The human body is a disgusting place.
Luckily, that grossness is off-set by some things that are objectively funny and that,
of course, is where farts come in, that can make people from any continent, religion or
race at least crack a smile.
Despite how funny they are some scientists have made it through their giggles to learn
a lot about the fart.
So, plug your nose and get ready to have your world changed!
Men Fart More Often Than Women
In what will come as a shocker to no one, men actually do fart more often than women
do.
That's something that most people realized but it wasn't actually known why that was
the case.
While it's probably impossible to know, the theories as to why this is the case range
from the social, namely that men are less embarrassed about passing gas, to the scientific,
that men either eat more or more quickly than women, or that men's bodies create more gases
like methane while breaking down food.
While the answer, like most things, is a mixture of those theories it’s good for most men
to know that it's not entirely their fault that they are a stinkier brand of human being.
So the next time your husband or boyfriend creates an impromptu and involuntary Dutch
Oven, just know that he’s not doing it to piss you off it’s because he was born that
way.
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Women's Farts Smell Worse
There’s a great list out there that breaks down the amount of gases in most farts like
methane, oxygen, nitrogen and carbon dioxide and one thing that they have in common is
that they're odorless.
The smelly part of farts comes from the amount of hydrogen sulfide that exists in each fart
and it turns out that the average fart from a woman actually contains more hydrogen sulfide
than the average fart of a man, meaning that a woman's fart is, in fact, smellier, on average
than the fart of a man.
Like the earlier theories as to why men fart more often there are theories as to why there
is more hydrogen sulfide in women's farts, from the fact that it just builds up from
the lesser number of farts that women either hold in or have passed to the theory that
women just produce more hydrogen sulfide whilst breaking down food.
Farts are Comprised of (Mostly) Non-Smelling Gases
As we just stated, the vast majority of the gases that the average fart releases actually
have no smell in them.
Over 99% of the volume of the average fart is composed of oxygen, nitrogen, carbon dioxide,
hydrogen, and methane most of which are by-products of the fermentation of food by bacteria in
the guts of mammals.
Nitrogen isn't part of that breakdown, though, and so any nitrogen found in farts is thought
to be based on the air that is swallowed while eating or... you know, swallowing.
Hydrogen, carbon dioxide and methane are products of that process and comprise nearly 75% of
a fart in healthy individuals.
However, not all humans have methane in their farts which is why not all people can light
their farts on fire.
It is thought that the amount of methane (especially when compared to the amount of hydrogen) correlates
with obesity, constipation and/or irritable bowel syndrome as the bacteria that oxidizes
hydrogen into methane also promotes the metabolism's ability to absorb fatty acid's from food.
The Smell of that Smell…
Earlier in this video, we stated that the average fart from a woman smells worse than
the average fart of a man and that fact stems from the amount of hydrogen sulfide in each
fart.
While that's understood now it wasn't always the case and there's been a ton of different
reasonings as to what adds to the smell to a fart over the years.
Historically, compounds such as short chain fatty acids, ammonia, indole (which is an
aromatic organic compound that’s the byproduct of bacteria) and skatole (a mildly-toxic white
crystalline organic compound that is part of the indole family) were thought to be the
reason that farts smell the way that they do.
However, both indoles and skatoles smell like mothballs (which smell like ammonia) which
means that they're probably not behind the smell.
The larger question is why certain farts smell different from others and if anyone is able
to figure that one out then they're basically in line for a Nobel Prize, I’m certain,
for at least keeping the peace between brothers and sisters around the globe.
Why Farts Smell Different?
The Wikipedia entry for Flatulence shows that, indeed, scientists have spent a lot of time
(and money...
you know, for beans) on figuring out the composition and origin of farts.
While this video has dumbed down that science thus far, it's about to turn into a chemistry
class.
Now, we stated above that the culprit behind the smell in most farts isn't the gases that
comprise the vast, vast majority of each fart like oxygen, nitrogen, carbon dioxide or methane
but rather hydrogen sulfide.
While that is true, hydrogen sulfide is actually just one of a class of volatile sulfur compounds
that dictate the smell of farts alongside methyl mercaptan (also known as
methanol), dimethyl sulfide, dimethyl disulfide and dimethyl trisulfide.
Those all have their own smells, from the smell of decomposing vegetables to the smell
of a sweet radish to the smell of rotten eggs.
That means that each fart is basically going to smell like whatever mixture of those volatile
sulfur compounds exist within it, meaning that you're in for an amazing treat every
time you let one rip.
