Science Friday - Spaghetti Science And Mouth Taping Myths

Episode Date: July 10, 2025

Most pasta is made from just two ingredients—flour and water. For decades this humble food has prompted physicists around the world to try to understand its mysterious properties and answer questions like: Why does a stick of spaghetti break into three pieces and not cleanly into two? And why is cacio e pepe so hard to perfect? The answers reveal more about the building blocks of the universe than you might expect. Host Ira Flatow talks with Joseph Howlett, math writer at Quanta Magazine, and author of a recent story for the BBC about spaghetti science.And, if you frequent the wellness world on social media, you may have seen a trend popular with influencers: using adhesive tape to seal one’s mouth shut while sleeping. This is intended to help the sleeper breathe through their nose all night, which people claim has a slew of benefits including improved quality of sleep, reduced sleep apnea, a more defined jawline, and a brightened complexion. But should you add mouth taping to your nighttime routine? According to Dr. Linda Lee, physician and surgeon at Massachusetts Eye and Ear in Boston, you should be evaluated by a professional first.Dr. Lee joins Host Flora Lichtman to talk about the right way to start nose breathing, what the scientific literature says (and doesn’t say) about mouth taping, and how social media is changing the information patients seek from their physicians. Transcripts for each episode are available at sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

Hi, this is Ira Flato. You're listening to Science Friday. Today on the show, are you part of that viral mouth taping trend? We'll offer some advice and when and if you should tape that mouth shut. And then open wide for the science of spaghetti. I was asking every scientist I talked to. Like, what is it about spaghetti that gets you all so obsessed? I love pasta. I love to cook it. I'll have to make pasta dishes. There are really really, two schools of thought about what to do with spaghetti. There's those that slip the raw spaghetti strands whole into the boiling water, and then there are people like me who try to break the spaghetti into two pieces so it more easily fits into the pan. But you know what happens? You find that

it always breaks into like three pieces and never cleanly into two. And it's not just me. For decades, this humble food has prompted physicists from all over the world to try to understand pasta's mysterious properties. Why can't you break it into two pieces? And what's in the secret sauce that makes cacho a pepi so hard to perfect? Well, my next guest wrote about the scientists cooking up the answers to these questions and more. He did it for a recent piece for the BBC. Joseph Howlett is math staff writer at Quantum Magazine based in New York City. Joseph, welcome to Science Friday. Thanks so much for having me, Ira. I'm a huge fan.

I want to start with famous physicist Richard Feynman's addition to the spaghetti Science Club. Not that I'm surprised, given the fanciful nature of his work, but how did he get hooked on studying the stuff? Apparently it was one of his favorite foods. He noticed that if you hold both ends of a strand of dry spaghetti and break it, you can never break it cleanly into two pieces. And he wondered why that is. I guess Feynman just can't turn his physics brain off. And him and his colleagues spent basically the entire night breaking pieces of spaghetti until the kitchen floor was covered with it. This is a piece of physics folklore now that Feynman had this obsession with spaghetti.

Wow. So this was just the beginning of his romance with spaghetti, right? Yeah, I mean, the question he opened up became a real line of research that hasn't ended even now. And people are still finding out the mysteries of breaking spaghetti. So how did other physicists build on this curiosity, on his curiosity? Well, for a long time, nobody could really understand what was happening. Until 2005, when a couple of researchers made a model that explained how it fragments and how the tension that you build in a strand of spaghetti distributes itself over the spaghetti so that it has to break in more than one spot at a time.

and this won an Ig Nobel Prize the following year, 2006. So this was kind of the ostensible answer to the question, but scientists have continued to study it, and just a few years ago, a group of MIT mathematicians figured out that you could break it into two pieces if you twist it first. I know it's hard to imagine twisting a brittle strand of spaghetti, but with lab equipment, you can do it.

You could twist it so well that there's no tension in the middle. Wow. So that's kind of distributed across the whole thing. And then if you break it, it'll break perfectly in two pieces. You know, the geek in me has to try this. You'll end the night like Feynman, I'm sure, with the kitchen floor covered in Spaghetti. Yeah, I should be another Feynman. You're right about another pressing issue, the spaghetti problem.

When you suck spaghetti into your mouth, it always slaps in your face, doesn't it? Yeah, you always end up with sauce on your face, or at least I did when I was slurping single strands of spaghetti as a kid. And a physicist and mathematician, George F. Carrier, was really intrigued by this problem and wrote a serious academic treatise on it. He called it the spaghetti problem. So he was basically wondering, as you slurp it in, why does it always slap the side of your face? Why can't you slurp it in cleanly? And he was able to answer this with basic physics. It had to do with all of these different acoustic modes that come into play when you move something long and bendy.

