The Windbreaker: Why Farts Make the World Go Round
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Three, two, imagine... You are a part of the air. You are weightless, invisible. Ephemeral. Floating alone through space when suddenly you're sucked up, squeezed into a dark tunnel with... Millions of bacteria. Intense pressure surrounds you. It builds up and it builds up. There's a huge force that propels you out.

You have become... A fart. No. No. Anna, Alan, did you prepare this episode? We are not doing a toot episode. Lulu, you were out on maternity leave. You left us in charge. You said go follow your heart and following your heart actually led you to toots? Uh-huh. Yeah. Wait, but why? They're like gross and impolite to talk about and think about.

Ew, my point? Exactly. Like, toots are, they smell so bad and who wants to like spend time in a toot cloud? Like, I don't. You can't even say fart. You have to say toot. I don't like the word. Toot is our preferred family word. You're playing an action game.

They won't. This is inappropriate subject matter for our podcast. Okay, so your objection is that farts are inappropriate, impolite, unsophisticated? Precisely. Well, we traveled to arguably the most sophisticated place. Where's that? A concert hall for an orchestra. Fancy black and white suits, shining instruments, and guess what we found? What? Farts. Resounding through the air. Farts.

Wait, what am I listening to? Did you put little microphones behind all the musicians' bumbos? No, we went to Rhode Island to visit the Brown University Orchestra. Over a hundred classical student musicians. No. And we asked them to imitate flatulence on their instruments. No, you did not. We did. Wait, like the whole orchestra was assembled and you show up with your microphones like, can you please play some toots? Oh, yeah. Listen to this.

What instrument's that? The oboe. These are the trombones. Nice brass, you do. The French horn, I think I remember being really good. Wait, this is amazing. So you're just going through all the sections. Did you get any strings? We got some violins. Shockingly farty. Any percussion? Any drums? Yes. Yes.

The Big Bad Timpani. Wait, I cannot believe you got classically trained musicians to debase themselves like this by making tune noises. Well, it's not just us. So in 1791, composer Joseph Franz Haydn wrote a fart joke smack in the middle of his 93rd symphony. And the orchestra was kind enough to perform it for us. Ooh, they're good.

What instrument was that? The bassoon. Wow. The director of the orchestra, Eric Nathan, says that a lot of instruments are just naturally good at fart jokes. So how a brass player makes the sound is that they actually vibrate their lips kind of as if you were trying to make a fart sound. And they can do different pitches. Trumpets are much higher. I'm a trumpet player, so...

Wait, so they're doing that as they play, as they put that little brass mouth? Like, so every horn, basically? They are making a fart sound with their lips. So behind, like, the smoothest jazz. Farts. Like, the funkiest funk. Farts. And, like, behind that trumpety fanfare that introduces kings and the pope. Farts.

So crossing off your argument that farts are not polite, they're basically art. The clarion call of the trumpet in an orchestra, in churches, in jazz bands, big bands, dance halls, waking up soldiers all over the world. There are farts.

Plus, when you look at how real farts work in the animal world, you will see that farts, well, they make the world go round. What do you mean? From underwater navigation to interspecies communication to explosion deactivation. What? Without farts, life as we know it would go kaput. Plus, they funny. And what is more beautiful than the sound of laughter? Exactly. Oh.

All right, you loons. I am sold. I am reluctantly sold, but I'm going to hand over the mic and we'll see. I guess first time ever on Terrestrials. Let's welcome Toots into the room. All right, here we go. Hold on to your butts. Now is the time where we get you to sing the theme song with us. Terrestrials, Terrestrials, we are not the worst, we are the best.

I'm at a loss. I don't know what's the opposite of worst. Best. Best Reels. It's Dr. Watt. You got it. Terrestrials is a show where we uncover the strangeness right here on Earth. I am producer Bud, Anna, and I'm here with Songbud. Yoo-hoo. Alan. Gas in the wind. Gas in the wind.

And we're here to tell you a story that Lulu does not want us to tell. The life-saving, tummy-rumbling, heroic story of farts. Correct. And here to blow some wind into the sails of this tale is someone who has seen where farts live up close and personal. Have you ever operated on intestines? Yes. Over 50? This is my friend, Dr. Juan Pablo Zenlio, who's a surgeon, meaning he spends his days cutting

into human bodies to make them healthier. Have you ever seen a fart inside of somebody's body when you're performing surgery? I've seen a fart bubble move through the body. And growing up, he thought about farts the way many of us do. I certainly grew up in a household where it wasn't frowned upon to fart, but we also were taught that this was something that you shouldn't do around strangers. You had to have politeness. But

Juan would fart a lot. Like, an average person farts around 15 to 20 times a day. Okay. But Juan was farting like 20 times an hour. Whoa, Dr. Juan. Because Juan is lactose intolerant, meaning eating cheese or ice cream was hard for him to digest. I would expect a lot of farting afterwards. So Juan got really good at holding in his farts. I've got a sphincter of steel. Yeah.

