Today in nose news

October 31, 2022 7:22 PM

Pick your nose. Don't pick your nose.

A review of nose picking in primates with new evidence of its occurrence in Daubentonia madagascariensis (PDF)

Chlamydia pneumoniae can infect the central nervous system via the olfactory and trigeminal nerves and contributes to Alzheimer’s disease risk

posted by clawsoon (28 comments total)

A diagram of the nose picking from the first paper; the finger is in green.
posted by clawsoon at 7:41 PM on October 31, 2022 [4 favorites]

[views left side of diagram]: “oh, it’s that guy with the really long finger.”

[views right side of diagram]: “OH THAT REALLY LONG FINGER IS REALLY LONG ISNT IT”
posted by fantabulous timewaster at 7:59 PM on October 31, 2022 [5 favorites]

You can pick your friends. You can pick your nose. But you can't pick your friend's nose.
posted by jonp72 at 8:01 PM on October 31, 2022 [7 favorites]

"The olfactory nerve in the nose is directly exposed to air and offers a short pathway to the brain, one which bypasses the blood-brain barrier."
Well, that explains why snorting is so effective.
posted by gible at 8:05 PM on October 31, 2022 [3 favorites]

Is this to say a hanky is a procedure.
posted by clavdivs at 8:08 PM on October 31, 2022 [3 favorites]

clawsoon nose how to sniff out a story.
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:11 PM on October 31, 2022 [2 favorites]

Pick a story, I think you mean...
posted by clawsoon at 8:20 PM on October 31, 2022 [1 favorite]

Last year some time I was doing small talk with an in-person covid rapid test nurse. I learned that small children and very old people have no trouble getting boogers from their noses with a q-tip (and if you've got a booger on your q-tip you can stop swabbing). Most other people keep their noses pretty empty (I'm sure there are some exceptions).
posted by aniola at 9:04 PM on October 31, 2022 [3 favorites]

From the first article (for anyone who might have missed it) -

It wasn't just any lemur; an aye-aye was filmed by Prof Anne-Claire Fabre from the University of Bern burying its elongated finger in its nostril.

"I wanted to know where is this finger going?" she told the BBC.

[...]

Aye-ayes are nocturnal primates found only in Madagascar. They are famous for their strange, skinny, long fingers, which they use to fish grubs out of branches.

"It was inserting the entire length and, [when you look at] the length of its head, it was like - where is it going?" she recalled. "I wondered - is it inserting it into its brain? It was so weird and seemed impossible."

[...]

"It was going into the sinus and from the sinus into the throat and into the mouth," she explained.

posted by aniola at 9:10 PM on October 31, 2022 [8 favorites]

Welcome to the internet! Here is a video (presumably the one the paywall pdf's abstract alluded to) of an aye-aye picking its nose.
posted by aniola at 9:29 PM on October 31, 2022 [9 favorites]

Here is a video (presumably the one the paywall pdf's abstract alluded to) of an aye-aye picking its nose

OMG my brain will never be the same again...
posted by rpfields at 10:12 PM on October 31, 2022

Yeah, as intrigued as I am...

Not going to watch that. NOT
posted by Windopaene at 10:25 PM on October 31, 2022 [2 favorites]

Simultaneously disturbing and satisfying.

You know that aye-aye is feeling great after hooking on to a big ole booger and pulling it out.
posted by clawsoon at 10:48 PM on October 31, 2022

I don't know how academia works, did they have to write a grant to get to do this? Or is this tenure-funded fun? I'm enjoying imagining the team of authors writing up the abstract:

Fancy name for nose-picking (rhinotillexis) ✔

Subject remains poorly studied ✔

Maybe it's good for us? (because all the cool kids are doing it) ✔

Be specific (a species of strepsirrhine primate) ✔

Pull-quote to entertain your friends ("While doing so this animal inserts the entire length of its extra-long, skinny and highly mobile middle finger into the nasal passages and then licks the nasal mucus collected.") ✔

No but really this aye-aye did some serious nose-picking and sure "daaaang" or similar is built into the name of the aye-aye, but we must know more how did it get that finger to go in so far??? (Scientists get to do real science, is every sold-out scientist's hero, assuming no animals were harmed during the spelunking of the nasal cavity and pharynx) ✔

Further study is needed ✔
posted by aniola at 12:29 AM on November 1, 2022 [4 favorites]

Previously: Scientists on nose picking.
posted by Bella Donna at 5:37 AM on November 1, 2022

You can pick your friends. You can pick your nose. But you can't pick your friend's nose.
posted by jonp72

Kink shaming?
posted by Splunge at 5:54 AM on November 1, 2022 [2 favorites]

I'm looking forward to aniola's spinoff site discussing nose-picking and the academics who study it. You're obviously an enthusiast and I plan to subscribe.
posted by Emmy Rae at 7:32 AM on November 1, 2022 [1 favorite]

When I moved to the desert I asked my aunt if there was anything I should know about living there. "Boogers," she said. "It's the dry air. You'll always have your finger up there. Everyone does."
posted by Ookseer at 7:34 AM on November 1, 2022 [8 favorites]

(I actually just went sentence-by-sentence through the abstract.)
posted by aniola at 7:54 AM on November 1, 2022 [1 favorite]

I thought the late 20th c. philosopher Ani DiFranco settled this in 1993 with her treatise "Pick Yer Nose."
posted by adekllny at 11:17 AM on November 1, 2022 [1 favorite]

Or as the late speedlime always used to say: "You can pick your friends, you can pick your nose, but you can't wipe your friends off on the dashboard."
posted by Pallas Athena at 11:54 AM on November 1, 2022 [3 favorites]

No but really this aye-aye did some serious nose-picking

Y'all act like you've never done the human blockhead trick to impress girls before.
posted by AzraelBrown at 12:06 PM on November 1, 2022 [1 favorite]

Ookseer: When I moved to the desert I asked my aunt if there was anything I should know about living there. "Boogers," she said. "It's the dry air. You'll always have your finger up there. Everyone does."

I wonder if this is another root cause for the "mouthbreather" insult, in addition to living with poor air quality because you're poor: Living in a dry area away from the coasts.
posted by clawsoon at 1:53 PM on November 1, 2022

And they said the eyes were the window the the soul, pffft.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 2:57 PM on November 1, 2022

Metafilter: the soul is made of boogers
posted by aniola at 5:17 PM on November 1, 2022

You may think that's your soul, but it's snot!
*rimshot*
posted by Greg_Ace at 5:43 PM on November 1, 2022 [1 favorite]

📢 Ump calls dribbling.
posted by clavdivs at 7:09 PM on November 1, 2022 [1 favorite]

I dropped by to cast aspersions but as someone who can't scroll past a fart thread without clicking, I got nothin
posted by elkevelvet at 1:01 PM on November 2, 2022 [1 favorite]