Achoo! How fast does a sneeze travel?
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You're listening to Brains On, where we're serious about being curious. Brains On is supported in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation. Hey, Molly. What's wrong? I keep feeling like I'm about to sneeze, but it just won't come out. I really shouldn't have skipped through that dandelion field earlier, or stuck my head underneath my dusty bed, or sniffed all that black pepper.

Do you ever feel like you really have to sneeze, but for some reason you just can't? Oh yeah, I hate that. Oh, here it comes. Oh, nuts. Hey there, Anna. Hi, Molly. Hi, Mark. You're in a pretty chipper mood today, Mark. What's going on? Well, as I'm sure you know, I've been getting into model making, and this weekend I finally finished my masterpiece.

It's a 1/74th scale replica of old Ironsides. The ship also known as the USS Constitution. Amazing, Mark. What's it made out of? It's kind of gray and fluffy. That's the best part. I make all my models out of things I find around the house. This one's made of dust bunnies, pet hair, and dryer lint. Gesundheit, Molly. You finally got your steez out.

You're listening to Brains On from APM Studios. I'm Molly Bloom, and my co-host today is Anna from Sharpsburg, Georgia. Hey, Anna. Hi, Molly. Today we're talking sneezes. Anna, have you ever felt like you had to sneeze really bad, but it just won't come out? Yes, it's a horrible feeling. It really is. So what things do you find make you sneeze? Stuff that I'm allergic to and when I have a cold. Hmm.

Yeah, I'm allergic to a bunch of stuff. What are you allergic to? Pollen, grass, plants, mold. Oh my gosh, we're allergic to the same stuff. Our sneezes are like twin sisters. It's very cute. So are you a person who sneezes in like multiples? Like you have a sneezing fit and every time you sneeze, like it just happens a bunch of times? Sometimes. When it's like allergy season, yes. But other times I just like sneeze and then I'm just done sneezing. Totally. Totally.

My dad is a person who always sneezes. He cannot sneeze only once. He always sneezes more than once. And one time my daughter and I counted how many sneezes he did. He had 27 sneezes. Wow. It was so many. He just could not stop.

So do you know anyone who sneezes really loud or has a fun sneeze? I know two people that can sneeze really loud. My dad and my grandpa. They sneeze really loudly. Does it surprise you when it happens? Yes, because I'm just doing something and it just like makes me jump because it's so loud. One of my good friends has the cutest little sneeze.

She sneezes like this. She goes, achee! And that's her sneeze. And my sneeze is not as cute at all. I'm always like, wow, you sound like a little bunny. It's so cute.

Today's episode was inspired by a question that you sent to us, Anna. I wanted to know how fast we sneeze. Like, how many miles per hour is my sneeze going? This is such a great question, and I'm wondering what made you think of it. I was sneezing, and it seemed super fast, and you can't count it like a blink. So I wanted to know how fast it was. Very good thinking. Well, before we answer your question, let's talk about what a sneeze is.

It starts, unsurprisingly, in your nostrils. Those are the two holes in your nose that you breathe through. Inside your nostrils are tiny little hairs called cilia. Yeah, if you've never noticed these, go look up your nose in a mirror. It's a hairy wonderland in there. These hairs are super sensitive to things that aren't supposed to be in your nose, stuff like dust or dirt. Or things people are allergic to, like pollen from flowers or fur from your pets. Right.

When this stuff gets in your nose, it tickles the little hairs, which sends a message to your brain to sneeze it out. A sneeze is a reflex, like when a doctor taps your knee and your leg moves by itself. And once a sneeze starts, there's usually no stopping it. When your brain tells your nose to sneeze, it affects all different parts of your body. Your eyes shut. Your tongue moves to the top of your mouth.

and muscles in your chest and stomach tighten, causing you to breathe in really deeply. After your lungs fill up with enough air, they let it all out at once really fast. A sneeze.

A few different things can come out when you sneeze. Big drops of snot and mucus in a cloud of smaller drops. And even though you can't see it, the sneeze cloud can hang out in the air for a long time. It's often full of germs that can make someone else sick. So it's important to always cover your mouth when you sneeze to stop those germs from shooting out into the air. Hey, Anna. Hi, Molly. Nice job covering your nose and mouth, Mark.

Ugh, gotta keep these pesky little jerbies from flying around. Mark, I am so sorry I sneezed all over your dust bunny dryer lint pet hair model. Oh, it's okay. I can always remake it. But all the dust and pet hair and dryer lint in the air has been making me sneeze. Ugh, I just came in here to grab some tissues. Hang on, that gives me an idea. We're trying to figure out how fast sneezes travel. And?