Let's move on to figuring out the secret sauce. What drove Italian physicist to try to figure out the physics of why sometimes Caccio I Pepe fails to come together properly? Yeah, so there was this group of Italian scientists at the Max Planck Institute in Dresden, and they were lamenting how they would often be trying to make Caccio Pepe and notice that the sauce, which has made a pasta water and cheese and nothing else, would sometimes suddenly form these big clumps that you could never break up and you would have to throw out your entire batch of pasta. And this was horrible for them

and it was particularly embarrassing when they would invite over their German friends and make a mess in front of them. So they decided to put together an apparatus to study why this happens and if there's a way around it. And what did they discover? Fortunately for us,

these Italian scientists are world-leading experts on the physics of phase separation. which is when you have a solution that's a mixture of different things, and they form liquid droplets within the solution. That was key to them understanding what was happening when things clumped into what they called the mozzarella phase. For them, this was the phase separation that made a clump of cheese within the pasta that you couldn't break up.

They figured out that this had to do with a couple of things. And what they realized was the pasta water has some starch, which is essential to mixing the sauce. but not quite enough to ensure that clumping doesn't happen. So if you accidentally heat your pasta enough, and this could be a difference of a few degrees, they found that these clumps inevitably form. And the way around it they decided was to artificially add extra starch

more than the pasta water could supply. So they did this with cornstarch. And if you add this extra little bit of starch, you can completely avoid the possibility of the mozzarella phase, regardless of how much you heat the sauce. Wow. You know, it's such a popular dish. You would have thought some famous chef would have figured this out instead of some scientists.

That is exactly what they figured out as they were writing the paper. They found a YouTube video of a famous Roman chef, a Michelin Star Chef, Luciano Monosilio, who had said exactly this in his video. He had said he made a recipe for Caccio-Ape where you add additional cornstarch, and you can completely avoid this clumping phenomenon. It's kind of a foolproof recipe. The researcher says it's the only time they've ever cited a recipe in a scientific paper. All right.

Well, then they must figure out that there must be something that helps us better understand science or life on Earth when we understand the perfect recipe for Cachioi Pepe. Yeah, so it turns out that what happens when you mess up your Caccio I Pepe might be the same kind of accident that caused life on Earth to begin. Really? Yeah, because this phase separation stuff, forming clumps with intellectuals. You can kind of imagine that in the primordial goop where the things that were precursors to cells initially formed, right? You have this like dispersed solution and then you need to, you need the important stuff, the proteins, to like find a way to all get together and build more complex molecules. And people think that may have happened due to the physics of phase separation. You know, we've just talked about a few different studies, which raises the question, why are physicists so obsessed with spaghetti?

I mean, it's just flour and water, right? Exactly. And I think that's part of the story. I mean, I was asking every scientist I talked to. Like, what is it about spaghetti that gets you all so obsessed? One thing that came up a lot was exactly what you said, that it's a very simple substance. It's just flour and water. And yet you get all of these complicated mechanical properties out of it.

It's brittle and stiff and strong, and it breaks in these weird ways. And yet when you cook it, it becomes this, like, springy, soft, pliable thing that you can tie into knots. It's slippery and it's also kind of sticky. It's just so many things at once with only two ingredients. And it's cheap to experiment with, right? Yeah, that was a big part of it too. The scientists who were breaking spaghetti in two,

they said, yeah, we could have done this with brittle plastic rods, but they're very expensive. You can't be breaking them and filling your kitchen floor with them at the same price point that you can for a box of spaghetti. Are there any tips you can give us on cooking or preparing pasta, knowing the science, how it might help us? This story encourages me to try to have that same kind of curious mind as Feynman and others, like to look for the science in the mundane, right? And to maybe never turn off that part of your brain that asks, why is this like this? Yeah, he was very good at doing that. And you are very good at explaining that. I want to thank you for taking time to be with us today.

Thank you so much, Ira. Joseph Howlett, math staff writer at Quantum Magazine based in New York. We have to take a break and when we come back, the popular wellness trend of mouth taping. Should you be adding this to your nighttime routine? If your body is actually opening its mouth to allow more oxygen, forcing it closed, you know, it's not the right thing to do. Hey, Science Friday, it's Grace from Brooklyn. My question for you is regarding mouth taping. Now, my social media feeds are flooded with influencers promoting this trend and the health benefits that come with it.

So should I be adding this to my nighttime routine? Any information you could share would be great. Thanks in advance. If you frequent the wellness world on social media, you have probably seen this mouth taping trend. If you avoid wellness TikTok like an unstarized jadeg, then you probably have it. But it's people using adhesive tape to force their mouth closed while they're sleeping to, to promote nose breathing. I absolutely love mouth taping.

It has completely changed my life, my sleep, the way that I look. I have such a stuffy nose by nature, deviated septum, all the nose problems, and it forces your nose to kind of clear out. I've never woken up with a clearer nose. The mouth tape, and the reason why I wear this is because I'm a heavy mouth breather. If I just tape my mouth, I think my sleep can get better. And yes, it can make practitioners look like they're part of a hostage negotiation. So is this a good thing to do? Is there any benefit to breathing through your nose? Here to help us sort fact from tic-toction is Dr. Linda Lee, physician and surgeon at Massachusetts eye and ear in Boston. Linda, welcome. Thank you so much. I love being here for this topic. You do? Yeah, it's so timely. And I get this question from patients at least once or twice per clinic.

