Good Job, Brain! - 56: Your Body is a Wonderland

Episode Date: April 3, 2013

The human body is truly amazing! We HEAD up the discussion about body gunk, and the mysterious and wonderful world *inside* your belly button. Colin blesses us with tales of mysterious sneezing phenomenon, and Karen ponders why your pee smells weird after eating asparagus. Learn the origin behind the saying "5 o'clock shadow" and just what to watch for if you're a lifeguard. ALSO: Capital Capitals Quiz Part II! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to an airwave media podcast. Hello, fellow factoid freaks and flap-doodle fans. Welcome to Good Job Brain, your weekly quiz show and off-beat trivia podcast. This is episode 56, and of course, I'm your humble host, Karen, and we are your placid, tune of pleasant people pleasing to present plenty of pleasurable podcasting. That was submitted by a listener, Bethany. Thank you. Thank you.

A free alliteration. I'm Colin. I'm Dana. And I'm Chris. All right. Let's jump into our first general trivia segment, Pop Quiz Hot Shot. And in this segment, I choose a random trivial pursuit cards and you guys have your barnyard buzzers and see if we can answer some of these questions.

Here we go. Blue Wedge for Geography. St. Basil's Cathedral, whose architect, according to legend, was blinded so he would never again create anything so beautiful is in what city? Oh. I think this is in Russia.

Do I have at least the country, right? Yes. Okay, God, what city? Is it St. Petersburg? Moscow. I would have been. I bet you St. Peter's Cathedral is in St. It's just me.

It's funny, actually, just quickly, about the blinded architect. That story you can find. attached to many famous structures throughout history. It's really hard to substantiate that it ever happened. But if you read enough about art history or archaeology, almost every famous building has, oh, and the architect was blinded, so he could never reproduce this work of art. Yeah.

What a drama queen. The guy who built this Arby's was blinded because... It was the best Arbyes. Never me. All right, pop culture, pink wedge. What band offered online pay what you want pricing for? their 2007 album in rainbows. Dana.

Radiohead? Correct. Radiohead. It's a smashing success for them, and really the thing that kicked off the idea of pay what you want. And I think that they felt vindicated. I think I remember reading that the average price settled around $9. I think out of all the donations, which they thought was a fairer price. All the skeptics who said people are just going to pay a penny.

Right. And there were. Yeah. There were, but they were outweighed by other people paying like, oh, I'll pay $200. Because I love you guys so much. Yep. All right, Yellow Wedge. What civilization was sustained by farming on artificial islands called Chinampas?

Chinampas. Chinampas. C-H-I-M-A-M-P-A-S. Yeah. What civilization? Oh. I'm guessing Aztecs? Correct.

That's a good guess. It sounds like an Aztea. Probably Kinampas. Kina. Oh, okay. China Empas. I vaguely remember it from world history. All right, Purple Wedge.

An Argentinian man left a bequest to a theater company in 1955, provided they used his skull in what Shakespeare play. Chris. Hamlet. Yes. That's pretty gross. All right, green wedge for science. What odd mammal's name comes from the Greek for Flatfoot?

Colin. Is it Platypus? Yes, platypus. All right. question, orange wedge. What clear malt beverage hit the market in the early 90s? Harris. Zima!

Oh, Zima. Do they still, they don't still sell that anyway? I think they, I think they went, they changed hands. They finally went out of business. No, I mean, basically, it's like, it's been replaced by Mike's hard lemonade. Or shan off ice. Right, sure, yeah. Did you guys ever have Zima?

Oh, yeah. Their main selling point was you can practically taste it and it gets you drunk. But it does not taste very good. I remember, so I have had Zemite, yes. All right, good job, Brains. So this week, our topic, I got inspired by Chris. Oh, thank you. Because, Chris, you got really, really sick.

Yes. Oh, we're not doing the incredibly handsome people topic. For next week. Just the sick people. Yeah, I decided that it would be a fun idea to be violently ill on an airplane, on a six-hour airplane ride. I shared that story with everyone, and Karen's like, well, let's talk about it.

all the ways that the human body can mess you up. Yes. So this week we're talking about the human body. Well, I mean, since this show was inspired by horrible things my body did to me. I think I get the right to go first. And with a segment called, help, help, help, I'm drowning.

Oh, positive. So let's say, Colin, let's say, for example, that you were at the beach, and the lifeguard at the beach said, hey, I got to go run and get a drink. Can you just be the lifeguard for a few minutes here? Now, besides the fact that this would be, like, the worst lifeguard ever,

if you were to say yes and get up on the chair and just sort of as a layperson, you're looking out for danger, essentially, and you're trying to identify somebody who is drowning, what do you think you'd be looking for? Well, based on my knowledge of Baywatch and TV, I would assume somebody flailing their arms around wildly in the surf. Right, and they would be saying something like,

help, help, I'm drowning, help, help, I'm drowning, and waving their arms around and trying to grab it things and things of that nature. Right, exactly. And so, I mean, that's essentially, I mean, after watching Baywatch and literally any TV or TV, a TV show or movie in which someone is drowning, that is what we think of. And we're like, oh, I'm going to watch out for drowning people. Then, you know, you get the big

comical red and white life buoy and you throw it to them. And here, grab hold of this! And they grab hold of it and you tow them in with the rope and you know, you pull them back in. Like, thank God, Billy, you're okay. Yeah, oh, Billy. Wow, I was really drowning out there. Right, yeah. And so that's, then you