What if we look inside Mark's nose and get up close and personal with a real sneeze? That's a great idea. Ooh, a sniffer safari. A nose-ploration. We can use the zoom ray. It lets us zoom in on small things so we can watch them up close. Zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom.

So this is Mark Snow's? It's not actually as hairy as I would have thought. Whoa, check out that big crowd of boogers. And they're cheering for something? Loogies and gentle phlegm, boogs and germs, gather round. Today we witness an event the likes of which have never been seen in these nostrils. An attempt to break the sneeze speed record. Woo!

Looks like we came at the right time. Here to attempt this daring feat of someone you all know and love, he's a mean green mucus machine, the bravest booger this side of the septum. You know him, you love him, make some noise for Snot Rocket! What do you know? A daredevil booger! What up, my nose goblins? Who's ready to see some serious speed?

Now remember, I'm a trained professional. Whatever you do, don't try this at home. I don't have to remind you all what happened to the last booger that tried this stunt. Sneasel Knievel. I will now initiate the sneeze. Ready, set... We'd better get our stopwatches out. Release the dust bunnies! Ah! Ah! Achoo!

Whoa, that was super fast. By my stopwatch, he clocked in at over 40 miles an hour. That's like the top speed of a racehorse. Wow, that's a lot faster than I would have thought. Let's zoom out and get Mark some tissues. That was an epic sneeze, Mark. Thanks.

Did you know you have a daredevil boogie in your nose and it shot out at 40 miles per hour when you sneezed? Wow, that is fast. I guess that's why you'd say my nose is running. Get it? Running! I crack myself up. There's a lot more to learn about sneezes, snot, and what's in them. But first, it's time for the... Are you ready for the mystery sound, Anna? Yes. Here it is.

Hmm, what do you think? Sounds like glass bottles. Yes, it does. Excellent ears. Let's hear it one more time and see if anything else pops up. Okay, what do you think? Yeah, it sounds like something that's glass, like falling into like a plastic trash can or something. Oof, I love the specificity. Excellent guess. Well, we will hear it again, get another chance to guess, and hear the answer after the credits. So stick around.

Here at Brains On, we love art. Drawings of noses, paintings of daredevil boogers, you name it. And we want to see what you make. Yes, send us your art. Share your work with us at brainson.org slash contact. While you're there, you can send us your mystery sounds and questions too. Like this one. How are computers programmed to understand ones and zeros? You can find answers to questions like these on the Moment of Um podcast.

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You're listening to Brains On. I'm Anna. And I'm Molly. And today we're talking all about sneezes, snot, and boogers.

Sneezing helps our noses get rid of stuff that's not supposed to be in there, like dust, dirt, or pollen. We don't have any control over when we sneeze, and a sneeze uses all different muscles in your chest, stomach, and head. Our sneezes can be full of germs that can make people sick, so it's important to cover your nose and mouth when you sneeze. And we just learned that sneezes can shoot droplets of snot and mucus at speeds of over 40 miles per hour.

Each sneeze is like a snowflake. Unique. Beautiful. Wet. We asked you to send in your best sneeze recordings, and your responses were snot bad. Hi, my name is Gabriel. I'm going to do my sneezing. I call it the snore. My name is Lennon.

My sneeze is named a tuna clone because it's like this. Achoo! Hello, my name is Soar and I'm from Rhinebeck, New York. This would be my sneeze. Achoo! And it would be called a big bang. My name is Samuel. My sneeze is a supernova and this and it sounds like this. I'm Madeline and my sneeze idea is...

I want to call it the bunny squeak. I'm James and my sneeze idea is I don't know. And I'm going to call it the I don't know sneeze. Hi, I'm Evelyn from Columbus, Ohio and this is my sneeze. It's a grandpa sneeze. It's how my grandpa sneezes.

Thanks to Gabriel, Lennon, Sawyer, Samuel, Madeline, James, and Evelyn for sharing your sneezes with us. So, Anna, if you had to create a sneeze and give it a name, what would it be? I think it would sound like a train, and I'd probably call it a large train of snot. I love it. Can you give an example of what that sneeze might sound like? Choo-choo, choo-choo, choo-choo. Brilliant. So good.

So, like we mentioned, there's all different stuff in our sneezes, from big drops of snot to clouds of little drops that hang around in the air. But we haven't talked about my favorite thing, nasal mucus. Your favorite? Nasal mucus is very, very, very cool. But don't take my word for it. Just watch this commercial.

