Word: nostril
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...ever aware of it, but one nostril is always pulling in a tiny bit more air than the other, the result of minute swelling in the nasal lining that switches from one side to the other every few hours. The phenomenon has seemed to be little more than an anatomical curiosity...
...shown otherwise. From animal studies, the scientists knew that some odors are detected more easily when they're flowing past nasal tissue quickly, and others when they're moving slowly. So the researchers tested human subjects with a mix of two chemicals, asking them to sniff through one nostril, then the other. Sure enough, as reported in last week's issue of Nature, the sniffers thought they were smelling different mixtures when they were really just getting a different olfactory take on a single mixture...
...shaman placed a bamboo shoot filled with hallucinogenic snuff against Mark Plotkin's left nostril and blew into the tube. Plotkin's head snapped back, he recalls, as if he "had been hit with a war club." Little men began dancing before his eyes. He asked the shaman who they were. "They are the hekuri," the wise man replied, "the spirits of the forest...
Shoe was Shah's first patient at Duke's outpatient clinics three years ago, when he was a first-year resident, and the two have established a comfortable rapport. "Oww, that hurts!" she says, wincing as he inserts an otoscope into each nostril. "That hurts? I'm not even touching you," he counters as he peers into her nose. Shah suspects that the bleeds are triggered by her dry nasal cavities and recommends an over-the-counter nasal saline spray, available at any drugstore. He spends a few more minutes chatting with Shoe, then reminds her to return...
...enough, you say? To the contrary: the answers would tell us far more about the mind of our next President than would 100 predigested responses on taxes and family values. And if you were a highly paid political operative, you would need such questions like you would need another nostril...