save somebody from drowning and you get ridden up in the paper. As a matter of fact, if you are looking out for that, will never, ever see people who are actually drowning. This is why I was fired from my job as a lifeguard. Exactly, yes. It was not too long ago. It was really the 1970s when there was a lifeguard named Frank Pia, who was basically

this incredibly influential. You want to get it all out, Karen? Pia, the pool. Right, yes. Oh, yes, excuse me. Let me go back in retcon. This segment is now called Pia in the pool. Lifeguard named Frank Pia, who identified basically the, what he calls, the instinctive

drowning response and he actually filmed people who were drowning because really because people almost drown all the time like all you really have to do is go down to a crowded beach and just like point a camera at a crowded beach and you will start catching people on camera almost drowning and so he would do this and film it and study drowning and basically said okay no there's such a thing as the instinctive drowning response and so here's the good job brain segment that might actually save a life someday all right when a person is drowning what this means is that they're out in the water, they're over their head, and their body is not able to maintain buoyancy, enough buoyancy. And basically, they are unable to keep their

mouth above the water level long enough to take in enough air. When you can't get enough air and you can't get your mouth above water, you are no longer in control of your actions. Because all of the fun things that we do, waving our arms up in the air going, help help them drowning, that's all secondary to your body's central nervous system, like getting oxygen. Right. So as soon as you can't take it in oxygen, your body shuts down all that. And it just starts working on a basic level of autonomic nervous system. That's the part of the brain that controls like your heart beating and sneezing and stuff like that, like not something that you think about.

Involuntary. So your arms, you will start flapping your arms like the wings of a bird laterally, trying to push yourself above the water. your head will tilt back as far as you can get it back to get your mouth above the surface of the water. And you can't talk. We can only talk once breathing is fulfilled. And at this point, you are not in any voluntary control of your actions whatsoever. Your body is just attempting to keep itself alive. This lasts for 20 to 60 seconds before the person goes under for the last time.

So you've got about a minute. And so this is what lifeguards now have to identify. And again, it's only been like since the 1970s that they really truly understood this, that if you throw them the big comical life buoy and go grab this, they can't grab it, their arms are thrashing up and down. They're not aware. Couldn't grab it even if you wanted to. The thing is, sometimes when people drown,

they're people standing all around them. They don't know. They just don't recognize the signs. No, they think they're playing in the water. They think they're just having a good time, you know, thrashing their, bobbing up and down in the water, trying to swim, thrash their hands up and down. And so you'll see lifeguards like pushing their way past crowds of people

to get to one person in the crowd because they recognize that person's going through instinctive drowning response and they've got one chance. They've got 60 seconds maximum to go down there. Now that they've identified this, not only does all of the what to watch for a lifeguard training goes out the window, but all of the, okay, you've identified a drowning person, you've swum out to them. What do you do? Like, that kind of goes out the window. Because typically in lifeguard training classes before this, somebody would be in the water going, help, help, I'm drowning. And then the lifeguard would swim towards them and then the pretend victim

at this point would like reach their arms out and they'd grab onto the lifeguard and they'd be like oh thank you lifeguard and then they both swim back to shore together but lifeguards had to realize now that when they were going out there to save somebody their arms were going to be thrashing up and down in the water

violently and they actually had to avoid getting socked on the head by them and Frank Pia developed what is called the Pia Carey which is a just a very specific technique for, like, getting underneath somebody supporting... Because the first thing you have to do, you don't just grab a drowning person

and start dragging them to shore. You have to get them up. Up above the water line. So they're up above the water line and they can start breathing again. And so it's, like, a simultaneous, like, thing where you get under with your shoulders and your legs and everything,

and you get them up, and you start carrying... I think of dirty dancing when, like, the guy lifts the girl horizontally. I don't think it's like that. I'm pretty sure it's not like that. It's probably not a terrible thought process of, like... Like, it's perpendicular. You make a tea.

I think it's that. they kind of pulled the person around from behind as if you were grabbed somebody from behind to give them a hug and you sort of swim backward I think and I might be wrong about it yeah it's it's probably something to that extent but you've got to get them up right and out of the water that's scary and wonderful at the same time because it's scary that your body would be like no I'm going to control this for you you can't be trusted yeah exactly right but that it does all of these things automatically for you that prolong your your life or uh cause you to be able to be rescued or would cause you to be able to get out of that state.

That was a little dark. I have a quiz for you guys. It's kind of a pallet cleanser. It's called Bring in the Noise, Bring Into Funk. It's about body gunk. Oh. The wonderful things your body makes, natural things your body produces that are a little gross, a little funky.

Somebody said, we're a little sophomoric in the reviews. A little sophomore. And I was like, oh, I'll show you sophomoric. And I was like, oh, they're going to like this quiz. All right. First question. A normal human being produces about 278 gallons of this substance per year. I'm going to go with saliva.

No. That's a lot. urine? No. Sweat. Sweat. Yeah. In a year.

I would think it's more. I produce a lot of saliva in a year. This substance is composed of fluid, white blood, blood, cells, bacteria, and other debris. Chris. Puss. Yes.

C-E-R-A-N-E-P-E-P-O-S. Also known as Cerumen. This is made of oil, sweat, and dried skin cells. That is earwax. Yes. Oh, I was going to guess, I-G-Gung. C-E-R-U-N-E-N-S-R-M-E-N.

Yeah, that's a good one. It sounds like Lord of the Rings, huh? It does, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. This is a form of hardened plaque and is also the same. word for a kind of mathematical study. Plac. Hardened plaque.

