Our Little Stupid Bodies

Wait, you're listening to Radio Lab from WNYC.

This is Radio Lab. I'm Lulu Miller. And I'm Latif Nasser.

And today we have a very special thing because all year long we collect what we call stupid questions.

There are no stupid questions, maybe, but actually I think there are.

There are not! The official position of this show is there are no such thing as stupid questions.

I'm not sure I agree, but it doesn't matter because as a show that is largely about curiosity, people send us questions all the time.

Listeners, we get tweets, we get emails.

My kid asked this, or my cousin.

And then also on staff, we have a little place where we collect stupid questions throughout the year.

That's right.

And I was just looking back at the literally dozens of my own questions.

Throw some out.

Okay, when you cut skin, do you cut through cells or do the cells always get out of the way of the blade like Chuck E. Cheese balls in a ball pit?

Ah, great question.

Number two, is your brain a pint of liquid, more or less?

That's an easy one to answer, I'm sure.

I don't know.

Okay, if you squished the quote 60% of water out of me that is apparently inside every human, could you drink it or is there a part of it you could drink?

You really want to drink people, Lulu.

Why is that?

I don't know.

That's another question.

But anyway, the point is we look at all these questions and then we see which ones have legs to kind of rise up to the level where we actually want to report them out.

None of mine this year, by the way.

Okay, we'll have that conversation at another time.

But what happened was that at some point we noticed a group of these questions that all had kind of a shared energy.

Like, you know the show The Magic School Bus?

Been there.

To the bottom of the ocean.

Classic PBS cartoon.

Of course, led by Ms. Frizzle, the teacher who gets all the kids onto the Magic School Bus and they shrink it down and go into drain pipes, up kids' noses into space to answer questions and understand our world a little more.

Yeah.

But our stories today and our Ms. Frizzle reporters, they had vibrating anxious energy.

I would say that they have more Ms. Frazzle energy rather than Ms. Frizzle energy.

That is totally accurate.

And they also tend to, like, take things a little further than your average PBS kids cartoon.

So we've got three angsty magical journeys today and it just so happens that they all take us inside the human body.

That's right. Stupid questions about our stupid bodies.

They're not stupid questions. They are good, honest questions.

All right. First trip, courtesy of senior correspondent Molly Webster.

OK, so to get to my question, we're actually going to start with a conversation that I had with reporter and former radio lab intern Sachi Mulkey.

I'm just going to play a bit of that for you.

Oh, OK.

And it begins, like all good things do, at the New Year.

OK.

New Year's is kind of like a, it's a daytime phenomenon in Japan. Like, we don't do a New Year's Eve thing.

The day of New Year's, you do your first temple visit in the morning and then you come back home and you have this traditional New Year's soup called ozoni.

And it's like a mochi cake in a bowl of, like, pretty clear, almost flavorless broth.

And wait, what is mochi?

It's a pounded rice flour mixed with water and kind of turned into this chewy, chewy rice cake.

And you just plop it into a soup.

It kind of softens in the water.

It gets this, like, very, like, gooey edge.

And it's, like, chewy, right?

Like, it stretches out.

Like, it'll stretch inches.

Really?

Yeah.

Wow.

So what happens is a lot of older people will have their ozoni and fail to be able to chew it fully.

Or it will kind of cool down and harden in their mouths.

And then they choke on it.

Like, I just, I was looking at this crazy chart that said something.

I just want to look at it to make sure I don't give you a wrong number.

Yeah, pull it up.

Almost 800 people between 2006 and 2016 died in Japan from food choking deaths right on New Year's.

It's just this spike.

Like, they choke to death.

It's not like a choke and a cough out.

It's like people are actually dying from this.

Yeah, people die from this.

It used to be a lot higher before the PSAs.

Did they have PSAs just about the soup?

Oh, yeah.

All over the news, like NHK news, Japanese household news, around New Year's, they're like,

Don't forget to chop it up into small pieces.

Here's how to do the Heimlich maneuver.

Like, don't use a vacuum to get it out.

There's all sorts of news around this.

Be careful.

Make sure they're eating the soup responsibly.

Okay, so that was part of my conversation with Sachi.

And maybe sadistically, Sachi told me this story because she knows that I am terrified of choking.

I would say that at least once a day, I think about the fact that as I swallow,

I am pushing like a mashed ball of food past the one opening that is keeping me alive.

Yeah.

And so my question is, why in the world are we designed this way where we can die of choking?

Why?

But this works way more than it doesn't.

No.

No, but it should never not work, Latif.

Like, evolution has given us so much crazy stuff.

We have brains and opposable thumbs and like other weird shit.

