Josh Clark

They're narrow for a very good reason, and that is to create turbulence inside your nasal passages

And, you know, that turbulence shoves all that air that you're inhaling to the sides of your nasal passages, the nasal mucosa.

And that's got tiny little hairs called cilia.

And the cilia mainly is sort of like a pre-doorman just saying like, yeah, your ID is good.

Why don't we just move you to the back of the throat and we'll flush you out that way.

But if it's too much, that's when you need to call in the big bouncer to initiate that sneeze response.

Yeah, sometimes they're just like, no, I'm staying here.

I'm not leaving.

You can't kick me out.

I hate the back of the throat.

Super drunk, right?

Yeah.

Yeah, so I didn't realize that, but it makes sense that we swallow a lot of the particles that we inhale through our nose, which is gross, but effective.

Or cough it up.

We poop it out eventually, right?

Yeah.

But, yeah, if they get stuck in the nose, then they do something magical, almost as magical as soap.

But when they're sticking to the sides and they're not going anywhere, it's clear they're not going anywhere.

They actually like irritate some specialized cells that are in that nasal mucosa, mast cells and irionophils, I think.

But basically, they're there to look out for little particles that decide they don't want to leave.