Oh, oh. Oh, no. Forget it. It's like calculus. Is that what it is? Yes. Do you know that the word for calculus? Is it the same as tartar?

Yes. Oh, got it. Like calcium. Right, right. Okay, finally. Last question. In ancient Rome, physicians recommended rinsing the mouth with this bodily substance

as a way to get sparkling white teeth. Oh, man. This I have read before, this is urine. Yes. Because it has naturally occurring ammonia. Romans. And I remember reading once that it was such a fad that it wasn't just your own urine, that it was, they would, I'm not, I read this, that they would actually bring in urine from other regions and countries and that various regions were known to be, oh, this is, this is the good stuff. You really want to rinse your mouth with urine from this region.

The Silk Road is actually the urine. Highly prized. What vintage is this? You're like a mouth feel of this. This is an artisan urine. Yeah. Good job, you guys. You really know your buddy gunk.

We know our junk. I'm just going to go for it. Speaking of P. Oh, I had Speaking of P on my good job brand bingo card. Yes, I'm sure you guys and the listeners expect me to mention Pee or Poo Facts for this very episode. So one day for lunch this past week, I had this awesome thing of Palenta and, uh, with spring vegetables. And by spring vegetables,

there were really just, like, different varieties of asparagus. And I'm sure you're way ahead of me now with my story and see where this is going. So for the rest of the day, every time I went to the bathroom, like my pee smelled weird. Like, my pee had asparagus.

It was asparagus, right? And we all know this if we eat asparagus. Your pee smells weird. Does it happen to everybody? So here's the thing. I'm sitting there thinking, why does this happen? What's actually causing this?

And is it just me? Is it everybody? And so here it is. All right, I have some quotes from important people. Benjamin Franklin said, A few stems of asparagus eaten shall give our urine a disagreeable odor. But Marcel Proust says, Asparagus transforms my chamber pot into a flask of perfume.

So it seems like it might smell different for everybody. Most of the time it smells bad for most people. And this is why. Asparagus has aptly asparagusic acid. And so these are the only sulfur-containing compounds unique to asparagus. And so when your body metabolizes this type of acid, you get methylmercaptin, which is a byproduct gas. And, of course, this is the same type of gas that makes your bad breath smell bad, makes farts smell bad. So it's related to a lot of sulfur, bad smelling things, skunk, boiled cabbage.

Rotten eggs. Yes, all within kind of the same family. Right. And so the ability to produce this gas in urine after eating asparagus was once thought to be a genetic trait. Some people genetically might break it down and some don't. But actually recent research suggests that this odor is actually produced by everybody. Everybody has asparagus pee.

It's actually the detection of it varies from person to person. So your pee will always smell weird, but maybe. You're not wired in your olfactory system. Yep, to smell it or maybe it smells a little bit different. That's why Marcel Prowse thinks it smells awesome, and Benjamin Franklin and me, and probably all, most of you guys, think it smells really weird. Maybe perfume just didn't smell that good back in that. Yeah, that's true. They were still working on it.

And also, another personal story, when I was a kid, I don't know, I think it was because of a dare or something, but I was 10. And I drank a whole picture of grape Kool-Aid. Okay. And then for the rest of the day, my pee was green. Not purple. It was super green. Sure. Well, because grape collate is purple, but there is interesting thing is purple for this really just a really deep blue, right?

And yellow and blue make green. Ah, that makes sense. The underlying theme, I guess, of this segment is just pee has stuff that you metabolize or can't metabolize. Right. You are what you pee. You pee. I actually learned recently, well, I guess it was a couple years ago now, but I learned that, you know, turns my pee red, really, really red, for a long time.

No, because, I mean, I did not know that, and I ate, Karen made a bunch of beats, like a bunch of roasted beats that were super, super, like, roasted and just so deep red and delicious that we ate a lot of them that that evening, I thought I had cancer. I was like, I'm going to die. I'm dead, that's it. There's red coming out of a place. There shouldn't be red coming out of us. Exactly.

And, I mean, I talked to a friend about it, and he's like, well, what did you eat? I'm like, well, like, nothing. I'm like, I had some eggs for breakfast, and then we ate. like a whole buttload of beats. Oh. Yep. In addition to beats, blackberries and rhubarb also turn your pee, red, or pink.

Really? So multivitamins. If you eat a lot of vitamins and, you know, your body only takes what it needs and then it just kind of process the rest and it escapes through pee. You might notice that your pee will be neon yellow. And this has happened to me. I've heard that from vitamins. Yeah.

And there you go. My pee lowdown. Have you guys heard of methyl blue? So methyl blue, it's a substance that'll turn your pee blue. And like if you're a medical student or a urologist, you might know this. And I think they use it for diagnostic purposes. And pranks. And pranks.

So I remember hearing about it where you get someone, you sneak it into your buddy's drink or whatever, and then they go to the bathroom and they're peeing blue all of a sudden. So imagine how shocked you are, not at red, but blue if you're not expecting it coming out. Yeah. There are a lot of different medication that also alters the color of your pee. But just even normal foods will make it smell weird. It will make it look weird. Well, we've talked a little bit about gunks that your body produces,

and we've talked a little bit about expelling things from your body. So I'm going to combine the two and talk about sneezing. Oh, okay. An involuntary body response. Yes, yes. That is often associated with some fluid, a gunk of some sort. The technical scientific name for sneezing is sternutation. Sounds like a pregnancy thing, actually.

