Picking your nose is hardly socially acceptable, so why is this Canadian academic encouraging his students to pick theirs?
Professor Scott Napper is asking his students to test the possible health benefits of eating their snots, eh-hem mucous, because he wants to understand the human immune system better.
We’re hoping Napper is taking on the challenge himself too…
The professor believes that eating mucous in the nose may boost the immune system by introducing small and harmless amounts of germs back into the body, the Daily Mail reports.
His theory is that improved hygiene has actually led to an increase in allergies and auto-immune disorders.
Napper has halved the class: one half will refrain from picking their nose and eating it while the other half will, yes, you have it, pick their noses and eat it.
Then they will observe how the immune system responds to the new habit.
Professor Napper said: “All you would need is a group of volunteers. You would put some sort of molecule in all their noses, and for half of the group they would go about their normal business and for the other half of the group, they would pick their nose and eat it.”
“Then you could look for immune responses against that molecule and if they’re higher in the booger-eaters, then that would validate the idea.”
Ah, sounds like fun!
But it looks like Napper is already convinced by the powers of picking your nose.
“Nature pushes us to do different things because it is to our advantage to have certain behaviours, to consume different types of foods,” he said.
“So maybe when you have an urge like this to pick your nose and eat it, you should just go with nature.”
