Talk:Sneeze
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Which animals sneeze?
which animals sneeze? dogs and cats do -- do all mammals? -- Tarquin 12:08 23 May 2003 (UTC)
- I dont think whales, dolphins and other mammals that live in water, sneeze, but am not sure. Most land mammals probably do sneeze (there probably are some exceptions though).
Sun-Sneezing
An excellent question. This is far more complicated than you might imagine. Since the detailed answer below got kind of long, I will summarize the main points up front. About 25% of people do actually sneeze when exposed to bright lights like the sun. We do not know exactly why this happens, but it might reflect a "crossing" of pathways in the brain, between the normal reflex of the eye in response to light and the sneezing reflex. There is no apparent benefit from "sun-sneezing", and it probably is nothing more than an unimportant (but annoying) holdover of evolution.
There are actually three questions here:
1) Do people really sneeze when they look at the sun? This is an important question! There a lot of things that people say they do that they don’t really do. I personally do not sneeze when I look at the sun, and for a long time I thought this was a myth. But I am guessing that you are a sun-sneezer from your question. It seems that some people really do sneeze when they look at the sun, or actually at any bright light (there is nothing special about the sun)**. This has been recognized in medical journals for at least 40 years, and is called different things, including the "photic sneeze reflex" and even the "ACHOO syndrome". In a few instances the reflex has been documented by shining bright lights at people to make them sneeze, so it probably really does happen.
** Nothing special about the sun? The spectrum of sunlight is quite unique compared to most bright light sources encountered. Is it relevant? You would need to provide better data.
The thing is, the sun does not make most people sneeze. The best estimates are that only about 25% of people (i.e. 1 in 4) are sun-sneezers, and even sun-sneezers don’t do it most of the time. Other studies suggest that sun-sneezers might have inherited the trait in a dominant fashion from their parents (which means that if only one parent was a sneezer, they would pass the trait on to half of their kids). The problem with these estimates is that they generally rely on asking people if they sun-sneeze, and if their parents do. This is VERY unreliable. People who sun-sneeze tend to assume everyone does, and people who don’t sun-sneeze have often never even considered the possibility!!
2) What is the mechanism by which sun-sneezing occurs? What actually makes it happen? The simplest answer is that we don’t really know. There are many theories that I won’t get into specifically, since most require a detailed understanding of brain anatomy to even describe. What I will try to do instead is to briefly explain the nature of the sneeze reflex and offer a simple understanding of how light might act as a trigger.
What is a sneeze? Well, everybody knows what a sneeze is, but try and describe it sometime! The fact is, a sneeze is a very complicated thing, involving many areas of the brain. A sneeze is a reflex triggered by sensory stimulation of the membranes in the nose, resulting in a coordinated and forceful expulsion of air through the mouth and nose. A "reflex" means that some type of stimulation of your body causes you to react in a way that is NOT under your control, in other words you do it automatically without thinking and you can’t even stop it. Your body has many reflexes - the other one important to us here is called the "pupillary light reflex". If you shine a light in your eyes, your pupils get smaller, or constrict. You should be able to see this easily in a friend using a flashlight (or in the mirror).
In the pupillary light reflex, shining a light in the eye causes nerve signals to go from the eye to the brain and then back the eye again, telling the pupil to constrict. In the usual sneeze reflex, tickling the nose causes nerve signals to go from the nose to the brain and then back out to the nose, mouth, chest muscles and everything else involved in the actual sneeze. The key point is that the nerve signals take complicated routes through the brain, but usually the pupillary light reflex and sneeze reflex take different routes. Apparently what happens in sun-sneezers is that shining a bright enough light in the eye ALSO sends nerves signals from the eye to the brain and then back out to the nose, mouth and chest! In short, the wires are crossed a little bit in some people, and so shining a light in the eye "accidentally" activates two different outgoing pathways.
3) What is the benefit or value of sun-sneezing? Is it a good thing? Again, not an easy question! Some people argue that it must be a good thing since the trait has been maintained in our population. I’m not so sure.
