How Boogers and Mucuous Membranes Work - podcast episode cover

How Boogers and Mucuous Membranes Work

Jun 22, 20151 min
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Episode description

Mucous contains mostly water and mucin -- a branched polysaccharide. When polysaccharides such as mucin or cornstarch are mixed with water, the result is a sticky substance.

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Transcript

Speaker 1

Welcome to brain Stuff from how stuffworks dot com where smart happens. Hi, I'm Marshall Brain with today's question, what makes boogers sticky? Boogers are made out of mucus. 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 mucous membranes that secrete mucus. Mucus contains mostly water and mucin. It is the mucin that makes boogers sticky. Musin is called a branched poly

sack ride. A polysac ride is just a fancy name for a sugar chain. Starch, for example, is a polysac ride. As you've probably noticed, if you mix corn starch or flour with water, you get a sticky substance. Musin is doing the same thing. Mucus is essentially a thin pace made out of musin. You can play around with corn starch and water and get something very much like a booger, especially as it dries out. You are looking at synthetic boogers. In that case, do you have any ideas or suggestions

for this podcast. If so, please send me an email at podcast at how stuff works dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, go to how stuff works dot com

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