"Boogers" are made of mucus. Mucus is made by mucus membranes. Your body has mucus membranes in all sorts of places: The stomach, intestines, nose, lungs, eyes, mouth, and the urinary tract all contain mucus membranes that secrete mucus.
Mucus contains mostly water and mucin (during a sinus or lung infection, it also contains dead white blood cells that have been working on the infection -- see How Your Immune System Works for details). It is the mucin that makes it sticky.
Mucin is a branched polysaccharide. If you have read How Food Works, then you know about saccharides -- they are sugar chains. Starch, for example, is a polysaccharide. As you've probably noticed, if you mix corn starch or flour with water, you get a sticky substance. Mucin is doing the same thing. Mucus is essentially a thin paste made of mucin and water.
Show your four-year-old how corn starch and water is sticky (especially as it dries out) and he will be looking at synthetic boogers!
Some people pick there boogers pecause they like to eat them or want it out of there nose. Hope this helps you booger wonderer =p BYE!
chad
2006-07-19 15:07:27
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answer #1
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answered by SCSA 5
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The term is "boogers", not "bugers".
Your nose creates a sticky substance, a mucus, that most know as "snot".
This mucus protects the lungs. The air you breath has a lot of stuff like dust, dirt, germs, pollen and other such nasty things that don't do your lungs any good. These things cause infections
and actually could hurt your lungs ability to process air.
The snot catches this stuff inside the nose. It surrounds the material. The hairs in your nose (cilia) move this stuff towards the front of the nose and the back of the throat. As this happens it dries into clumps and becomes boogers.
Boogers then are good things. Just don't eat them.
2006-07-19 14:57:13
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answer #2
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answered by mmillerct@sbcglobal.net 2
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Dust and other particles which we inhale from the air around us. Our nose hairs act as a filtering system.
2006-07-19 14:50:48
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answer #3
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answered by Anonymous
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if you have one, try removing it, pick your nose then taste it.. you'll determine what kind of disease you have.. if it taste salty, ur kidneys may have complications, if sweet, prone of diabetes,... BUT IF YOU TRIED TASTING IT> YOU ARE A BIG TIME STUPID.
2006-07-19 14:58:12
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answer #4
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answered by eros 2
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Dried up snot. Simple as that.
2006-07-19 14:49:30
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answer #5
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answered by Anonymous
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dirt that is collected so you can have a night time snack :))))
2006-07-19 14:49:30
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answer #6
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answered by shizzlechit 5
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mucous
2006-07-19 14:49:43
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answer #7
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answered by h_tidewell 4
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