20 Questions We've All Asked Ourselves (But Never Bothered To Find Out)

18. Why Is Snot Green?

Get your finger out of your nose and listen, we've got something important to tell you. Remember the last time you had a cold and you sneezed that huge bogey out, which got allover your hands? And you wondered, 'why is this green?' Firstly ... sick. Secondly ... snot, or nasal mucus as the brainy scientists call it, actually starts off clear and thin, not green and thick enough to roll in your fingers - which, admit it, you all do. It's only when we have a cold that it changes to that gooey green stuff, it's actually our bodies giving a butt kicking to the bacteria and whatever it that causes us to buy all of that Lemsip. Our lovely white blood cells, bless their hearts, create some sort of chemical which contains iron, the bad guys then get trapped in the pre-existing snot in our nose, and then the chemical turns it green ... mainly because of that there iron, see? So yeah, long story short, it's from iron. Now wipe your nose, for goodness sake.

17. Why Do Onions Makes Us Cry?

What are you crying about? Oh, sorry, you're just cutting onions. we see. Don't worry, it happens to the best of us, and we know, like us, the damn things are enough to make you consider cooking with a gas mask on. Well, there's a perfectly good reason for your tears, and it isn't because you're an unstable emotional wrecks either ... well, not all of us anyway, not sure I can say the same for you over there. Cheer up, man! The reason is because onions are part of a plant gene called Allium, which absorbs the sulfur in the earth as it grows in the soil and develops nasty amino acid sulfoxides. When you're making your risotto and chopping your onions something called achrymatory-factor synthase enzymes is released which instigates a chemical chain reaction ending up in the weeps in your eyes and the sniffles in your nose. Are you getting this? Pay attention. Why that causes us to cry is because those pesky enzymes react with the amino acids and turns them into a highly unstable and evil compound full of sulfuric acid, sulfur dioxide and hydrogen sulfide that gets into the air around our face. Now, we don't know about you, but the idea of acid getting into our eyes doesn't sound particularly nice, and apparently our eyes have certain nerves which think the same, so they start to water to protect us, apparently. Nice of them, but doesn't help us see where we're cooking. Dry your eyes, mate, you know the answer now.