A few curious questions I'd like answers to... sayings, life, and body.

[SittingElf]

Here are a few friendly questions I have long considered without answers! [big grin]

1. Why do we often sneeze after plucking a nose hair?
2. Speaking of sneezing...Why can't we keep our eyes open when we sneeze?
3. For more than fifty years, my body hair was under control. What happened at that sudden age that hair started growing out of my ears, and my eyebrows need regular trimming to keep me from resembling Leonid Brezhnev?
4. What is the purpose of underarm hair?
5. Why do we use the phrase "Be careful, you might pluck your eye out", when it should be "....pluck your eye IN"?
6. Why is it that after about 45 or 50, we turn around after using the toilet....just to see how we did?
7. Why is it that one of the most itchy spots on our bodies is our ear canals...a place that we can't reach to scratch with any part of our body?  And why is it SOoooo pleasurable to finally scratch there? (Thank the gods for Q-Tips!! [tongue])
8. Why do we say "went down the wrong tube" when having a coughing fit from swallowing wrong? There's only ONE tube! (Answered....I should have known that!  cough cough [wink])
9. Why is urine yellow?  Why not blue, or green, or clear?
10. And finally.... Why is it that when your wife says "nothing" to the question "what's wrong?", the alarm klaxons go off like General Quarters on a battleship?

These are the things I ponder...  Just saying... [big grin]

Would love to hear your answers....and your questions here in Friendly Chat!

Cheers,
Frank

 

[teocaf]

i must say that i spend my sunday mornings pondering about a whole different set of "deep thoughts" but i will take a break from picking the lint out of my belly button to help you out with just a few of the questions.
#1:  i don't pluck out my nose hairs.  I've had a manscaping ultra narrow blade custom machined for the vecturo.
#9:  i could go into the whole discussion about urochrome, end product of hemoglobin breakdown and all that, but leaving all the icky science out of it, asking why urine is yellow is like asking why festools are green and dark blue, instead of orange, or red, or gasp-- yellow and black...  but dude, if your urine's not clear, put the beer stein down and reach for that cool refreshment known as h2o
#10  this has baffled many over the ages.  however ALL will be revealed on June 19th when Pixar is releasing Inside Out.  Stay tuned.

 

[jimbo51]

8  We have a tube for eating (esophagus) and a tube (trachea) for breathing.

 

[Tinker]

7. Why is it that one of the most itchy spots on our bodies is our ear canals...a place that we can't reach to scratch with any part of our body?  And why is it SOoooo pleasurable to finally scratch there? (Thank the gods for Q-Tips!! [tongue])

When going thru basic training to become a field medic in the army, one instructor made statement that i have always remembered: "Never stick anything smaller than your elbow into your ear"  I suppose i should have questioned how anybody could bend their arm enough to stick their elbow into their ear.  Very puzzling indeed. 

8. Why do we say "went down the wrong tube" when having a coughing fit from swallowing wrong? There's only ONE tube!

Frank, did you ever look at any pages of anatomy book.  Take a very deep breath at same time you are trying to swallow......... anything.  The esophagus and wind pipe both seem to be closely related in location, but not however in purpose.  I do try to keep mindful of which is which.  [blink] 

Note:  I had a vertebrae fusion in my neck some years ago.  I also have had some problems with swallowing that has seemed to have increased over time since the neck op. They operated by going thru my throat method.  How that could NOT have affected my swallowing problems that have occurred since, i don't know.  I sometimes get something stuck at end of my esophagus when swallowing. even tho that problem has been "corrected" it still manages to take me by surprise upon occasion.  I do know the difference about which tube is plugged up.  If wind pipe, I solve that one way by not taking a deep breath before coughing.  Takes a bit of concentration and refusal to panic, but doable.  When the problem is at the lower end of the esophagus, the symptoms are often close to the same as for windpipe clogging, but without the reflex to gulp a large chunk of air to cough.  My reaction to the clogging of esophagus is somewhat different from how i handle a large chunk of food going down my windpipe.  I thank God for allowing me to know the difference.  If not, i might not be presenting this argument. 

If not two tubes, what are they?
Tinker

Thanks to jimbo for alerting me to the tech name for "windpipe".  I was trying to remember "Trachea"

 

[SittingElf]

Addendum to #9...rephrased:

9. Why is it that urine is usually yellow, but when I drink a bunch of beer which is yellow, urine comes out clear? [scratch chin]

Frank [big grin]

 

[tbellemare]

4. What is the purpose of underarm hair?

Being follicly challenged, I have a theory about hair growth in general and it may contribute some toward this one.

Though I have a distinct lack of hair on my head, I have no such condition under my arms or even farther down and behind...

This observation over the past few decades has given rise to my theory that the best hair growth formula might just be antiperspirant applied with toilet paper.

I once worked with a guy that had hair all over the surface of his nose. It was weird! He rose through the corporate ranks quite dramatically. I always wondered just where he stuck that nose???

Tom

 

[Staniam]

4. What is the purpose of underarm hair?

Being follicly challenged, I have a theory about hair growth in general and it may contribute some toward this one.

Though I have a distinct lack of hair on my head, I have no such condition under my arms or even farther down and behind...

This observation over the past few decades has given rise to my theory that the best hair growth formula might just be antiperspirant applied with toilet paper.

I once worked with a guy that had hair all over the surface of his nose. It was weird! He rose through the corporate ranks quite dramatically. I always wondered just where he stuck that nose???

