Boogers and Snot

Introduction:

To better understand snot and boogers, let's start with mucus. Mucus is thick, sticky, slimy and a good thing. Mu-u-u-u-cus! Mucus is so important that it’s found all over nature. Inside your nose, it’s a thick, sticky, wet pudding-like gunk that coats your skin and hairs. Mucus is made by, mucus membranes. Your body has mucus membranes in all sorts of places: the stomach, intestines, nose, lungs, eyes, mouth, and the urinary tract all contain mucus membranes that secrete mucus. For now, we will "pick the nasal membranes and mucus" as our topic of interest. Mucus becomes very important with every breath that you take.

Each time that you take a breath, there are three very important things that happen.

1. The air that you breathe in is cleaned by tiny hairs in your nose, trapping little bits of dirt and dust and germs that come in through your nose.

2. As you breathe, the air is made slightly wet. Your nose having damp passages does this.

3. The next thing that takes place when air enters your nose is that the air is warmed. This happens because the blood flows through the lining of the nose and gives off heat.

Even though these three actions are to keep you healthy, germs can sometimes get into your respiratory system. The germs start growing in your nose, throat and lungs. You have a cold!

When you have a cold the linings of your nose and / or throat swell. Thick, clear liquid called mucus forms and its purpose is to wash away the germs. The mucus builds up and blocks the air passages. This is what causes a stuffy nose and a cough.

Snot:

"Snot", is just another word for mucus. Snot is beautiful human slime. When bits of stuff get stuck in your nose hairs, it’s the mucus or snot that surrounds the stuff and traps it.

Boogers:

Boogers are dried-up snot and dirty nose debris. They can be small, slimy lumps or big, dry, brown clumps. Either way, boogers are filled with the junk that’s in the air you breathe. Dust, pollen, germs, sand, fungi, smoke, small particles from outer space! The good thing about your mucus is that it helps trap all this junk and keep it from getting close into your lungs.

Function:

It seems like the main function of mucus, snot, boogers, whatever you want to call it is to trap particles, junk in the air inhaled through the nose and keep our lungs clean. Exhaling through the nose helps to expel, to push out the mucus with the trapped dirt in it. Our nose really acts like a vacuum cleaner for the air, and blowing our nose is like emptying the bag.

Recipes:

Whip Up Some Fake Snot !

WHAT YOU NEED:
Light corn syrup - unflavored gelatin - measuring cup - water - microwave oven or stove - permission from your family to cook in the kitchen, or family help.

WHAT TO DO:
    Heat 1/2 cup water just until it boils. Remove the heat. Sprinkle in 3 envelopes of unflavored gelatin. Let it soften a few minutes and stir with a fork. Add enough corn syrup to make 1 cup of thick glop. Stir with the fork and lift out the long strands of gunk. As it cools, you'll need to add more water, spoonful by spoonful.

SO WHAT:
Mucus is made mostly out of sugars and protein. That's what you used to make your fake snot, only you used different proteins and different sugars. Did you see those long, fine strings inside your fake snot when you lifted out the fork?

Those strands are proteins. They're why real snot can be stretched out real long. The protein helps make it sticky, too. (The protein in your fake snot is gelatin.)

Build Some Boogers !

WHAT YOU NEED:
    The fake snot you just happen to have made.

WHAT TO DO:
    Ask someone who knows to show you the right way to change the vacuum cleaner bag. (You can sell everyone on the idea of doing this experiment because you'll now be able to help out around the house.)

    Go outside with the dirt bag and your fake snot. Blow a bit of the dust from the vacuum cleaner. It's very fine and is a bad thing to breathe into our bodies.

    Dump a pinch of the finest dust onto your fake snot. Now stir it up. Look closely into the goo from the side. You just made fake boogers!

SO WHAT:
    The fine dust got trapped and suspended in the thick fake snot. That's the idea of having mucus in your nose.

We use it to trap all the dust, pollen and junk that's floating in the air. Sometimes when you blow your nose, out comes gross black stuff. It's usually mucus with trapped dust.

    It's healthier to keep that kind of dirt outside of our bodies. And with the miracle of snot on guard, most of the junk is trapped and then blown out in boogers!

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