Grossology Trivia*

Explore why our bodies produce mushy, oozy, crusty, scaly, and stinky gunk at Grossology: The (Impolite) Science of the Human Body on view at Strong National Museum of Play, January 19 through May 11, 2008. Based on the popular series of books by science teacher Sylvia Branzei, Grossology is an educational experience grounded in the theory that the best way to get kids interested in science is to present it in terms they find most appealing.

Following are some fun facts associated with many of the entertaining and educational displays and games in the exhibit:

• Hydrochloric acid in your stomach is so strong that it can eat up stainless steel razor blades.

• Seventy out of 100 people admit to picking their nose. Three out of those 70 admit to eating their boogers.

• Thomas Crapper was an Englishman who invented the shut-off for clean water entering the toilet tank in the 1800s. The word “crap” comes from the name Crapper.

• Your large intestine is about five feet long. • In a study of people who do not speak English, researchers read a list of words and asked the people to choose which words they thought sounded pretty. Diarrhea was one word that most people chose.

• Fresh urine is cleaner than spit or the skin on your face because healthy pee is not home to bacteria.

• The lineups at men’s and women’s washrooms vary because of the length of time it takes us to pee: men average 45 seconds; women spend about 79 seconds.

• Every day you make four to eight cups of urine. The amount depends on how hot it is outside, what you eat, and how much you drink.

• You produce about one quart of saliva each day.

• You swallow about one quart of snot every day.

• Ear wax naturally dries up and forms little balls that drop out when we yawn, chew, or swallow.

• Ear wax coats the inside of the ear canal to trap any nasty stuff like dirt, dust, and bugs that get into your ear. People who live in big cities make more ear wax.

• The skin is the largest organ of the body. You shed skin every day to produce a whole new layer of skin every 28 days.

• About ten billion tiny scales of skin rub off your body every day. In a lifetime, you could fill eight five-pound flour bags with dead skin.

• Your mouth is the most unsanitary part of your whole body. More than 100 million micro-creatures live there at any one time.

• Feet sweat because there are about 250,000 pores on their soles that squirt a quarter cup of liquid each day.

• At birth you have 350 bones in your body. You now have 206 bones. What happened to the rest? They fused to other bones to make larger bones.

• Normal breathing sucks air into the nose at 4 mph (6 kph). A good sensory sniff is 20 mph (32 kph). A sneeze will shoot out of the nose at 100 mph (160 kph).

• Vomiting removes liquid from your body; so it’s important that you replace the lost liquid by sipping on water, tea, juice, or bouillon.

• Many cultures still use urine to tan leather.

• Your bladder can hold about two cups of urine comfortably.

• Your nostrils take turns inhaling. You breathe through one nostril for three to four hours and then switch to the other one.

• It is better to breathe through your nose than your mouth. Only air going through the nose is cleaned, warmed, and moistened before it reaches your lungs.

• Your nose can sense smell best when you are 10 years old. That’s probably why kids notice gross smells faster than adults.

• Carrying your skin around can be a lot of work. The average adult’s skin weighs about seven pounds (about 3.2 kilograms).

*Trivia facts from Grossology, by Sylvia Branzei, published by Planet Dexter.