SciShow Tangents

Spit

Episode Summary

You need to clean a smudge of your glasses? Use some spit! You gotta make some food gooey so you can swallow it? Why not try spit? Lips too dry to whistle a tune? My friend, spit is the bodily excretion for you! Spit: don't leave home without it!

Episode Notes

You need to clean a smudge of your glasses? Use some spit! Gotta make some food moist so you can swallow it? Why not try spit?  Lips too dry to whistle a tune? My friend, spit is the bodily excretion for you! Spit: don't leave home without it!

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[Trivia Question]

Minor salivary glands

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/researchers-may-have-discovered-new-organ-set-salivary-glands-hidden-your-head-180976104/

[Fact Off]

Bowerbird making “paint” out of saliva

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3996615/

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.2005.0908-8857.03549.x

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0003347213001097?via%3Dihub

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsbl.2005.0325

https://australian.museum/learn/animals/birds/satin-bowerbird/

https://australian.museum/learn/animals/birds/satin-bowerbird/

Spitting cobras evolved to defend against hominids throwing rocks

https://www.newsweek.com/how-it-feels-acobra-spits-face-revealed-excruciating-detail-1749490

https://www.earthtouchnews.com/discoveries/discoveries/spitting-cobras-may-have-evolved-unique-venom-to-defend-from-ancient-humans/

https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2021/01/study-did-cobras-first-spit-venom-scare-pre-humans

[Ask the Science Couch]

Compressing salivary glands aka “gleeking”

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK542272/

https://www.health.com/mind-body/what-is-gleeking

http://www.vivo.colostate.edu/hbooks/pathphys/digestion/pregastric/salivary.html


 

[Butt One More Thing]

Dung-spitting competitions

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/dung-spitting-contest-northern-ireland_n_55ae6aebe4b0a9b9485290c1

https://www.ripleys.com/weird-news/bokdrol-spoeg/

https://www.sbnation.com/lookit/2014/8/1/5960987/spitting-antelope-poop-is-a-sport-kudu-bokdrol-spoeg