Science While You're Sick

Hail the Slimy Mucus - It's Our Friend!

One of the most annoying parts of having a cold is the constant drip, drip, dripping that flows from the nose. It becomes tiring carrying around a box of tissue and the nose gets sorely raw from all the wiping. But all that snot serves a purpose…so don't get down on mucus!

Here's an experiment to help you understand just how important that sticky stuff is to your body's defenses.

What you Need:

• 3 envelopes of unflavored gelatin

• 1/2 cup of light corn syrup

• water

• a see-through jar or bowl; and an adult helper

• Bring 1/2 cup of water to a boil; then remove from heat.
• Sprinkle in 3 envelopes of unflavored gelatin.
• Let it soften a few minutes, then stir.
• Add corn syrup and stir.
• As the mucus prototype cools, add more water a spoonful at a time until your mixture looks like what comes out of your nose.
• Pour into clear jar or bowl

Mucus is made up of mostly protein and sugars, but of a different kind than used to make your model. Did you see long, fine strings inside your prototype as you mixed it? Those strands are proteins. That is why real mucus can be stretched and is sticky. The protein in your fake mucus is gelatin.

Here's a way to see how mucus protects your body from invasion by dirt, pollen, bacteria, and other dust:

What You Need: fake mucus; the dirt bag from the vacuum cleaner

What You Do:

• Take the fake mucus and your dirt bag outside.
• Take a bit of dust from the bag and look at it. It is very fine and is a bad thing to breathe.
• Put a pinch of the finest dust into your mucus prototype and stir it up.
• Look closely into the goo…you just made fake boogers.

Mucus traps junk that tries to sneak into our bodies through our respiratory system. When we sneeze or blow our nose the mucus and trapped foreign bodies are sent flying out of our bodies where they can no longer harm us.