h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

My first cold in two years or more

I'm not the only one - a few of my friends are sniffling too. One of them - only half-jokingly I suspect - suggested that we're wallowing in a sea of hipster germs left over from South by Southwest. There might well be something to that - several hundred thousand people from all over the world came here a few weeks ago. It's a statistical certainty that some of them were carrying infectious critters which they passed on to all and sundry. Thanks. Well done.

One thing that I'm curious about though - how does your nose know when you're asleep, a question that goes back to when I had those ghastly allergies about a month ago.

My nose was running all day yesterday (a bit of an inconvenience when you have to wear a respirator and safety visor at work). It was running when I got home, and when I went to bed I had to take a couple of handkerchiefs with me because, well, you know.

When I woke up this morning it started running again and I had to start hunting around for a hankie, but between the time I (eventually) fell asleep and the time I woke up my nose stopped running. It must have, because I didn't wake up with a sopping wet pillow (hope you're not currently eating btw ).

How did my nose magically stop dribbling mucus the moment I went to sleep, and how did it know to start again the moment I woke up? If we could find that out... well, a Nobel for medicine prize awaits

< chickensoupsmiley >

Ooh, I could just do with some of that right now

Your nose didn't stop running whilst you were asleep. But the gnomes and pixis knew you were sleeping... So they come into your room, and use their tiny little hankerchiefs, to mop up the mucus whilst you sleep; The pixis knit clouds from it, whilst the gnomes build their houses from human mucus. trust me, I'm a sientist.

Of course you are 2legs, of course you are

Wow...Texas too? I know colds tend to do the rounds when they come, but we seem to be having a super-contagious one at the minute. All of my family have it, everybody at work has it, and I think all of my friends with one exception.

It's getting like "The Stand" or something.

It probably has to do with gravity (different positioning, unless you sleep standing/sitting up) or reduced heartbeat...

Which would summon the gnomes

and the pixis.... don't forget the pixi....

Pixies and gomes? I'll have nothing less than elves. Elves, d'you hear!

Grilled on toast with ketchup

Ketchup?! are you mad!? You've gotta have HP sauce, man, to go with Elf on toast....

HP is for fairies - you can't put it on elves because the vinegar makes their wee bells go all rusty!

Wait... don't fairies have bells too? And anyway, there's vinegar in ketchup too. If you don't like rusty bells... I said BELLS! If you don't like 'em, push to one side of the plate and leave them for the dog, or the Necromancer.

Your nose didn't stop running - it just went with gravity and down your throat!

Welcome the morning with a tummy full of snot! The pixies put it there.

Not sure whether I am cold-laden or allergy-ridden but sneezing and snotty from wake up til bedtime at the mo.

Tummy full of snot. If that wasn't the name of a punk band it jolly well ought to have been

Funnily enough, DDD said that a comment of mine last week should have been a rock band.

DDD 'How are you feeling today, honey?'

Me 'Bunged up and hormonal!'

We could have made millions....

Yep. Gravity (and the odd pixie). I've done my own experiments when I've been stuffed up. I notice that since I tend to sleep on my sides, rarely flat on my back, that when I roll over, I have a few minutes lag before I can breath through my superior nostril (the one higher than the other).

I"m sure if you slept with your face down in teh pillow, the pillow would be substantially more dense in the morning.

Oh, and there was an interview on NPR the other day that I had to turn off. It was with an operatic singer. She went into way too much detail about how she can continue to sing even with a nasal infection. She stated that professional singers are experts on not having post nasal drip go down their throats and part of that is the ability to sleep on her stomach.

I can't do that, no matter how much I don't mind laundering my pillowcases in the morning.

Anyone who's ever breast fed a baby will understand my theory that, as long as you don't blow your nose, no new mucus will be produced. As with breast milk - if you stop feeding the baby, the body stops producing it.

Only works with nose goo up to a point, though. And sometimes you do need to breathe.

That theory certainly works for breast milk production, with an obvious, and known biological reason; its 'suckling' which encourages oxitocin production (think that's the right hormone), which encourages milk production within breast tissue.... I'm fairly certain there isn't a hormone involved with nasal mucous production though