And you're telling me that it couldn't figure out how to breathe in one place and then eat in another?

Yeah, I'm with it.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

I am with you.

Let's go.

Let's go.

Okay.

So I went to scientists asking them, Why do we have one blockable breath hole?

Did they laugh at you?

Yes, of course.

But they also told me stuff, including the original culprit of all of this is fish.

Huh.

Okay.

And so fish have one tube for food, which runs from the mouth to the butt.

And then for breathing, they have gills.

Right.

So no choking.

But the fish that eventually flopped onto land and became the ancestor of us,

it couldn't do that without a pair of lungs.

But the thing with evolution is it doesn't just make new things out of nothing.

It builds them off of existing systems.

And so it actually built the lungs out of the digestive tract.

And the way that that works is the digestive system was already pulling nutrients out of food.

So it was like, All right, why don't I just use this to get some oxygen out of air?

Right.

And slowly, slowly, slowly, what happened over time is a pair of lungs balloon off of the digestive tract.

Wow.

Huh.

That's amazing.

No, it's not amazing because this is the essential design flaw.

This is how you get an eating system and a breathing system that are overlapped.

And this is why we choke.

But wait, so does that mean other animals choke?

Like Jane Goodall is out there watching the chimpanzees and stuff.

Like, did any of them ever they were like eating a banana and started coughing and choking kind of thing?

Yes. Other animals can choke.

There's not really any reports of it.

If you search the Internet or something, it's not like we're going out into the wild and autopsying animals.

But we do seem to be a little different than other animals.

We have become the worst breathers in the animal kingdom.

Really?

Yes.

While I was looking for answers to this question, I ended up talking to this science writer.

I'm James Nestor.

He wrote this amazing book about breathing and how we breathe.

And when I asked him about choking, he said.

Well, it sounds like your problem isn't with this air tube, this breath tube.

It's with the larynx.

It's not just our one tubiness that is to blame.

It has to do with the shape of that tube and how we humans use it and how it has evolved differently than even in our closest ancestors.

Our larynx have sunk.

Okay.

The larynx is the spot in our throat where the esophagus, which takes food to the stomach, and the trachea, which takes air to the lungs, split off.

And it's made of cartilage and muscle and stuff.

What does sinking mean? Where was it?

It lowered. It lowered.

It moved down from the back of our mouths to a couple of inches down into our neck, pushing the meeting place of the esophagus and the trachea into a narrower part of our throat.

Because now the esophagus and the trachea are too close together, so that larynx can shift the food that is supposed to be going to our stomachs into that breath hole.

And as a result, we started to choke more and more.

James said,

That's the whole point is by having more space at the back of our mouths.

We created more space for something else.

Yes. Yes.

Which is, while other animals sound like this, as our larynx lowered, it opened up our oral cavity.

And along with some developments in the brain, that allowed us to make more and more sophisticated sounds.

And we use these sounds to warn and teach and share our feelings.

And we use these sounds to change the world.

I mean, I do like talking.

It sounds like such a ridiculous thing to say, but I just still wish it wasn't an all-in-one tube in kissing.

What about kissing?

What do you mean, kissing?

Kissing is kind of random, but like maybe what's so special about it is that it's like all the things.

It's like you're eating, breathing.

Drinking.

It's like sustenance on every level.

Let me put my crucial mouth hole near your crucial mouth hole.

And to be clear, I'm all for like all these things, obviously, kissing, talking, whatever.

I'm not looking to change it.

I just wish there was another backup.

Right.

So I did ask one of the scientists about, you know, backup systems.

And he was like, well, people do do tracheostomies for medical reasons.

Right.

Putting another hole in your throat, but like at the bottom.

Is that hole below?

The vocal cord?

It is.

Oh.

That hole bypasses the log jam of the throat, and then it just lets air straight into the lungs.

Oh, so that's what you want.

That's exactly what you want.

Yeah, it kind of is.

But I don't really want like.

You don't want a tracheotomy.

Is there a more pleasant way?

Right.

And then James was like, well.

I didn't think I was going to be going here, but you asked.

There could be one thing.

So we can ingest oxygen through our butts.

And so.

No fucking way.

Butt breathing.

What?

Yes.

Butt breathing is a real thing.

Goodbye.

Literally.

Oh, my God.

Lulu, it doesn't have to do with farting.

OK, I can't hear you if you're talking because I took off my headphones.

I'm coming back.

Wait, Lulu, it doesn't have to do with farting.

So don't worry.

I don't like farting either.

It is breath through the butt.

And I feel like every Radiolab story ends here.

No, it doesn't have to do with farting.

So take a deep breath and absolve yourself of that.

