Art, science, and history are not free from interesting facts about farts
We already talked about some interesting facts about farts. Now, according to this article, let’s check out 30 more interesting facts about them.
1. The oldest joke ever known was a fart joke
There is a long history of bathroom humor. In 2008, academics at the University of Wolverhampton in England discovered a joke that dates back to 1900 BCE about a woman who may or may not have tooted in her husband’s lap. The Sumerian quip is delivered as follows: “Something which has never occurred since time immemorial; a young woman did not fart in her husband’s lap”.
2. Everybody farts
If you’ve ever met one of those people who strongly denied making farts, they’re lying. Gas is essentially the consequence of the air you consume interacting with the bacteria and other organic compounds in your large intestine before making its way out of your body via your rear end. If you breathe, you break the wind.
3. Flatus is the word for a fart in medicine
The correct medical term for a fart is flatus. Its origins are in Latin and it means “the act of blowing.” The definition of the term, which was first used in 1651, is simply “gas generated in the stomach or bowels”. Borborygmus is instead the term gastroenterologists use to describe the grumbling sound your stomach makes when you have gas building up.
4. A typical adult farts 14 times each day
Adults typically produce two quarts of gas per day, which leaks out through 14 farts per day. If you think the number is low, don’t worry. Up to 21 times a day being able to pass gas is reportedly entirely typical.
5. What makes farts smell is sulfur
The majority of what is a toot has no smell at all. Its components include the odorless gases nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide, hydrogen, and methane. Things typically begin to smell when sulfur enters the equation, primarily through the foods you eat such as broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, and dairy products.
6. Farts can never be held in
You cannot “hold in” a fart. You may often move your body in specific ways to stop it, but it may rise to the surface at inconvenient times, and the gas will eventually escape. If you’re lucky, it will do so covertly and gradually to give you the best opportunity of avoiding suspicion that you dealt it.
However, holding in a stinker could make it burst out louder than it would have otherwise. Holding on for too long results in the accumulation of intestinal gas eventually escaping via an uncontrollable fart, according to Clare Collins, a professor of nutrition and dietetics at the University of Newcastle.
7. A fart may escape from your mouth if you attempt to contain it
Holding in a fart for too long could cause the gas to recirculate through your body and even spill out of your mouth.
8. A good fart joke was Shakespeare’s favorite
The word “fart” has long been seen as a vulgarism, making it undesirable to discuss it in some workplaces, just as it is bad to pass gas in public. However, some of the most renowned minds in history continued to write about it. A Comedy of Errors, where the character Dromio of Ephesus says: “A man may break a word with you, sir; and words are but wind; Ay, and break it in your face, so he break it not behind”, is one example of how adept at farting jokes William Shakespeare was.
9. …as did Geoffrey Chaucer
In The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer had a character who “let fly a fart as loud as it had been a thunderclap”.
10. Many more classic works contain humor about farts
Aristophanes’ The Clouds, Mark Twain’s 1601, Dante’s The Inferno, and J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, are just a few more works of venerable literature that wax poetic over cheek squeaks.
11. James Joyce loved farts
Another classic that didn’t shy away from fart discussion is James Joyce’s Ulysses, but Joyce went much further. In fact, he appeared to find the sound of wind breaking lovely. Joyce sent some fairly nasty letters to Nora Barnacle, his wife, and long-term inspiration when he wasn’t working on some of the most important works of the 20th century. He used the word “fart” ten times in one letter, which was written in December 1909, most frequently in an obscene context. “I believe I could recognize Nora’s fart from anywhere”, Joyce remarked. “I believe I could recognize hers among a group of farting women. It was a ‘rather girlish noise'”, he said.
12. Farting can be a fetish
Joyce wouldn’t be the only one to express a lot of enthusiasm for his wife’s distinctive emission. A penchant for farting exists. Case studies about people who experience “eproctophilia”, the proclivity of becoming aroused by flatulence, have been documented, including a 2013 paper in the Archives of Sexual Behavior.
13. One woman was told to fart harder because she had constant thoughts about it
A 33-year-old respiratory therapist who was plagued by obsessive thoughts about farts was the subject of a case study published in the Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry in 1982 by a team of researchers at Georgia State University. She was told to “intensify flatus emissions”, which simply means that she should fart more forcefully when she had to urinate. She was able to completely shake off the ideas thanks to this contradicting suggestion.
14. Members of the Canadian Parliament disagreed over whether the word “fart” should be used in public
When Conservative MP Michelle Rempel dared to ask, “Why does the government treat Alberta like a fart in the room that nobody wants to talk about or acknowledge?” during a passionate speech in November 2016, the argument broke out. Elizabeth May, the leader of the Green Party, reprimanded Rempel instead of responding to her query, calling it “distinctly unparliamentary” and asked that her colleague retract the statement. The usage of the term “f-a-r-t”, in May’s words, more than the conversation’s political nature, was what bothered her.
After reading from the section on “unparliamentary language” in the House of Commons Procedure and Practice rulebook, the Assistant Deputy Speaker declared, “The honorable member said a couple of things that were borderline, but it is up to her to decide whether they were unparliamentary. Someone took offense. I will take it under advisement and bring it back to the table, and we will go from there”.
15. Gerald Ford blamed his Secret Service men for their flatulence
The 38th President of the United States, Gerald Ford, is rumored to have frequently blamed one of his Secret Service personnel when he let one rip, shouting things like “Jesus, was that you? Show some class!”.