Sturneutating. Don't open the door. He's in there sternutating. Yeah, yeah. The sterneitating room. Why is he strenutating if it's about pregnancy? That's true. That's a topic for another show, Dana.

Yeah. I love sneezing because this is one of those, like, areas of biology and physiology that you can tell that researchers involved in this field have a good sense of humor. Oh, yeah. You know what I mean? And I think it's one of those things like where if you're studying poo for your living or sneezing, it's just, I mean, some things are inherently funny, and it's going to bleed through into your research.

There's a lot of funny acronyms and names in the world of sneezing research. Awesome. Yeah. So I got, I got some great terms and some portmanteau words and some horrible, horrible acronyms that we'll get to shortly here. So sneezing, like a lot of things, it's partly really well understood. Like, we really understand the physiology of it, like how the sequence goes. But the neurology part of it, a lot of it is really poorly understood, like a lot of neurological things. At the base of it, you've got your typical, your prototypical sneeze. Like, I think we all understand how that works, you know. So, like, nasal irritation, there's some particles or. dust or something in your nose, and then that sets off a chain reaction in your nervous system that forces your body to expel air out and get whatever's in your nose out. And so, I mean, that explains all of your sneezes like pollen or dust or pepper in the face or sneezing powders. Like, these are all things we're really familiar with. You get stuff in your nose, your body wants to get it out. I hope you're going to touch upon something that I actually suffer. Oh, I am sure that I am without even getting there.

All right. Because I'm very curious why I do it. I am sure that we will get there. What really interests me are the atypical sneezes. The things that are, it gets into the area, we don't really know why the body does this. So I think this is where we're getting. So, all right, so let me ask you guys a little question. So we've all been there. You're like, oh, you know, you feel the sneeze coming on. And like, you want to sneeze.

You want to get it out because you're like, oh, it's trying to me. Like, what's a very common bit of advice that people will give you? Look at light. Look at light. Yes. And this works for me. This absolutely works for me. This doesn't work for everybody.

This part of sneezing is really hotly debated. They don't really, really understand why this is. I had heard that it was if your optic nerves that are sending the light messages down are close enough to the nerves and the nose near where that would set off a sneeze, that that might explain it. Is that one of the debate points? That's absolutely one of the leading theories. And so behind your face, if you were to peel off your face, you would see.

Which we are not for a second recommending that you do. If you were to peel off your face, you would see, among many other things, you would see the trigeminal nerve. And this is one of the major nerves. And it extends behind your nose, behind your eyes, behind your jaw, and the whole front of your face, basically. The pathways that are... It's the face nerve. It's your main face nerve. And the nerves that are responsible for triggering sneezes, we know that it's the trigeminal nerve.

We also know that it's responsible for optical pathways and things like that involved in. vision. So one of the theories is that because they're so closely related in terms of the pipes, they can maybe cross-stimulate each other and it can kind of work both directions. Right. Now, my fiancee, who I sometimes mentioned, is Taiwanese. And we've had this discussion. And she's just like, I think this is a white people thing. And it might be like differences in likeranial structure. Different ethnic groups might cause there to be a difference as far as whether you're susceptible to this or not or location. She was just like, I've never, never heard. Never heard of people in my family, like, sneezing because they looked at light.

As a kid, every time I step outside in the daytime, I will always sneeze. I secretly thought I was allergic to the sun and was freaked out. And I realized it's just I'm really sensitive. Oh, God. I mean, you guys are set me up perfectly here. This is great. So, Karen, you do, in fact, suffer from what is called the photic sneeze reflex. Cool. Yes, at a hypersensitive level. Yeah. It describes. It describes a scenario where virtually any bright light exposure will trigger sneezing. And for some people, it's really bad. It'll be fits of sneezing. Like, they'll walk out into the bright light, and they'll start sneezing for several minutes and not be able to stop.

So it'll be lucky you don't have that extreme. It does not affect everybody. They estimate about a fourth of the population has photic sneeze reflex. And Chris, it's so funny you say this in the course of doing research, they have found it is overwhelmingly present in Caucasian populations. And it is largely prevalent among women. I am taking a victory lap. I'm taking a... Virginia can also take a victory lap, but yes.

Okay, so now the photic sneeze reflects such a boring name. Don't you think that that could benefit from a snappy acronym? Yeah. You are suffering from Karen what is known as the Achu syndrome. Oh, my God. They were so proud when they came up with it. I can already... I told you.

You have to have a good sense of humor to do our research sneezes. The autosomal dominant, compelling, heliophthalmic, outlawful. burst syndrome. Basically, sun makes you go sneeze. But you also heard in their autosomal, it is believed to be genetic. The photic sneeze reflects is... My dad has a two. There you go. There is another phenomenon that apparently is well known to many people. I had never heard of this. But if you are really full, if you've just eaten a lot at the end of a big meal, for some people, this will trigger sneezing fits. And much the way the photic sneeze reflects, sometimes uncontrollably, The name for this is snatiation.

Porthandot of sneezing and satiation. It's good. It gets worse. It gets worse. Not only is snatiation a portmanteau word. These people are having it is also one of the worst acronyms I've ever heard in my life. Sneezing non-controllably at a time of indulgence of the appetite, a trait inherited and ordained to be named. Not bad.

Tortured. Not bad. But done with tongue firmly in cheek. No, and then again, reading about this, a lot of people are like, oh, my God, I thought I was the only one who did this or, oh, my God, my dad does this, yeah. But there is ample room for research, you know, young listeners if you want to get into the field of sneezing study. And workplay.