We're not going to talk about it.

Take a deep breath through your butt.

Through your butt hole.

Shut up.

Just anyway.

OK, fine.

Whatever.

OK, so he's saying in a real way you can breathe.

Yeah, well, he pointed me to this paper.

Come on, science.

OK.

Yeah, so this paper came from this researcher.

Taka Takebu from Cincinnati Children's Hospital and also Tokyo Medical and Dental University.

A Japanese researcher, and he splits his time between Japan and Ohio.

I'm traveling back and forth every month for the past seven years.

Every month?

The reason that he did this study was his dad ended up having to go on a ventilator.

Maybe six years ago, I think he has a pneumonia condition and actually hospitalized in ICU situation.

And dad is fine.

Dad came off the ventilator.

But then COVID happened and everybody was getting slammed on ventilators.

And Taka was like, this does not seem sustainable.

I also realized, you know, so we do the same thing as in the past, founded 200 years ago.

Really?

It was 200 years ago that we developed ventilation?

Yeah, exactly.

So he's like, is there another way to get oxygen into the body?

So he starts looking at how other animals might do it.

And he comes across a fish that is actually taking up the oxygen from the bowel or from the anus, the butt.

And he thinks, hmm, maybe that's another way.

And so what he does is he takes some mice and pigs and he puts them in low oxygen conditions, what's called hypoxic.

And he pumps O2 into a tube that is stuck up into their butt.

This doesn't work so well.

Their oxygen levels stay about the same.

But then he's like, what if I take oxygen that's like dissolved in a fluid?

So he does it again, tube up the butt, oxygen in a fluid.

And what they see is that for these mice and pigs, color and warmth return to their skin and to their extremities in minutes.

Wow.

So think of the butt respiration as like an enema that gives you oxygen.

Wow.

I know.

I was thinking about the fact that we did like evolve from fish.

And you're in a way tapping into some sort of evolutionary history that lets oxygen exchange in the gut be possible.

It's almost like going back to a prior way of being.

Exactly.

I so wish my skin respirated.

On to our next question.

Great.

So we actually put a call out, an intentional call out to listeners at one point.

And we got a bunch.

And the one that ended up haunting like a bunch of us here on staff came from a listener named Logan Shannon.

She lives in New Hampshire.

Yeah.

And all right, here is her question.

I don't understand where lotion goes after we apply it to our skin.

It gets absorbed through our pores.

Sure.

But where does it go?

Where does it go?

That never occurred to me.

So I buy these bottles of lotion.

And then the contents of these bottles just disappear into my body.

And it freaks me out.

She says she sometimes just lies in bed wondering like is the lotion traveling down into her spleen and just with her forever.

So we sent producer Alan Gofinski to try to find out the answer.

Alan the song bud Gofinski if you've heard Terrestrials.

Yep.

He creates original songs for our kids' podcast Terrestrials.

And anyway, so he did a bunch of reporting and delivered it directly to Logan in song form.

Logan is up late on Twitter.

Watch her scroll and scroll and scroll.

Her tweeting thumbs are dry and cracking.

She feels the dryness in her soul.

She longs for the relief of lotion.

Smooth hydration.

Healthy glow.

Her hands are dry but her mind is racing.

She doesn't know.

Where does the lotion go?

Where does the lotion go?

Hey.

Hello.

How are you?

We have questions.

Oh boy.

And you seem like the type of person who might have answers.

Okay.

Yeah.

Sure thing.

I am Dr. Adeline Kikam.

I am a board certified dermatologist.

All things skincare.

Logan's question freaked me out.

So I asked the doc just what goes down each time we slop that lotion on.

And here's a bit of what I found.

Logan is talking about skincare products to keep her skin moisturized.

The good thing is cosmetic products are formulated in a way that they don't get absorbed into the bloodstream.

The particles in lotion are designed to not seep in.

The molecules are formulated to rest atop your skin.

This is your lotion lullaby.

Go on Logan.

Moisturize.

The lotion should not get inside.

The molecules are too large in size.

But there are different components of it.

I knew it.

Despite intentions being good.

The traces that we've seen in blood.

Small molecules don't have an issue.

They squeeze through interstitial tissue.

It's all about the formulation.

Particle size.

Concentration.

Some particles do end up in the bloodstream.

Particles from chemicals on screen.

Like avobenzone and octocrylene.

Parabens and phthalates will sink right down into your blood and all around.

Where does the lotion go?

Sometimes your skin just can't resist them.

Of course the body has a filtration system.

The liver and the renal system are how the skin detoxifies and clears anything that it doesn't want.

The renal system flushes them out so maybe there's not so much to worry about.

Uh oh.

