[Music]
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supporting PBS Digital Studios
hey smart people I know what you're
thinking this is clickbait I used to
respect you Joe now you're just making
fart videos well I can assure you this
does not clickbait but this is a fart
video a science fart video no hot air
well maybe a little everybody farts you
your mother kittens the Dalai Lama
probably regular llamas to just about
anything in the animal kingdom with a
rear end can and does fart and passing
gas can have a lot of different purposes
parent they fart to communicate coral
snakes fart as a defense mechanism the
West Indian manatee uses farting to
regulate its buoyancy and beaten lace
wings make death farts a gas that
specifically involves paralyzed and
ultimately killed termites who also fart
a lot like termites fart enough to
contribute maybe a few percent to global
greenhouse gas emissions that's a lot of
gas flatulence is a natural common thing
it's typically caused by either trapped
swallowed air or gas produced as a
by-product from friendly microbes
digesting food in your gut when complex
carbohydrates make it to your colon
they're broken down by a rich ecosystem
billions of microbes passing digested
bits between one another and creating
gases in the process your farts are
really just billions of tiny microbial
toots humans typically squeeze out about
ten to twenty farts every day each
around the volume of a golf ball total
about a liter of gas daily all of our
combined butt babble adds up to about
seven billion liters of human gas
released every day the compounds that
make fart stink make up less than 1% of
the volume about a quarter is comprised
of gases like oxygen and nitrogen but
the vast majority is mixed
of carbon dioxide hydrogen and methane
two of which are yes flammable gases I
know what you're asking could these
billions of litres of human fart be
burned to generate energy for our
civilization I don't know I didn't go to
MIT paging Elon Musk right but it'd get
a tweet over that guy so if everybody
does it and it's a natural product of
our inner biology why do we feel disgust
or react so strongly to farts don't
exactly smell like roses in that less
than 1% of smelly stuff in a toot we
find various forms of sulfur containing
chemicals like the ones that give rotten
eggs their odor these chemicals are
harmful in large amounts and are often a
sign of toxicity or disease so it makes
sense that our noses would tell us that
bad but there's probably not enough in a
couple of farts to do any damage
farts do also contain a small number of
bacteria this was shown in a scientific
experiment where a subject farted with
and without pants on a petri dish for
science dare dream kids so farting is
natural to do when it's natural to find
it a little gross then why are fart
noises so funny we've been letting out
fart jokes non-stop since at least the
Bronze Age there are a couple of
different thoughts on why we'd giggle at
this bodily function laughing is a
social behavior that helps us bond with
each other so we may laugh as a way to
make the farter feel less embarrassed
something called incongruity theory says
we laugh at unexpected things which
farts usually are our brains response to
confusion is often laughter like when
you see a t-rex head on a sea horses
body see wrecks but scientists don't
exactly know why anything is funny but
but scientists nice farting hasn't
always only been perceived with disgust
or giggles though ancient philosophers
going back to Pythagoras believed your
breath contained your soul farts were
considered a form of breath and they
thought excessive farting could make you
fart out your soul which trust me you
can
do Martin Luther the guy credited for
starting an entire branch of
Christianity was said to chase away the
devil and sin with his but blasphemy and
in the 1700s founding farter Benjamin
Franklin wrote the essay fart proudly
seriously he did in which he wished he
could eliminate the disagreeable odor
from a fart thus allowing one to fart
proudly in public and alleviate the pain
that can accompany holding one in
holding in a fart probably won't injure
you but it may be uncomfortable and
they'll likely just come out in your
sleep anyway so better out than in I
always say fart noises may be funny but
they're also another example of the
crazy awesome way our bodies work I mean
everybody does it so everyone should
know a little more about it
toodles stay curious thank you to
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