Bugs

"Badger_South" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 18 May 2004 23:04:27 GMT, "Claire Petersky"
wrote:

What happens to small beasties that get caught in your lungs like that? I
imagine they get caught in the mucus, and die there. Then what? They
dissolve and are absorbed into the body? Kind of disgusting to
contemplate,
eh?

Any detrius that enters the lungs is normally cleared by the constant
sweeping of the cilia - hairlike structures that line the air passages
which propel small foreign objects up the bronchial tubes and into the
esophagus, or back of the throat where you can cough it out. In addition
there's a slight peristaltic (wave-like) motion that moves things up out
of
the bronchi and secretions can thicken and increase to help this process.

According to this, then, I probably stopped coughing once the little beasty
got expelled, and then I swallowed it, without being aware of it.

I guess it sounds better that it dissolved in the stomach, where proteins
are supposed to be digested, than stuck in the mucus of bronchial tubes.
According to a vegetarian friend of mine, humans are made to eat animal
protein, but the main source, evolutionarily speaking, should be from
insects: grubs and whatnot.


--
Warm Regards,

Claire Petersky
Please replace earthlink for mouse-potato and .net for .com
Home of the meditative cyclist:
http://home.earthlink.net/~cpetersky/Welcome.htm
See the books I've set free at: http://bookcrossing.com/referral/Cpetersky

On Sat, 22 May 2004 23:58:27 GMT, "Claire Petersky"
wrote:

According to this, then, I probably stopped coughing once the little beasty
got expelled, and then I swallowed it, without being aware of it.

I guess it sounds better that it dissolved in the stomach, where proteins
are supposed to be digested, than stuck in the mucus of bronchial tubes.

You are correct Claire.

Best,
-B

TomP wrote:

Elisa, I was wondering why do so many of the French have Italian
sounding last names?

There was a strong Italian immigration to France at the turn of the 20th
Century. Moreover, some parts of the South, notably Nice/Nizza, actually were
Italian cities until the later 19th Century, when they were ceded to France by
Cavour in return for services rendered in getting rid of the Austrians.
Corsica, too, likes to think of itself as having its own culture and language
but anyone can recognize that language as a thinly veiled, easily
comprehensible dialect of Italian.

But none of this has nothing to do with me. I'm a New York-born
Italian-American dual national, educated in Switzerland and the UK, living
and working in the Paris suburbs.

EFR
Ile de France

"Elisa Francesca Roselli"
wrote in message ...


TomP wrote:

Elisa, I was wondering why do so many of the French have Italian
sounding last names?

There was a strong Italian immigration to France at the turn of the 20th
Century. Moreover, some parts of the South, notably Nice/Nizza, actually
were
Italian cities until the later 19th Century, when they were ceded to
France by
Cavour in return for services rendered in getting rid of the Austrians.
Corsica, too, likes to think of itself as having its own culture and
language
but anyone can recognize that language as a thinly veiled, easily
comprehensible dialect of Italian.

But none of this has nothing to do with me. I'm a New York-born
Italian-American dual national, educated in Switzerland and the UK,
living
and working in the Paris suburbs.

EFR
Ile de France


A couple of years ago we had some tenants on the other side of the duplex,
two corsican guys, french speaking. They were nice guys, and the fact they
were corsican was very impressive to our italian landlord. They only lived
there a year, though. I called them 'the Corsican brothers'.