We at Misusing Big Words always support and encourage reader participation. Due to some interest via online social networking sites (i.e. Facebook) regarding a previously posted post, James, Mark and Cherie thought to share an article discussion… Our first comes from Subscriber Nick Clark.
Nick writes:
I just read your “Farts” story. I disagree. I think many of those gases except perhaps the sulfides would diffuse through the alveolar membrane of the lungs into the blood of the pulmonary capillaries. The reason I think this is because they are all fairly small and/or non polar molecules and there is a relatively low concentration of many of those molecules in the blood, so the gases would diffuse through by means of passive transport through the alveolar membrane of the lungs. Are you or anyone interested in trying and testing out our respective theories? I think it would be a very interesting experiment.
Or did I just miss the meaning of this whole website, to not take this so seriously? Shit I always do that!
A response:
Dear Mr. Clark,
Thank you for subscribing to “Misusing Big Words” and for your outputting of sorts! I appreciate it tremendously.
You may be right. I have not conducted much research on the topic, and the theory presented is a personal hypothesis.
The reason your flatus has such a unique essence, however, is because of the presence of sulfides. The other gases (in which you say will diffuse through the membrane of our lungs) are essentially odorless. Thus, highlighting upon my concluding paragraph about concentrating your stank.
I present the following equation:
Presence of Sulfides + O2 + CO2 + N2 + CH4 + H2 —> Presence of Sulfides
Where “—>” is lung absorption of O2, CO2, N2, CH4, H2.
As you can imagine the volume of the gas has shrunk, leaving only the olfactory components of the flatus present.
I like to call this phenomena “The Cherie”.
Sincerely,
Cherie.An afterthought and very misused P.S.:
After further consideration, I believe you are right about the additional investigation of this topic. I haven’t the time being in graduate school, but perhaps a couple of research partners and yourself may want to consider testing this hypothesis.
I am not sure about the exchange of gases part. I forgot to take into consideration the exchange of O2 for CO2. I’m not sure if the same volume of gases absorbed by our lungs is exchanged for an equal amount of CO2… The equation should then look something like this:
Presence of Sulfides + O2 + CO2 + N2 + CH4 + H2 —> Presence of Sulfides + (unknown coefficient) CO2
Therefore, the amount of sulfides present in our flatus may not necessarily be as concentrated as I previously thought.
If that is the case, we may just be filtering out the flammable components of our flatus, making the world a little safer; not to mention more ozone layer-friendly.
You may even want to further this study to that of the flatus of cows and the efficiency of human lungs to eliminate its component harmful ozone-deteriorating gases.
Should there be any other discussion regarding our forum (which we highly encourage and support) it will be posted here at Misusing Big Words with your approval.
Thank you to Mr. Clark for his contribution to our site and we look forward to hearing from all of you!