It sounds like, yeah, they're down with some puns. Yeah, you better come prepared with your bad puns. Very quickly, just to wrap up. So we talked earlier about ways to trigger sneezes. What are some of the best ways that you guys have heard to stop a sneeze? Hold your eyes open because you close your eyes when you sneeze. So if you keep your eyes open You'll make your eyes fall out

That is true Thanks grandma You can't decide The one I always remember from cartoons Is the finger under the nose That's a real thing Oh it is? That is absolutely a real thing

There is a pressure point Right under the bony part of your nose I learned this and it works for me All of us are touching our nose at now For me at least It absolutely works It will squelch the nerves in your face are all really interconnected in some indescribable ways.

All right, let's take a quick break and a word from our sponsor. It feels really good to be productive, but a lot of the time it's easier said than done, especially when you need to make time to learn about productivity so you can actually, you know, be productive. But you can start your morning off right and be ready to get stuff done in just a few minutes with the Inc. Productivity Tip of the Day podcast. You'll hear advice on everything from how to build. confidence to how to get the best night's sleep.

New episodes drop every weekday, and each one is five minutes or less, so you only have to listen a little to get a lot more out of your weekdays. Listen and subscribe to Inc. Productivity Tip of the Day, wherever you get your podcasts. That's Inc. Productivity Tip of the Day, wherever you get your podcasts. When Johan Rawl received the letter on Christmas Day 1776, he put it away to read later. Maybe he thought it was a season's greeting and wanted to save it for the fireside. But what it actually was was a warning, delivered to the Hessian colonel, letting him know that General George Washington was crossing the Delaware and would soon attack his forces.

The next day, when Rawl lost the Battle of Trenton and died from two colonial Boxing Day musket balls, the letter was found, unopened in his vest pocket. As someone with 15,000 unread emails in his inbox, I feel like there's a lesson there. Oh, well, this is the Constant, a history of getting things wrong. I'm Mark Chrysler. Every episode, we look at the bad ideas, mistakes, and accidents that misshaped our world. Find us at Constantpodcast.com or wherever you get your podcasts. And welcome back.

You are listening to Good Job Brain, and this week we're talking about the amazing human body. I would like to title this. Old Wise Tales. Bits of received wisdom passed down throughout the generations, some of which turn out to actually be true, even though the old wives in question didn't understand why. Or science in general. Right, yes, or yes.

And then some of which turn out to be total baloney. And so, this quiz is about Old Wives Tales. Are they true or what? And I'll let you guys do thumbs up and thumbs down. You guys can vote. And I will let you the listeners know how our panel is voting. and then we'll reveal the actual answer. Thumbs up for truth.

Thumbs up for truth. Number one. True or false, old wives tale. Drinking warm milk makes you sleepy. Everybody says true. Everybody is equal parts right and wrong. It's true for infants that after infants have a meal of warm body temperature, 98.6 degree breast milk, they will fall asleep.

Is it true for adults? Yeah, if they're conditioned to do it. It might actually Yeah, warmth does make you sleepy, right? Kind of what happens is like It might make you fall asleep Because it makes you fall asleep Because you're thinking it's going to

So it does and it worked the last time And it's very comforting But no, it's not like there's people are like Oh well there's triptophan in warm milk Well, I guess, yeah But it's not gonna, yeah How about this? How about chicken soup is good for a cold?

Now of course we're veering into some dangerous territory obviously. There might be, there's room for debate in a lot of these, but chicken soup is good for a cold. Is that false or is that true? Fall? Karen says false, Colin says true. Dana says true. As per the Mayo Clinic, chicken soup is good for a cold. This is what the Mayo Clinic's website says. First, it acts as an anti-inflammatory, the site says, by inhibiting the movement of neutrophils, immune system cells that participate in the body's inflammatory response. Second, it temporarily speeds up. the movement of mucus possibly help relieving congestion and limiting the amount of time viruses

are in contact with the nose lining. So it's not necessarily that it cures your cold, but does things that help you. Yeah. Reading in the dark will damage your eyesight. Don't read in the dark. You'll damage your eyesight. Everybody says false. It is false.

Yay. You might get a headache because you're putting strain on your eyes that you don't really have to, but it's not like your vision is going to get permanently from 2020 to see. 16, 20, because you read in the dark. Take that, grandma. I actually thought it improves your eyesight. And this may be another old wife's tale or a baloney science. You're working out your eye muscle.

So it's almost like you're going to the gym, but for your eyeballs. You're doing sets. No, baloney? No, baloney. I don't think it works. I think that, unfortunately, is baloney. You don't really want to strain your eyeballs. This is an interesting saying that I only just learn about.

Gain a child, lose a tooth. as in your dental health will degenerate with pregnancy correlation or at least a causation between getting pregnant and worsening dental health true or false I'm gonna put an asterisk on my thumb

I can see that maybe true at one time everybody pops an asterisk on their thumb and says true it is true it's not at a one to one ratio and not simply because you have a baby and a tooth falls out etc and here's what Delta Dental says on the subject. Morning sickness when you're pregnant because vomiting will erode your tooth

enamel. You will, you could actually, you could also hormonal changes during pregnancy could give you dry mouth and having less saliva in your mouth will increase the risk of cavities. And of course, when you're pregnant, you have an increased desire, says Delta Dental for sugary and starchy foods. And I had this whole theory of like, oh, well, maybe the mother's body diverts nutrients or resources to the baby and then the calcium deficiency. The baby eats your That was, I think, the made-up reason for a while. Like, oh, well, you know, it's all going to the baby and there's less for herself and whatever. But, no, it's all these things.

