Mucus grosses people out. Whether it’s coming out of your nose or slime oozing from an animal, it’s not really a pleasant substance. But scientifically, mucus is super cool—it can be used for protection, hunting, lubrication, or plain old stickiness.
Mucus grosses people out. Whether it’s coming out of your nose or slime oozing from an animal, it’s not really a pleasant substance. But scientifically, mucus is super cool—it can be used for protection, hunting, lubrication, or plain old stickiness. Why do some cephalopods spew out specialized mucus? Does slathering snail slime on your face actually do anything to your skin? And could eating boogers be… good?
Sources:
[Truth or Fail]
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/328/5979/704
https://www.mbari.org/mbari-researchers-discover-what-vampire-squids-eat-its-not-what-you-think/
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/b94c/447075249a39cac514cbb3c6bf24c4e8306c.pdf
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4052311/
[Fact Off]
Snail mucus:
Parasitic worms:
[Ask the Science Couch]
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11465519
https://aem.asm.org/content/81/1/332.long
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/gene/727897
https://virologyj.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1743-422X-3-99
[Butt One More Thing]