You're joking. No, I do, you know, deviated septum. surgery and nose breathing surgeries, and they want to know, is there evidence to it? Is it safe? Yeah, let's go through it. Okay. First of all, is this a good idea? I think it is generally not a good idea to do before you've had an evaluation because a lot of people actually cannot breathe through their nose. They either have deviated septum. They have allergies. And so if your body is actually opening its mouth to allow more oxygen forcing it closed, you know, it's not the right thing to do. So you might need your mouth to breathe. There are some cases where I think it can be a good thing.

Really? Do you want to tell you about them? Yeah, because I mean, I think it sounded like absurd to me, but is there any reason why you would want to breathe through your nose? So I think sometimes you are doing it out of habit. So now I think you can try to train your body. But I still feel like, first, let's try during the day when you can consciously, you know, take it off if you're not getting enough air before you try to shove it closed at night. Before you go into an unconscious state where you force your mouth closed.

Yes, exactly. And then one of the most interesting things that I think is at Mouth Linear, a lot of our surgeons are really into sleeping quality. And so they'll do something where they call it drug-induced sleep endoscopy, which means let me put you to sleep under anesthesia and watch you sleep. and they can tell where the obstruction is. So a lot of mouth taping is to try to compensate for sleep apnea. Like instead of using a CPAP machine, let me close my mouth. And so in these sleep endoscopies, you can actually see where is the level of obstruction. And there are some people where they

close their mouth during that sleep endoscopy and they see that now they don't have sleep apnea. So then now you can actually try to train your body to close your mouth with a chin, strap or a mouth tape. But that's kind of after you rule out something else that is happening. Well, what is the advantage of breathing through your nose? Yeah. I mean, it's soft, soft evidence for sure. But maybe it helps with digestion. Maybe it helps with sleeping. And even when you are breathing through your nose, you're able to close your mouth. So then your mouth doesn't dry out. And saliva in your mouth is really helpful for like not having bad breath, not having Poor dentition. Is there any science to back up mouth taping as beneficial?

Okay. So there is science, but it's not very good. So there's a study out of Taiwan in 2022, and it's literally called impact of mouth taping in mouth breathers with mild obstructive sleep apnea. And they do call it a preliminary study. So they're kind of saying this is not a great study. it's early, but their conclusion was that mouth taping during sleep improved snoring and the severity of sleep apnea. In people who have mild sleep apnea, their conclusion, which I think is so dangerous, it says mouth taping could be an alternative treatment in patients with mild sleep apnea before turning to CPAP therapy or surgical intervention. And that kind of stuff is so powerful in potentially a dangerous way because nobody likes their CPAP, right? So if CEPs,

you tell me that I can tape my mouth closed rather than you CPAP, I'm definitely going to try it. But sleep apnea, it means you deoxygenate your body and you're not oxygenating your organs. So if you get evaluated and they find that, you know, you do a sleep endoscopy and you can close your mouth and your sleep apnea gets better, then sure, for that person, it can be an alternative treatment. But if the random person that needs a CPAP is just doing it instead of mouth taping, that's dangerous. And then there are other studies that are telling people like there is no benefit. I have to ask you why have you. The trend that's made it to me, this elder millennial, are these nose magnets? Have you seen these?

They go over the bridge of the nose to open your nostrils, I think. Yes. What's up with these? What do you think of these? Yeah. The problem with the magnets is they are so extreme. So they really like pull your nose open a ton. You're pulling your nose out to twice the size of normal.

So actually, I love the idea of a breathe right strip, which is like a very toned-down version of the magnet. Those are the things you see football players wearing on Sunday at the football game. Those are very conservative. They open your airway a little bit. And they can make a big difference in helping you to try to nose breathe. Big picture. Are these social media health trends changing your practice?

They are in terms of awareness. I don't know if you've seen these TikToks on morning shed. The more crazy you go to sleep, the prettier you wake up. What? You don't have a morning shed routine? Girl, let me show you my morning shed routine that leaves me looking perfect in the mornings. It's like people will wake up and kind of shed their nighttime routine. And it's always a mouth tape.

There's even like mouth tape with a straw hole in it. And it's just, it's very trendy looking. Mouthi with a straw. Either like the seems to defeat the purpose of. It does seem to defeat the purpose. Of a mouth tape, if there's a hole in it. It does, it does. So I think what's happening is that patients are coming in, realizing that I can't breathe in through my nose.

And should I be looking at, are there ways to have my deviated septum fixed or get my allergies treated so that I'm breathing through my nose? So it's calling attention to a part of the body you care about. Right. And actually, I think it's great. Like what a lot of TikTok and social media does is bring awareness to the issue. But then you have to just be careful that you are backing that up with some science. You know, don't just do it without realizing, is it the right thing for you? Because an influencer told you so.

Right, right. Makes sense to me. Thanks, Dr. Lee. Of course. Thanks for having me. Dr. Linda Lee, physician and surgeon at Massachusetts eye and ear in Boston. And if you have a question about a wellness trend or something you saw on TikTok, our line is always open.

call us at 8774-4-Sy-Fri. That's 8774-7-7-24-374. Hey, thanks for listening. And don't forget to rate and review the podcast, but only if you like the show. This episode was produced by Kathleen Davis and Sochada Bucks Bow. I'm Ira Flito. Thanks for listening.