That makes a lot more sense. And stress is bad for your teeth, too. Stress is bad for your gums. Of course, yeah. So if you're pregnant, you're watching a lot of things when you're pregnant, you know, watch out for your teeth. Yeah. You should eat bread crust because that's where all the good stuff is. Dennis is false, comments is false.

Karen says false. It's actually true. Really? Well, it's not because, like, all the nutrients and the bread migrate out to the crust, but because the browning reaction, the Maillard reaction of browning, actually creates higher levels of beneficial antioxidants in the crust there. Now, of course, you could just, you know, go ahead and toast the bread if you wanted to. Finally, wait one hour after eating before you swim.

It is dangerous to swim right after you've eaten. is true. I'll say no. No, it's false. Now, okay. So, digestion does require oxygen, like everything else your body does. And so, yeah, are you competing a little bit? Like, sure.

Now, Karen, you would not go to in and out and eat five burgers before running a marathon. No. Right? No. I'll do it after. You're going to get a cramp. You're going to feel bad. You're going to feel bloated.

Like, that's a great reason to not eat a huge meal and then go and then, like, athletically swim around. But there's nothing special about swimming versus jogging or push up. Or push-ups or any other. Right. You don't load up on heavy food. I thought it was more like, don't eat a sandwich and then get in the pool and throw up and then ruin the pool for everybody. Because it is embarrassing for me. You have to clean it out.

And again, you hear about tons and tons and tons of cases where children drown. And it's like one of the biggest killers of children is like, it's drowning. But you never hear a story about little Jimmy Johnson, ate a sandwich and then went in the pool. Only waited 49 minutes. Yep, yep, yeah. Now it's up to our generation. to set these facts straight. That's right. That's true.

All right. Well, I didn't think we could have a body show without a discussion of funky names for various body parts. So many of the words are just strange words in and of themselves. But for very plain things, I would imagine. So, yeah. So I'm going to, we're going to talk about a mix of things here. So most of these are going to be, like, the technical name for common things. Okay.

Some of these are going to be things like, oh, I didn't know that had a name. You guys know what the name for, the little thing that hangs down in the back of your throat is? Chris, I think, buzzed in. The uvula. It is the uvula. And I remember on the playground, like, I can see your uvula. That sounds, because it sounds dirty.

So many of these are going to sound dirty. Why does that sound dirty? The uvula. Oh, like vulva. Because it sounds like vulva, yeah. Juvula, of course, I didn't realize this. It makes so much sense. It comes from Latin.

It means little grape. Yeah, it's your mouth grape. Shut your mouth, grate. Shut your mouth grape. If I asked you guys to find a lunula on your body, where would you look? Looniola. So like moon. Like your Latin, yep, you guys, it's Latin for little moon, little moon.

I'll give you a hint. Like, okay, Karen's going to take a stab at it. Is it the thing in your fingernail? Yes, that is what it is. That's great. Your lunula is the little lighter sort of half crescent shape at the base of your finger. Why is it a different color? It's a different color because it's actually a slightly different.

consistency of your skin. That's where it grows from. That's essentially where it grows from. Yeah. Like, if you get, if you get that part damaged, it'll damage your nail really forever. Yeah. Yeah. All right, guys, we have to talk about your axilla.

Oh, Chris, right off the bat. This is your armpit. It is. Your armpit is your axilla. How do you spell it? X I-L-A. Yeah. Right.

There have axillary thermometers that go in your armpit. Beautiful. Is that why Axe's body? sprays call axe? No. I would not give them enough. I would not give them that much credit. Maybe.

Maybe. So I think when I was in maybe like seventh or eighth grade, I had a biology teacher and asked the class, with the preface, nothing dirty. What's the favorite part of your body? So I picked for my favorite part of my body, this part right under your nose. So I'm touching the little grooved rid. Oh, yeah. Do you guys know what this word is?

I've heard it before. This is a fantastic word. It's, oh. The Framulam? You're so close. It is the philtrum. Filtrum. Ph-I-L-T-R-U-M.

What does it do? The prevailing theory is that in a lot of mammals that need to have a wet nose pad, it functions to keep it moist. So it moves moisture between your nose and your mouth. But it's for animals where they really need to rely on their sense of smell. So the theory is like, as humans, we don't really use our sense of smell that much. So for us, the filtrum probably does nothing. But for dogs, they'll have a lot. little ridge down their nose and it has that kind of capillary action it keeps their nose wet

Dana I so when we're talking about the filter you said frenulum was the first thing that came to mind that sounds familiar it's in the head region uh the frenulum is the butt cleft in your chin no oh that's a good one the frenulum is the little flap of skin that connects your tongue on the inside of the yeah oh yeah yeah frenulum all right well and i'll just close out here i will say i was going to wrap up with serumen dana but you beat me to the punch My only bit to add with Saruman is Nothing has made me quite so queasy as the Wikipedia page for Saruman

which has two just gross Q-tips with earwax globed all over them And I just had to close the page You're not supposed to do that by the way You're not supposed to put that in your ear wax That's true Because it's good for you

That stuff in there, yeah Don't put Q-Tips in your belly button Have you done it before we're talking about that I've done it and it feels so weird You should not put Q-tips in your belly, but... Really? Yes, it does. It makes me want to go pee.