16. A boss was sued for allegedly farting excessively
David Hingst, a former worker, filed a lawsuit against Greg Short, a supervisor at an engineering firm in Melbourne, Australia, alleging that throughout the year he worked there, he was regularly bullied by his employer or, more particularly, by his boss’s gassiness. Between May 2008 and April 2009, according to Hingst, Short would frequently entertain himself by entering his windowless office, where he would “lift his bum and fart”.
Hingst filed a lawsuit seeking damages of $1.8 million AUD, or around $1.3 million USD. Short admitted it was probable he had let a few go close to Hingst even though he denied being a serial fart offender. In any case, the court ruled in favor of the business, concluding that occasionally hotboxing an office did not constitute harassment. Hingst pledged to appeal.
17. In Germany, farting at the police is not a good idea
In 2016, one man floated a pair of farts their way when Berlin police asked a gathering of people to show them some identification. The offending farter received a 900 euro fine for disobeying law enforcement, which kicked off the “Crazy Toot Trial”, which involved 23 law enforcement officers and sparked a heated discussion over excessive government spending.
18. Farts have been used in performance art
A French baker named Joseph Pujol entertained his clients by pulling air into his rectum and then releasing it in such a way that he could truly simulate various instruments and noises in the late 1800s. Even if those of Pujol weren’t technically farts, he nonetheless made the decision to tour. Le Pétomane, the stage name he chose, is a combination of the French verb for “to fart” and the adjective “maniac.” He dazzled the crowds with his ability to pass wind at will. At least one flatulist, Mr. Methane of England, often known as the King of Farts, is still active if you’d like to witness one perform live for yourself.
19. Researchers have looked at how much room a fart takes up
The most crucial topic of all was addressed in a study that was published in the specialized journal Gut in 1991 by gastroenterologists from the Royal Hallamshire Hospital in Sheffield, England’s sub-department of Human Gastrointestinal Physiology and Nutrition. They gave 200 grams of baked beans to 10 individuals in addition to their normal diet in order to investigate the issue further, and over the course of the following 24 hours, they measured their flatulence using rectal catheters.
They discovered that the average fart contained between 33 and 125 ml, or around 3 fluid ounces, regardless of gender, body size, or time of day. The median was 90 ml. about the size of a travel bottle that is permitted at airports.
20. Beans may increase farts
According to a 2011 study published in Nutrition Journal that included three feeding experiments, some subjects who consumed beans did experience an increase in gas when compared to a control group. However, after a while, the increases appeared to taper off, therefore the authors of the article contend that beans’ health advantages exceed any brief tooting.
21. There is no proof in science that a fart’s volume correlates with how it smells (or lack thereof)
There isn’t any conclusive scientific proof linking the volume of a fart to how it smells. This is not to suggest that you have never endured the discomfort of a silent but deadly fart, if you want to assert that there is a rigorously demonstrated correlation between smell and sound, maybe you’re wrong.
22. Farts can be visible in cold air
Everybody has heard tales or watched YouTube videos of people setting their farts on fire. And it’s true that combining a lighted flame with a gaseous toot can result in a burst of flame. This is similar to how we can see our breath when it is cold outside.
23. Your farts smell worse in the shower
Since you aren’t wearing any clothes and are in a contained environment in the shower, the scent has nowhere to go because there is nothing to absorb it. Additionally, there is some proof that the steam from the shower can improve your sense of smell, making it a particularly effective bun-shaker.
24. Even though it’s improbable, a fart can spread disease
Unbelievable as it may seem, there could be a drawback to fart while wearing no pants such as making someone ill. Transmitting a disease through the gas is quite unlikely, and requires a very specific circumstance (specifically, a person with the sickness would have to remove their pants and fart directly at another person in rather close quarters).
25. Lots of animals fart
A fish from northern Mexico called the Bolson pupfish feeds on algae and may unintentionally consume the gas bubbles that algae make in warm weather. That turns into a hazardous situation if the air enters the fish’s intestines and inhibits its ability to swim. If it doesn’t fart to expel the air, it will probably perish—either from being eaten by a predator as it rises to the surface of the water or from its intestines being ruptured by gas bubbles.
26. The termite is one of the most renowned animal farters
Although termites are tiny, they have millions of colonies all to themselves. A half microgram of methane released by each termite every day adds up to a lot: 20 million tons of methane annually, or 1 to 3 percent of the world’s methane emissions.
27. Not all creatures fart
Octopuses are believed not to toot. Neither do birds, sea anemones, or soft-shell clams. While the only other mammal that cannot fart is the sloth.
28. You probably won’t find your farts as offensive as other people do
You’re not alone if you insist that your gas smells less unpleasant than anyone else’s. We are more likely to prefer something if we are exposed to and familiar with it more. The same is true of art, music, etc. This implies that while your farts might not cause a blip on your personal smell detector, the same isn’t always true for individuals nearby the stink. When your brain knows you just farted, it may also expect an odor, giving the impression of a different smell than the sudden smell from another person.
29. There’s a pill that seems to make farts less stinky
There is a medication if you’d want to prevent the sulfur-like scent of any farts. It makes your gas smell like chocolate. A French inventor by the name of Christian Poincheval claimed in 2014 that he could make your flatus pleasant instead of sour. There are also variations of rose, violet, ginger, and lily of the valley if chocolate isn’t your thing.
30. There are underwears that filter farts
If the pills are ineffective, maybe some fart-filtering fashion is a better bet. There’s an entire company, Shreddies, that uses activated carbon in its line of underwear, pajamas, jeans, and even seat cushions to block the more putrid smells associated with farts.