Sometimes air is cold. Sometimes it's dry. No one wants to breathe that kind of air. Make the smart choice and shut your mouth. Say what? Shut your mouth and breathe through your nose. Nasal mucus will take care of it. Nasal mucus. Take a deep breath in through your nose.

By the time the air reaches the back of your nose, it's nice and wet, thanks to your nasal mucus. This moist goo is made right in your nose. Nasal mucus.

But wait! There's more! Your nasal mucus keeps you healthy. It can trap bacteria, viruses, and other stuff you don't want in your body. And it has special germ-fighting chemicals to help neutralize those nasty bugs. Nasal mucus! Plus, the nasal mucus in your nose is part of a sophisticated self-cleaning system. Inside your nose are tiny microscopic hairs.

These mini hairs are constantly sweeping your nasal mucus out of your nose. It cleans itself out every 20 minutes. Where does it go? You swallow it. Most people swallow somewhere between 4 and 8 cups of nasal mucus every day. Nasal mucus.

Don't worry. It's all part of your elegant schnoz system. Your nasal mucus is almost all water, so it's perfectly safe to swallow. Thanks, nasal mucus. Okay, I agree. Nasal mucus is pretty nifty. Yes, we are very lucky to have special cells in our noses that make nasal mucus, which protects us and makes the air easier to breathe. Is nasal mucus the same as boogers? Ooh, yeah.

Good question. To help us answer this question and more, we have Dr. Andrew Redman here from the University of Minnesota. He's an otolaryngologist, aka a professional snot sucker. Welcome, Andrew. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it. What exactly do you do? Well, I'm an otolaryngologist, or most people will call us ENT doctors, or ear, nose, and throat doctors. But I take care of kids who have issues with their ears, their noses, and their throats.

Is it bad to pick your nose? Well, picking your nose, we know that it kind of feels good to get those boogers out, but there's actually some downsides to it. The two in particular is that if you pick your nose, you can cause nosebleeds and those can be kind of uncomfortable. A lot of us have had nosebleeds before and it makes our parents really worried sometimes when we have nosebleeds. So picking your nose is actually one of the biggest things you can do to make your nose bleed. So we generally recommend that you don't do that.

The other thing is, is that your fingers are in all sorts of things all day and they have a lot of bacteria on them often. So when doctors tell you to wash your hands, that's because your hands are touching everything and they get bacteria on them. And if you pick your nose, you can get that bacteria from everywhere else and end up putting it in your nose. And it turns out your nose doesn't like it very much when you put bacteria there. Hmm.

Why do our noses produce more mucus when we're sick? Yeah, that's a great question. There's a couple of reasons. The first is that mucus or boogers, depending on what you want to call it, it actually is a protective mechanism for us. So it actually filters out things that come in through your nose like dust, bacteria, and allergens. You know, if you're allergic to cats, cat hair can cause you to get allergies. And so your mucus actually filters that out.

But when you get sick, your body actually makes more mucus because it's trying to keep things out. When your immune system comes and it helps to fight whatever you're sick with, it'll actually kind of, I'm going to use the term, poop out the bad stuff into your mucus so that your body can get rid of it by blowing their nose out. So that's why your body makes more mucus when you're sick.

And I noticed when you're sick, your mucus tends to be like in a greener shade. So like, what does the color of mucus mean? Yeah. So when you're not sick, mucus is generally pretty clear, but when you have a cold or a sinus infection or something like that, what happens is your body, the cells that come and help fight that infection will actually release these different proteins that turn your mucus different colors. And

Actually, if you have kind of chronic sinus infections, it can turn your mucus different colors longer term. The reason why your mucus turns colors is actually your body's fighting it and getting rid of bacteria and waste products into your mucus so that you can blow it out and get those boogers out. Is nasal mucus the same as boogers? Yeah, basically it is. Boogers is just what kids call it, and mucus is what boring adults call it.

How do people have like nasal inflammation and nasal infections? Yeah, that's a great question, Anna. So your nose is actually designed for a couple things. It's designed for smell. So, you know, if you plug your nose, you can't smell very well. And it's also designed as a protective mechanism. So almost everything you breathe in will get filtered through your nose. Your nose just experiences all of these things from the outside world.

And when there's, especially in the winter or if you're around a lot of people, there's just lots of viruses and bacteria going around. And your nose is usually the first part of your body that experiences what's going on. And so that's why your nose tends to get stuffed up and you tend to get sick a lot with your nose. Boogers are great, but not too many of them. So when you do have those too many boogers in your nose...