What is the benefit of sneezing in general? The easy answer is that the thing tickling your nose might be a bad thing (like a virus, bacteria or pollen), and sneezing forces it out. The problem is that most adults sneeze mostly through their mouth, and so sneezing won’t force anything out of the nose. This is in contrast to most animals, who sneeze largely through their nose (watch your dog or cat next time). So I think that sneezing really serves little purpose to humans (little kids might be an exception to this). I think that sneezing is important to animals that rely heavily on the sense of smell, but that in us it is just an annoying "holdover" of evolution. But that is just my opinion.
But even if a normal sneeze does function in ridding the nose of foreign materials, I can think of no reason why shining a light in the eye would create a need to force things from the nose! And in the several papers I have read on this subject, no one else gave a reason why sun-sneezing would be beneficial. Sun-sneezing must truly either be an accident of brain anatomy, or an evolutionary holdover from our animal friends, that serves no purpose in humans.
Thanks for a very thought-provoking question. Keep ‘em comin’!
Tom Wilson, MD PhD
- Thanks for the answer W3bu53r
- Er. Above is from this page (http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/aug97/865380242.Me.r.html). (I sneezed and was bored, so I Googled "sneeze" (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=sneeze&btnG=Google+Search). Not my C&P.) --Cuervo 21:55, 20 May 2005 (UTC)
Quirky Fact Validity?
The "quirky fact" about Jean-Marc Godbout seems both inaccurate (what date did he start sneezing on?) and implausible. I can't find any mentions of his record on Google either. At this point I'm tempted to think that whole line is just vandalism that went unnoticed. Does anybody else think it should be removed? Tronno 04:15, Jan 7, 2005 (UTC)
- Neither of the 'Quirky Facts' have a reference, and cannot be easily verified. I've removed them from the page and reproduced their content here. If a reliable reference can be found, I'd be happy to see the section re-instated. --PJF (talk) 23:48, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)
==Quirky Facts== Jean-Marc Godbout of Ottawa, Ontario holds the world record for a continuous sneezing fit, currently at 3 years, 6 months and 4 days (and counting.) Yi Yang of PRC, holds the world record for the loudest sneeze at 176db.
Here's one from Guiness World Records [1] (http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/gwr5/content_pages/record.asp?recordid=48490): This time though it's Donna Griffiths and 978 days. Not too sure how reliable Guiness are, though =P RolandDeschain
Speed of sneeze
The article currently claims the maximum speed of a sneeze is "146 km/h (312 miles per hour)". I'm sure there's debate about the maximum speed, but we should at least make the km/h and mph values agree. I'd correct it, but I don't know which is right!
For reference 1mph = 1.609..km/h.
Smb1001 18:47, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)
- I'm in favour of the maximum speed section being removed until a suitable reference can be found. The current speed information is internally inconsistant, and there are no references or other material that's backing it up or can be used to verify the statements that have been made.
- The whole article currently reads like on of those 'did you know' e-mails that seem to get endlessly circulated by bored office workers.
- Unfortunately, I'm not an expert on sneezing, but I hope that we can find someone who is. I'm going to sprinkle a few appropriate templates and request peer review. The article needs a good fact-checking and review. --PJF (talk) 02:05, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Orgasms?
This peice has degerated into little more than a tabloid excuse for an article. "Orgasms amongst humans can also cause sneezes" should be left out. If the person who wrote that wants it left in he should make another piece called Sneezing Facts and also list sources of this misinformation Cokehabit 14:59, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Why is it a NPOV dispute?????--LordVin1 22:14, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- OP must have confused this story with Jackie Mason(?)'s appearance on Johnny Carson. He told a joke about a friend who had an orgasm whever he sneezed. The man went to the doctor, who couldn't explain it. Jackie (in his joke) asked the friend what he was taking for it. The man said, "Pepper!" Sympleko 19:40, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- It is true that orgasms have been known to cause orgasms in human males. Ridethefire3211 00:58, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
- Yes, I usually have at least one orgasm when I have an orgasm. (Did you mean sneezes? :P) --Cuervo 21:56, 20 May 2005 (UTC)