That's actually where the origin of the beans make you fart urban legend comes from as certain
beans are known to create those sulfur compounds and thus create stinkier versions of farts,
which means that when you fart you'll know it.
You Fart on Average 14 Times a Day
If you were to think back to even yesterday to count the number of times that you farted
you'd probably only remember about 3-5 of those beauties and that's because a lot of
farts can come out with little to know fanfare (meaning sound or smell).
Those are the fondly titled silent but deadly or the ones that are both silent and smell
free, really the ones that you don't have to think about as your body is regulating
the amount of pressure in your intestines and is thus letting gas out on a fairly regular
basis.
While that number may seem pretty high, and it is, considering that it's enough to fill
up a standard sized balloon every single day, it's nothing to be concerned or embarrassed
by as it actually means that the ecosystem of bacteria that exists within your body is
functioning properly.
Any significant change, whether it be more or less than that, is something to keep an
eye on but as long as you're not really noticing your farts you're probably in pretty good
shape as you'd notice if you were dealing with gas-related issues, as it's painful on
both ends of the spectrum.
Human's Aren't the Only Fart Game in Town
Anyone with a dog will know that animals also cut loose from time to time as we've all blamed
a silent fart on the family dog while we’ve also have all seen that same dog wake itself
up from a deep sleep with a fart, like it's perpetually confused and terrified about the
sounds from below its equator.
Dogs aren't alone here, nor are mammals as the animal that produces the most farts is
the termite, the wood-crunching bug.
As far as mammals are concerned the ones that produce the most farts are camels, zebras,
sheep, cows, elephants, and dogs (especially labs and retrievers).
That's a problem because the world needs a lot of cows to keep up with demand for their
delicious meat and because methane, especially, is an extremely bad gas in terms of its ability
to trap heat in the atmosphere (more than 20 times worse than carbon dioxide) it means
that those millions of cows that are out grazing, chewing grass and farting are actually helping
the planet heat more and more every single season.
While scientists are going as far as to try to genetically create cows that don't pass
gas to catching that gas and storing it somehow the solution may very well mean the end of
hamburgers and steak.
Most Farts Happen While We Sleep
Both Dutch Ovens and the fact that the average healthy person farts 14 times a day have already
been discussed so far in this video and part of the latter was that most people don't remember
having farted even ten times the previous day, let alone nearly 15.
While some of that is chalked up to the different ways that the body releases gas (and the loose
definition of a fart), the main reason is that most people mostly fart during their
sleep.
Like other parts of this video, there are theories as to why this is the case from the
fact that people are typically laying down flat while they sleep to the amount of digestion
that occurs while people are sleeping, like most things it's probably a combination of
theories.
It's actually a wonder from what we've learned that we all don't wake up with a room full
of fart balloons every single day.
Beans, Beans the Magical Fruit
One of the first songs that people learn as children is the old classic 'Beans, Beans...
The Magical Fruit' which is, as it's Wikipedia entry explains, a playground saying and children's
song about the beans capacity to contribute to flatulence.
There is actually truth behind this saying and song in that certain types of beans, like
Lima Beans, do actually break down into volatile sulfuric compounds in the body and thus contribute
to not only farts but also the smellier versions of farts as volatile sulfuric compounds are
already the smelly gases in the average farts.
Other types of food also contribute to farts, as they also contribute to the amount of sulfur
in the body and those foods tend to be healthier for you (like vegetables, eggs, and milk).
That also means that farts correlation to overall health may be a bit of a chicken and
egg scenario as people who fart more often are considered healthier than those who don't,
however since people who eat healthier foods fart more often the fart could just be the
middle man.
Farts are Fast
It's hilarious thinking about how exactly they must have been able to clock the average
speed of a fart and while the answers aren't nearly as entertaining as the theoretical
(as it was probably done by measuring the rate of air flow using a pitot tube and manometer,
or by using the same anemometer that is used to track wind speed), it's good to know that
our tax dollars are being spent wisely.
The results from those tests found that farts can reach speeds of 10 feet a second which
roughly translates to about seven miles-per-hour, which when compared to other bodily functions
like sneezes and ejaculation isn't that impressive but when consider that the victims of farts
are usually taken unawares it's not hard to see why farts don't need to be all that fast.
Sneezes have been tracked at over 150 miles per hour which is why people are told to never
attempt to stop or block a sneeze.
Recently a man actually tore his throat internally because the speed and pressure that comes
from a sneeze has to end up somewhere and that somewhere was through his throat.
Sperm isn't as speedy as a sneeze but is a bit faster than farts in that they are released
at over ten miles-per-hour.
Take that, termites.
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