90% of people have an in-y, and occasionally you get an outy. I have an-in-y. I have an-in-I. I have an-in-y. I have an-in-y. We're all in-e. Like, if you put your finger in there. They put your shirts down, people.

I know. Yeah, everybody's bellies came out. I want to make sure it was still there. Oh, holy cow. Thank goodness this section isn't about the butthole. Or December of last year, they figured out that everybody has a different. ecology of bacteria in their belly buttons. It's almost like fingerprints.

They're so different. University of North Carolina, they did the belly button biodiversity project. They had 60 volunteers give belly button samples. And they found 2,368 bacterial species in those belly buttons. 1,458 of them maybe are new to science. Like they didn't know. Wow. The last two horizons for biodiversity are rainforests and belly buttons.

Your belly button is just like a rainforests. Because they had no idea that you should look for things there. I mean, there were amazing things in there. Like this one science writer, there was a bacteria in his belly button that they'd only ever previously found in Japanese soil. He's never been to Japan. And it's in his belly button. My word. There was somebody else who had bacteria in their belly button that they've only ever found in ice caps and thermal vents.

What's going on in our belly buttons? I know. Actually, that'd be interesting. interesting if I'm seeing dollar signs here if I had all this resources and technology like it'd be so interesting to subject yourself to like an individual belly button ecology test and I would get a report of here that different things that are living in my belly button and where else they're found like a big infographic you can do that you can do that you can get a sample and then they'll take a photo basically they'll give you a breakdown of everything that's in your

belly button like what bacteria are common like we should all do this yeah good job brick good job belly button thank you bonobos for sponsoring our belly button testing your money is going to good use just sleep soundly at night yeah it's for science furthering the cause of human knowledge and they can't figure out if it has to do with gender or our weight or ethnicity or diet they don't know they don't know they just figured out to look there's something in there the cure for something is yeah this This whole section just makes me feel really weird. I just keep thinking about my belly button. Be careful about digging your belly button.

Don't go, yeah. Because there's all sorts of crazy bacteria in there. You don't want to, like, put any cuts in there. That's true. You can get terrible infections. Yeah. Yeah, so be careful when you're cleaning. We just, like, told everybody all these magical, wonderful things that are in their belly button.

Don't touch it. Don't look down there. Don't do anything. Be very gentle with it. It's delicate. It's a delicate ecosystem. Yep. Yeah.

Well, speaking of amazing body growth, I think a lot of people know this for a fact. The male facial hair is the fastest growing hair anywhere in your body. You guys would know. So I kind of... The guides would know. I don't know. Well, not us, but some real men would know.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Now that we've made it clear, she's just talking about hypothetical men. Yeah, exactly. So I had a burning question, and it's why are 5 o'clock shadows called 5 o'clock shadows? Oh. Why is it 5 o'clock? I always thought that the...

the assumption was you shave in the morning, you go to work, and by five o'clock, you've grown back enough hair that it's at the end of the day. That's what I always took. Oh, I thought it was when you wake up, and it was five o'clock in the morning, and you're getting ready. You know, you've got that five o'clock shadow, so you've got to shave it off because it's not like you have like hair on your face. You have like... Well, I was just always like the five o'clock is like the five o'clock and like, well, it's five o'clock somewhere, time to go drink. It's like, end of the day five o'clock. Oh, I thought it was the beginning of the day five o'clock. Enlightenness, Karen. Well, so yeah, why five o'clock? Why isn't it four? Why isn't it six?

why 5 it doesn't rhyme with anything and it could be like oh 9 to 5 job so here this is why it's 5 o'clock specifically i'm going to throw this in there by the way at some point in this it's going to it's going to be revealed that it came from somebody's advertising campaign i was thinking of madman yeah or like burmache or something you guys are stealing all my material oh sorry the number one lesson Karen you should know is don't let us speculate yeah yeah okay go on well so okay well so okay well Well, the saying, five o'clock is important because in 19th century, like, upper crust, British people, there is an English habit of taking tea at that time at five o'clock. So we have five o'clock tea.

And it could be, you know, a social thing. It could be like something you do at home. And so the teas became popular with middle classes and eventually trickled from the UK cross the Atlantic to USA. And this light, late afternoon tea time slash meal were renamed five o'clock dinners. So there is some sort of tradition and that's where you meet people or your family or your friends. In the 1930s, the 5 o'clock shadow, the term was first officially coined in advertising by the Gem Razor Blade Company. Good job, Brain has made me so cynical by now. Anything, anything

that is a commonly used phrase, exactly. Yeah. So the Gem Razor Blade Company wanted to convince dudes that they needed to use their product. Right. So the company created a campaign that basically shamed men and convinced men that they suffered from, quote, ugly afternoon beard growth. Right. So it is 5 p.m. So it's like you shave in the morning, but your razor sucks.

Yeah. If you had a gem razor, it would shave close enough that. Exactly. So come 5 o'clock, you show up in public to your tea with your friends or with your family and people will be like, oh, you don't want to show up in some stubble. You better use the gem razor blade. Inventing a problem where nonexistent. Exactly, right.

And really, I mean, like we talked about listering before, like really creating a problem, really hyping up the horror of an unsightliness of having even a little bit stubble, even though maybe you don't even have it, but the campaigns made you think, oh, maybe I do suffer this problem. Right, right. I would have wager that it was a totally authentic kind of folk saying. You know, actually, I'd like to throw this out there on that note. I attempted to research this, but couldn't do it to my satisfaction.