Then the doctors shared how not all particles seep into you.

Some just sit on your skin cells until those skin cells bid adieu.

You're telling me I'm not contained?

My skin cells just disintegrate?

Where do I end and I begin?

I am not confined within.

Half a billion cells of skin slough off your body every day.

Dusty air or down the drain into the ocean and far away.

Then your biomagnetic field extends beyond your mortal flesh.

Your flesh is loose electron clouds.

A fuzzy subatomic mess.

The cosmos shipped with every breath.

Your every thought and word expressed.

Who you are is not contained.

Existence is one big exchange.

Your self spills out throughout the universe.

Contamination is inescapable and absolute.

Corruption is your god and nothing can save you.

From the existential calamity of all-encompassing ambiguous cosmic anarchy.

So now, I guess you kind of know.

Where does the lotion go?

Where does the lotion go?

It was so demented. I love it.

I honestly did not expect this question to result in pondering thermodynamics

and the laws of conservation of mass and energy.

I think maybe I took things too far.

I don't think you took it too far.

Obviously, I don't think you took it too far.

I'm the one who obsesses about lotion and where it goes.

Is it Sagan who said we're all star stuff?

So I was thinking about it.

If you really kind of want to think about it from a cosmological...

Cosmology? No.

Cosmetic? No.

If we're all made of star stuff and everything is made of star stuff,

then so is lotion.

It's kind of like you're just in the soup of being a human on a planet

with all these molecules.

Oxygen is bombarding you all the time.

So you're putting lotion on and some of it does go down.

Some of it stays on top.

Some of it gets sloughed off.

It's also nice to know that it's not bad.

Yeah, it's comforting.

I don't know if I'm as comforted as Logan,

but anyway, that is where the lotion goes.

It is time now for a break.

Okay. Should we do more after the break?

Yeah.

We've got a question that really got under the skin

of our producer, Becca Bressler.

You're going to hear that after a short break.

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This week on the New Yorker Radio Hour,

why Republicans won't brag about overturning abortion rights.

Donald Trump has basically said, yeah, yeah, yeah,

I would like to take credit for getting rid of Roe versus Wade,

but also not pay a political price for it.

The GOP, abortion, and the new battle over IVF.

That's the New Yorker Radio Hour from WNYC Studios.

Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

Latif. Lulu. Radiolab.

Stupid questions about our stupid bodies.

That aren't stupid questions at all.

They're actually great, terrific, completely reasonable questions.

You decide for yourself.

Our next one comes from producer Becca Bressler.

Do you have a nemesis?

Oh, God.

Didn't see that one coming, did you?

I didn't.

I think so.

Yeah?

I think I do.

I actually have them on the line here.

How did you know?

That's what we're doing.

No, but we are here.

I am here to tell you about my nemesis.

Okay.

Oh, my God.

Our nemeses, rather.

Okay.

Which are mosquitoes.

Okay.

Mosquitoes.

So this, I thought we were going to get some juicy tea,

but you're just like a bug that generally sucks for humans.

No, it doesn't just generally suck for me,

because when I get a bite, I get these fat, hot welts

that at times are like the size of a tennis ball.

Whoa.

Wait, honestly, tennis ball?

It's not like spherical in the same way,

but the circumference of a tennis ball.

And they itch for days.

And nothing has ever helped.

Afterbite?

Afterbite, no.

Benadryl doesn't work.

The only thing that sometimes works is when I boil water

and then take a washcloth and burn my bites.

Oh, my God.

Bex.

Yeah, it's awful.

It's been this way since I was a kid,

but recently I stumbled across this device,

this like as seen on TV kind of device.

It was on Shark Tank.

I've never actually seen Shark Tank,

but is it like dun, dun, dun?

Yeah.

Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun.

I can picture it.

Anyways, so it's a tube with handles on the sides,

kind of like a syringe without the needle.

And it's like a little plastic plunger

that claims to suck out mosquito saliva,

which is apparently what causes the itchy welt.

And it's called Bug Bite Thing.

I like the specificity of that,

the like bug bite thing.

I have mixed feelings about the name, but whatever.

It was $10, so I bought it.

Did you like run into a wet woods?

Were you like, I want to test it.

Kind of, because a few weeks later I went camping.

Oh.

And so I brought it with me,

and I remember the first time that I used it,

a mosquito bit me on my leg,

and I whipped it out,

pressed it against my butt, pulled back.

One, two, three.

I think I did it a couple more times for good measure.

It didn't tell me I needed to.

Really plunge it.

Okay.

And the welt flattened,

the redness slowly dissipated,

and then it was gone.

Hmm. Okay.

And I couldn't believe