We shouldn't be picking them. What should we do instead? Yeah, that's a great question. So you can blow them out. So using a tissue, blow those boogers out. That's perfectly fine to do. The other thing that can be really helpful is actually using, if you're having a lot of trouble sleeping at night, using a humidifier to help thin that out. If the mucus gets really thick or the boogers get really thick, having a humidifier or using a saltwater nose spray can thin them out and actually allow them to come out

a lot easier. The other thing is, is that our bodies produce a lot of mucus and most of the mucus you produce, you actually swallow without even knowing about it. So everybody swallows a lot of boogers every day without even knowing about it. You can tell your mom that and say, mom, you know what? You're swallowing boogers too. It's just normal. Perfect. Thanks for answering our questions, Dr. Redman. You're very welcome. I hope you guys have a great rest of the day. You too. Thanks so much. Bye.

Thank you.

A sneeze happens when something gets in your nose that the body doesn't want there, like pollen, dust, or pepper. It's a reflex, so once a sneeze is triggered, you can't really stop it. A sneeze can shoot out of your schnoz at a speed of up to 40 miles per hour. And it can leave a cloud of germs in the air, so always cover your mouth. Nasal mucus helps protect your nose and your body from germs and makes the air you breathe less dry. It's magical stuff. And leave it up there. Don't pick it out.

Okay? Don't do it. That's it for this episode of Brains On. This episode was written by Jess Miller and Molly Bloom. It was edited by Shayla Farzan and Sandin Totten. Fact-checking by Rosie DuPont.

We had engineering help from Josh Savageau and Dave Wilson with sound design by... Rachel Brees. Original theme music by... Mark Sanchez. We had production help from the rest of the Brains on Universe team. Anna Goldfield. Nico Gonzalez-Whistler. Ruby Guthrie. Lauren Humphrey. Joshua Ray. Mark Sanchez. Charlotte Traver. Anna Weigel. And... Aran Woldeselassie. Beth Perlman is our executive producer, and the executives in charge of APM Studios are Chandra Gavati and Joanne Griffin.

Special thanks to Joy Dolo, Monique Nascimento, Ezra Zhang, Tim Pierce, and Max. Brains On is a non-profit public radio program. There are lots of ways to support the show. Subscribe to Brains On Universe on YouTube where you can watch animated versions of some of your favorite episodes. Or head to BrainsOn.org. While you're there, you can send us mystery sounds, drawings, and questions.

Okay, Anna, are you ready to hear that mystery sound again? Yes. All right, here it is. Okay, new thoughts. Stick with the same guess. What are you thinking? I think I'm going to stick with the same thing. Like, I can think of something, but I can't really, like, put it into words. Like, it still sounds like glass bottles falling into, like, something plastic. I love it. You have excellent ears.

Would you like to hear the answer? Yes. Here it is. I'm Margo from Prairie Village, Kansas, and that was the sound of glass bottles being recycled into a recycling bin.

Oh. Anna, incredible. The specificity with which you got that right, I've never experienced before. You heard the plastic bin even. Yes. Incredible. Do you always get the mystery sound right? Are you really good at this? No. All the years I've been listening to Brains On, I only got it a couple of times. Oh my gosh. Well, today's the day. Yes. It's so great.

Now it's time for the Brain's Honor Roll. These are the incredible kids who keep the show going with their questions, ideas, mystery sounds, drawings, and high fives. Cass from Nevada City, California. Ayan from Mississauga, Ontario. Chloe from Amherst, Massachusetts. Rianne from Kirkland, Washington. Ellis from Pasadena, California. Isla from Toronto. Henry from San Francisco. Emmett from Brooklyn, New York. Millie from Pensacola, Florida. Sophia from Cairo, Egypt. Max from Boston. Mason from Richmond, Virginia. Jack from Madison, Wisconsin. Indiana from Winnipeg.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Daphne from Lettertown, Maryland. Rowan from San Mateo, California. Juniper from Lakewood, Colorado. Eli from Camberwell, Australia. Eden from Sydney, Australia. Estelle and Felix from Maple, Ontario. Lucy from Temecula, California. Rhett and Reed from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Brian, Michelle, and Dominic from Kissimmee, Florida. Rowan from Vancouver, British Columbia. Abby from Denver. Lily from Oregon. Sydney from Houston, Texas. Ray from Wheaton, Illinois. And Lucia from Melbourne, Australia. ♪

We'll be back next week with our last episode of the season, a super special Halloweeny episode all about vampires. Thanks for listening.