And so I put it to you guys, end up to the good job brain listeners. You can find me a good definitive answer on this. I was reading an article, and someone said within the story, like, maybe they'll get a second chance to make a first impression. And I thought to myself, I'm like, was this like in Benjamin Franklin's Almanac or whatever? Or is this actually just a head and shoulders line? Because that was their advertising slogan. You never get a second chance to make a first impression. I'm pretty sure that predates head and shoulders.

That's the thing. I can't find any evidence that it does or doesn't. So I'm wondering, did head and shoulders come up with that line for its advertising campaign and now it's made its way into the dictionary of English language idioms? Or does it predate their shoulders? Did they co-opt it, right? Yes. So I'd be really curious to hear if anybody can nail that down.

Go to it. Also, hair is just kind of amazing. I didn't know this, but human hair is virtually indestructible. Yeah. Aside from being flammable, which I have done before with my eyebrows. On purpose? No, like in science class. Oh, yeah, I know it's really dirt. I mean, that's one of the reasons that you have to get such crazy corrosive chemicals for, like, drain clogs is because most drain clogs are hair.

Yes. And it, nothing dissolves. It won't dissolve in water. Hair is waterproof. It cannot be destroyed by cold. It deteriorates or it decays at such a slow, slow rate. A change of climate doesn't do anything. Huh. natural forces doesn't do anything. It's resistant to so many types of acids and corrosome chemicals.

So appreciate the characteristics of hair the next time you see a ball of hair in your shower. I'm like, wow, that stuff came from me and it's super strong. No frills, delivers. Get groceries delivered to your door from No Frills with PC Express. Shop online and get $15 in PC optimum points on your first five orders. Shop now at no-frails.ca. So we covered a lot of gross things. That was pretty good.

We went from head to toe. I would have to say for a show about the human body, it could have been far grosser, given who we are. We were pretty restrained. Yeah, we were. I have a final quiz, and this is kind of a piggyback from our last episode. People really liked my Capital Capitals quiz.

I just want to let you guys know that the quiz from, Last episode, episode 55, that was the cream of the crop. Those were like the best material I had. And people were like, oh, maybe we should do a part two. Okay, so here we go. I have a part two, but I just want to warn you guys, they're not that great. And also, to be fair, you're limited by the pool of world capitals. You can't just create new capitals.

Yes. So here's the premise. In case if you missed last episode, I'm going to be describing something, kind of like a crossword clue. And the answer I'm looking for is a homophone or a sound-a-like word that sounds like an actual world capital. The example I gave was an activity that buffaloes do. And the answer is Rome.

Yes. They roam. And Rome is capital city of Italy. Here we go. A rooster grenade. Bangkok. Bangkok. Correct.

Yes. To some again Chris Riyadh Riyadh Riyadh Riyadh Riyadh

Saudi Arabia Oh god All right Basketball star Jeremy's nickname If he played in Antarctica What's his name

What's his nickname Jeremy Lynn Oh Lincenity Iceland Iceland Cold Iceland That's a

capital city. Whatever. Vick to Vic. It's good enough. Yeah. It's going to be something for... Lemberg. Burlin.

Wow. Okay. That's good. Okay. All right. That's good. That's good. All right.

All right, guys. An architectural way to physically stop an influx of cute rodents. All right. Mice. So, a wall. Mice. Mice. Mice.

My search. Rat. House Architectural. It's going to be like... Oh, more roguerovenge. Oh. Raccoon.

Squirrel. Squirrel. Squirrel town. Amsterdam. Oh. Okay. Hamster. I said Samalike's not a direct homophone.

Amsterdam. Oh, okay. Well, we'll see. You think Yogi is able to do it? Um. Oh, oh, is this Canberra? Yes. Wow.

All right. What a New Englander would call a small nocturnal mammal with huge eyes? No, nocturnal mammal. Mammar's marmosets? What are nocturnal mammals, large eyes? Oh, Lema. Lima. Yes, Lima.

Lima. Oh, Lima. Oh, Lima. Lima. Yeah. Lima. Lima. Kindergarten.

Yep. All right. Last one. Not very strong, but we'll see. This is better than last time. Yeah. I think they're all strong. They're all good.

They're all good. Fuzzy plant bovine. Moscow. Moscow. Very good. That was great. Yay. Thank you.

I'm glad we did that again. Thank you. All right. Lima. Lima. Lima. I am not a Lima. And that's our show.

Thank you guys for joining me. And thank you guys, listeners, for listening in. Hope you learn a lot about the wonderful facts about our own bodies. Oh, we've got boogers. We'll get him next time. Oh, we didn't forget. We didn't think about it. Well, we didn't do boogers.

No, we didn't. Nor poop. All right. Boogers and poop. Well, every show is about poop. Yeah, that's true. That's true. That's true.

Next time. Human body, too, electric boogerloo. Oh, that was good. That was good. Electric boogerloo. Well, you can find us on iTunes, on Stitcher, on SoundCloud, and also on our website, which is good job brain.com. Check out our sponsor at bonobos.com, and we'll see you guys next week. Bye.

Bye. If you like this podcast, can we recommend another one? It's called Big Picture Science. You can hear it wherever you get your podcast, and its name tells part of the story. The big picture questions and the most interesting research in science. Seth and I are the host. Seth is a scientist. I am Molly and I'm a science journalist.

And we talk to people smarter than us and we have fun along the way. The show is called Big Picture Science. And as Seth said, you can hear it wherever you get your podcast.