Snot a hard question...
...so...

Uhm...

Well...I got no intro for ya from this one. They didn't have one, either at the start or during Beakmania! But, that don't mean there's no Beak! In fact, there's plenny of him...and plenny of disgusting gunk to go with him! Today, creakin' walls and snot balls!

Episode numbah 3 of Beakman's World. The debut of the robotic-voiced bumpers you know and love. The episode that put the show on the map as having no question too disgusting that they won't answer it (of course, they'd save flatulence for last...) And, of course, the one that everyone points to as why Beakman rocks!

...so, shall we go spelunking? :D

Noises at Night: The first question comes from Jenny Walsh of Williamstown, Massachusetts: "What's the deal with all those creaks and cracks at night when I'm trying to sleep?" Well, in Lester's case, it's his stomach, but in your case...it ain't any monsters under the bed or anything like that. It's just your house...getting smaller! Or, as we scientists say, contracting. Things contract when they get colder, and that's what makes noise. Here, let's show you. Here, we have a bucket of liquid nitrogen, at 320 degrees below zero! (That's fahrenheit, of course...Celsius doesn't go that low...) Now here we have a tomato. When we smash the tomato, it goes all squish and splatter all over the place. Let's dip a tomato into liquid nitrogen! (30 seconds later) ...and now, let's smash it! Whoa! It shatters like glass! The liquid nitrogen, in only about 30 seconds, froze the tomato solid! ...But that doesn't really explain the noises...but this balloon will! Watch what happens when we immerse (that is, cover) this balloon with liquid nitrogen. Whoa! Look at that balloon shrink! It must be because all the air is going out of the balloon, right? No, siree!

See, all things are made of things called molecules. Molecules are just the smallest amounts of a thing you can have. You can't have any less than one molecule of something. When molecules cool down, they don't move as much, and they need less room than they did before. And this causes things to contract, or get smaller, like this balloon here. Look how small that balloon is now. No, no! All the air went out of the balloon. Sorry, I have to prove you wrong. Look! As the balloon heats back up to room temperature, look at how it expands, or gets bigger, back to its original size! This is because when molecules heat up, they move faster, and they need more room, and they'll expand stuff to get that room! And that's what happens in your house! ...not on that scale of course. Your house may not contract more than 1 inch a night. But, that's enough! See these wood joints? And hear these wood joints? When they move against each other (when they contract or expand), they make creaking noises, just like the walls of your house.

Beakmania!!!: Let's open with Beak telling some enterprising young man that chickens look funny when they blink because their eyelids close from the bottom up! No, really! But now, it's time for...BEAKMANIA!!!!!!!!!!! (stop them horses!) (Wham!) Question: Are there any prehistoric animals still around? Answer: Other than Congress...there's Crocodiles, Sharks, Cockroaches, the Duck-billed Platypus, Turtles...and a fish called the Coelacanth, which was rediscovered a few years ago for the first time in 200 years! Question: How many cookies does the average person eat in a lifetime? Answer: About 35,000. Double for guys in rat suits. (Vwoom, vwoom...pew! pew! pew!) (Wham!) Question: How much does the average person's feet sweat in a day? Answer: About half a pint. Enough to quench Lester's cookie-eatin' throat. Question: What's the most commonly used word in the English language? Answer: A simple one-letter word: "I". Question: What's the world's heaviest animal? Lester? No...the brachiosaurus...again, no. Answer: It's the blue whale. It weighs as much as 16 elephants, or 1,600 grown humans. It's so big, that a baby blue whale can gain over 200 pounds a day! Question: Who's buried in Grant's tomb? Answer: Grant is buried in Grant's tomb. ...half right. Half of Grant is buried in Grant's tomb? No...all of Ulysses S. Grant is buried in Grant's tomb...along with his wife, Julie!

The Nose: Question: Uh...uhm...uh...what is... c'mon Josie, spit it out! Uh...can't do this, Beakman! Nonsense! There's no question we can't answer! Now, what do ya have! What is...what is...What...is...SNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT!!! What was so hard about that? But isn't that disgusting? Hey, there is no question too disgusting that we can't answer it. What's going on in your nose is just as scientific as what's going on in a volcano! Now, the scientific term for snot is mucus...of course, your verbiage may vary. (Hey, that's catchy!) Now, mucus is that stuff that's in your nose when you get a cold...but it's there all the time, too. It just works overtime during a cold because your body's protecting you from getting sicker! Here...let's see what's in the nose. There's the nostril, the opening to the nose, then there's the nasal passage. Up here is where that mucus factory is.

And now...let's get up close and personal with the nose, as Beak prepares to go up it! Here we have a big ol' model of the nose. You'll notice these nose hairs right at the entrance to the nose. Think of them as sort of like the air filter in your car: They trap big pieces of schmutz and prevent them from going further down into your lungs. Now, batten down the hatches, I'm goin' in! Yes, he's doing this in the name of science! And besides, it's fun! Now...open the nasal passage so we can see him! WHOA! GROSS! He's covered in snot! And that's what happens when you, as dirt, get past the nose hairs and into the nasal passage: That's what snot's job is. It traps all the littler pieces of dirt so they don't get down into your lungs. As we'll demonstrate here: Lester on one side with a fan and a lot of dirt...Josie on the other end...not getting pelted with dirt! Where is it? Did it disappear? No...because EVERYTHING GOES SOMEWHERE! In this instance, the dirt goes and sticks to the snot...as Beak gleefully demonstrates by popping out of the pipe...er, passage...covered in all the dirt that Lester threw down there! Well, not quite all the dirt, but most of it! And when you cough or swallow or blow your nose, you get rid of all that dirt that could otherwise hurt your lungs. Finally, did you know that your nose blows out enough air a day to fill over 1,800 basketballs? And when you sneeze, that air comes out really fast: Over 100 miles per hour...that's hurricane speed!

Aaaaand there you be wit' Beakman! See you tomorrow for a slightly more special than usual post.