Tom

Tom that might be the funniest thing I've read am month. Wow.

 

[SittingElf]

#10  this has baffled many over the ages.  however ALL will be revealed on June 19th when Pixar is releasing Inside Out.  Stay tuned.

LOL! [big grin]  I didn't even know this was coming out!  I love Pixar movies and this one looks right on target! [thumbs up]

Here's the trailer. Looking forward to it!



Cheers,
Frank

 

[grbmds]

I have found that, if I really try, I can keep my eyes open when I sneeze. I drive a lot back and forth to work at high speeds. Even a fraction of a second of my eyes being closed means I've traveled a bit. I spent a lot of time practicing (as I have that kind of time on the road). Fortunately I sneeze just enough to have perfected it.

 

[rst]

I think the nose hair and ear hair thing is a result of gravity over the ages, we don't really start losing hair ...it just show up in the wrong places.  As for the urine question, I coached girls soccer for years and there was nothing funnier than telling 12-to high school aged girls that if their urine was not clear they were not drinking enough.  As for the beer question, it just proves that alcohol is a great cleanser.  Coffee till 4 and anything from beer to wine to Knob Creek afterward!  [tongue]

 

[atomicmike]

It's nerdy stuff, but I'm taking a break from studying for an organic chemistry exam, so I found the question of why urine is yellow an interesting one to consider. As teocaf mentioned, it has to do with urochrome. Specifically, it has a number of alternating double-bonds (numbered 1-5 in the structure) in what is called a conjugated system.

[attachimg=1]

That conjugation allows electrons to move around much more freely, so when certain colors/wavelengths of light strike the molecule, that specific color will be absorbed and those electrons will get bumped up in energy. The exact wavelength/color depends on the exact structure and number of double bonds involved. In the case of urochrome and its 5 conjugated double-bonds, it absorbs violet-blue light and reflects or everything else, so it appears yellow to us.

As an example, one of the molecules that gives tomatoes their red color, lycopene, also has a conjugated system. In that case, there are 11 double-bonds, so it is absorbing blue-green light and appearing red to us.

[attachimg=2]

As you get a larger conjugated system, the color absorbed changes, so the color that we see also changes.

Of course, that's much less fun than waxing poetic about why.  [smile]

 

[rmwarren]

#5 - I always thought to was "poke" your eye out, which makes sense to me.

Darned near did it a few times too.

RMW

 

[jonny round boy]

4. What is the purpose of underarm hair?

Underarm hair (and hair in other, more intimate places!) is a form of lubrication.

When you're moving, walking, running, etc., your arms move and rub against your torso. Dry skin slides quite easily against dry skin, but once you start to sweat, that stops. Wet skin is quite sticky. The hairs form layers between the two areas of skin, and the hairs slide against each other, reducing friction and allowing free movement.

As for why hairs move down your body from your head after a certain age, I've no idea!

 

[jonny round boy]

1. Why do we often sneeze after plucking a nose hair?

Sneezing is the body's way of removing irritants such as dust or pollen from the nose.

When you pluck a nose hair, you activate nerves in the nose lining which the brain thinks is evidence of an irritant or foreign body, hence you sneeze.

A better question is why you sneeze when you look at a bright light... [blink]

 

[Tinker]

It's nerdy stuff, but I'm taking a break from studying for an organic chemistry exam, so I found the question of why urine is yellow an interesting one to consider. As teocaf mentioned, it has to do with urochrome. Specifically, it has a number of alternating double-bonds (numbered 1-5 in the structure) in what is called a conjugated system.

[attachimg=1]

That conjugation allows electrons to move around much more freely, so when certain colors/wavelengths of light strike the molecule, that specific color will be absorbed and those electrons will get bumped up in energy. The exact wavelength/color depends on the exact structure and number of double bonds involved. In the case of urochrome and its 5 conjugated double-bonds, it absorbs violet-blue light and reflects or everything else, so it appears yellow to us.

As an example, one of the molecules that gives tomatoes their red color, lycopene, also has a conjugated system. In that case, there are 11 double-bonds, so it is absorbing blue-green light and appearing red to us.

[attachimg=2]

As you get a larger conjugated system, the color absorbed changes, so the color that we see also changes.

Of course, that's much less fun than waxing poetic about why.  [smile]

??? ??? ???
I always thought the darker the urine the more dehydrated you are. 

Time fr my coffee break.

Oops! coffee is not good for you when real thirsty.  guess i need a beer.
:
Tinker

 

[teocaf]

Of course, that's much less fun than waxing poetic about why.  [smile]

i like your explanation but i disagree with this last part.  i think science only adds to the fun--it never subtracts.  combining glib, irreverent comments with the actual wonder of science doubles the fun.  there is a story by the brilliant richard feynman and i'm paraphrasing here because i can't find it right now, where his friend who was an artist said that the scientists tear down the beauty of a flower by dissecting it.  whereas feynman replied that the obvious outward beauty of something like a flower is available to the scientist as well, but by digging deeper into the nano levels, the scientists add many other levels of beauty. 
...and that's how a silly thread turns philosophic...

but i will agree with you, given all the talk about body hair, that waxing is never poetic... (rim shot)

 

[greg mann]

Lewis Black covered the issue of clear urine the best. To those who claim our urine should be clear as gin he said, "If I want my urine to be gin-clear I'll drin gin!"