways
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: people can talk about you, right, they might be saying
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: something like Chuck has a beard. Okay, you know that's
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: as neutral as it gets, exactly. Um. So there's there's folklore,
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: and then there's what we think is true, which is
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: a kind of folklore, but it's actually it's just folklore
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: to urban legends. Is what we call them our old
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: wives tales. And we talked about one where that your
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: your eyes will pop out of your head if you
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: sneeze with your eyes open. We debunked that one pretty clearly,
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: I think, don't you can't do it? Um. And then
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: there's some other ones too. There's one that you told
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: me about that I had no idea until she said this,
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: But apparently some people believe that you basically die for
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: a second while you're sneezing, like your body just shuts down,
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: including your heart, and that you're technically dead for that
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: half second while the sneeze is going on it. I
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: had never heard that before until a couple of days ago,
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: and um yeah, I looked it up and it's a thing.
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: But no, it's that's not at all true. Like your
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: heart rhythm might actually change and the volume of blood
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: in your heart might decrease or increase because of the
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: pressure of the air in your chest or the release
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: of pressure, but the electrical activity remains the same, and
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: that's the key to whether your hearts you know, alive
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: or not. Yeah, yeah, your heart does not stop. No,
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: that's like playground stuff, it is. I thought it was
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: very cute. What about sneezing after sex preventing pregnancy? Did
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: you see this one? Well, I mean, what are you
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: sneezing out of? Right? So? I mean that like, that's
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: the idea that if you sneeze, you're expelling um well,
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: there's really no other way to put its semen, and
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: that that would keep you from getting pregnant. Wow, it
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: seems a little ridic Yeah, that's another playground thing, I guess.
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: So what's what playground have you been hanging out? Pretty
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: advanced playground at Uh? You got anything else? Oh, I've
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: got one more thing, Chuck, you anything else, I got
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: nothing else. In two thousand and sixteen or eighteen, a
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: man in Lester in the UK ruptured his throat from
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: trying to stifle a sneeze. The pressure was so great
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: it broke open his throat. Wow. Yeah, internally didn't break
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: through the skin, but his his his throat internally was
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: up because that's what I pictured, like a throat explosion.
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: It just blew his head completely off, like that guy
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: in Scanners. Well like I guess that's it for sneezing everybody.
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: Hope you enjoyed it. Thanks again to West for the idea.
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: And since I said that, it's time for listener mail,
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: we call this Atlanta, Texas. Hey guys, my name's ben Ley,
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: local atlantin Georgia and my life and are a huge
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: longtime fans. In your recent episode on Pirate Radio, y'all
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: briefly brought up Radio Atlanta, which was named after Atlanta, Texas. Uh,
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: and you joke that no one knew that town exists,
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: even the people that live there. And that's pretty much true.
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: My family is originally from Atlanta, Texas. It's pretty small,
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: just about five thousand residents, so it's totally understandable. I
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: was born in Texarkana, Texas, not too far from there,
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: which is basically famous for being in the Smoky in
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: the Bandit movie. I thought that was the town that
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: dreaded Sundown too, wasn't it. M I don't know about that.
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: I definitely remember from Smoking in the Bandit because they're
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: driving that beer from Texarkana to Atlanta, and uh, Benjamin
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: here says, I don't know why they didn't do Atlanta
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: to Atlanta. Wasted opportunity, it really is. It sounds like
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: Benjamin moved from Atlanta to Atlanta though, huh maybe kinda.
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: I mean he's in Atlanta right. He teaches at Georgia State.
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: That's pretty awesome. Hey, hats off to you for teaching
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: these days, Benjamin. Yeah, he says, there's a lot of
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: towns in Texas, oh name that are also Georgian names.
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: There's an Athens, Texas at Douglasville, Columbus, Dallas, Georgia in Texas.
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: And he said there's even a Georgia, Texas. Well. That's
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: just confusing. And he said, thanks for all the great stuff,
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: and that is from Benjamin Boden Lee. Thanks a lot.
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: Benjamin Boden Lee, that was a great email. We appreciate it.
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: Any email at references smoking in the Bandit we're all
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: right with Well. If you want to email us about
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: Smoking the Bandit or anything else we'd love to hear
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: from you, you can send it to Stuff podcast at
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: production of iHeart Radios How Stuff Works. For more podcasts
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: for my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: or wherever you listened to your favorite shows.