And it might be one of my strongest muscles in my body. Now, the sphincter is one of the muscles that controls when we poop and when we fart. And to Juan, it's one of the most sophisticated parts of the human body, a true feat of anatomical engineering because... Imagine you're holding a bunch of marbles. This little group of muscles can kind of direct

- Direct traffic, if you will, so that-- - None of the marbles comes out, but only gas and air. - That's kind of amazing. - And our body's ability to expel air in this way is actually saving our lives every single day. - Because when you eat a slice of pizza-- - Yum. - It gets swallowed down into your stomach where you start to digest it, turning the fats and proteins and sugars you ate into things that your body needs.

to build cells, to repair things. And you're not doing this alone. You have a whole team. Millions of bacteria. Trillions even. A whole ecosystem of microscopic organisms that live in your stomach and intestines and help you digest and absorb nutrients.

And this work that they do is called fermentation. And that process creates a little bit of gas. And your body needs to get rid of all of that gas. So it sends those gases down through your intestinal tubes and they come out as farts.

And if we couldn't fart, we could die. Pressure can build up. Juan has to help people sometimes who have obstructions or blockages in their digestive systems. Parts of your intestine can get really inflated and blown up like a balloon, and sometimes it can burst and pop. Wait, wait, wait. So without farts, we could literally blow up like a balloon and pop? Certain organs could. And allow me to say that.

Allow me to introduce you to a shiny little fish called the Bolson pupfish. Never heard of it. So the Bolson pupfish eats algae. And in hot summer weather, the algae starts releasing these gas bubbles. And when the fish eats these bubbles, they get really, really bloated. And it's actually been recorded that if they can't fart it out in time, they explode.

Oh, poor buddy. This is a PSA from Terrestrials. Fart when you have to. The more you fart. But this is a PSA interruption from Lulu. Please don't do it in elevators or other enclosed spaces where it'd be disrespectful to others. Fair.

Wow, so if farts are so great for us, why do they smell so gross? Well, because the stinkiest farts contain a tiny bit of a little chemical called sulfur. It's one of the gases that bacteria make when they digest our food. And our noses have gotten really, really good at detecting sulfur because it's often in things that are bad for us, like rotten food or poisonous vapors that we shouldn't breathe in.

So even the tiny amount of sulfur in some farts makes our brains think we're in danger. Right. When in reality, farts are not dangerous for us to smell. Right. The only health reason to not get too close to a toot is that unfortunately, some do have a little bit of poop particles released with them. Ew. Which can contain harmful bacteria. Ew.

Ew! In any case, the way a fart smells is different for each person because your signature flatulent scent comes from the interaction between what you eat every day and the specific bacteria that live in your gut. The result is a planet with billions of different farts. Much like snowflakes, snow too are alike. Everyone's fart is a unique fingerprint. Ha!

And as for Juan's unique farts, well, these days there are less of them because he discovered the wonder of lactaid pills, which let him digest the lactose in dairy instead of having to expel it as a blizzard of gas. Oh, yeah. Dr. Juan farts normally now.

When we come back, we are headed straight into the cloud of animal farts to discover the secrets they contain that scientists are only starting to decode. It was almost like that information was just like bottled up and needed to be released in some sort of expulsion. Find out the fangastic way other creatures fart and what would happen if farting just disappeared after the break. Giddy up, fartner.

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Terrestrials is back. And before the break, we were talking about how farts are made in the human body. What about the farts in non-human bodies? The ones flying in the sky, slithering on the ground, hanging from trees? I'm glad you asked, Anna, because I've invited two flatologists. Is that really what they're called? Yeah, from the Latin word flatus, meaning the blowing of air. Oof.

And these very serious flatologists have agreed to come help us learn about the sounds and smells of the animal world. My name's Dani Rabioti. My name is Nick Caruso. Nick and Dani co-wrote a book called... Does It Fart? The Definitive Field Guide to Animal Fleshlands. And to further convince our listeners that farts are nothing to be ashamed of, but are actually superpowers in the animal kingdom, I have invited Nick and Dani to co-host a game I call... We!

Wait, what? That's right, Anna. Step right up to spin the Wheel of Fortune to see how animal toots make the world go round. Ready to play? Let's do this. All right, spin that wheel. Ooh, snakes.

How do snakes fart? Don't they swallow their food, like, whole? I bet that makes them pretty gassy. Oh, yeah. Reptiles have a cloaca. An opening that's a two-for-one, meaning both poo and pee come out of it. Which comes from the Latin word for sewer. And certain snakes... If they feel threatened by a predator, they will do this thing called cloacal popping, which is essentially farting. And this is what it sounds like.

They are actually inhaling air directly into their cloaca butts and then expelling it back out as loud pops to deter predators. Just a little bit of a rake on the fart. Whoa, so snake farts are like a secret weapon that shoos away hungry beasts? Yes. Talk about a battle of the butts! All right, spin that wheel again! Ooh, a manatee.

I'd like to buy a vowel. I mean, a bowel. A bowel fact.

Well, you know how being full of air makes things float? Yeah, like an inflatable raft? Well, manatees have a special muscle that compresses the air in their digestive tract into a special storage compartment that keeps them floating around in the water better. Then when it's time to dive down for some food, they can actually release their stored pocket of gas on demand. Really? Using their toots to navigate up and down like a submarine. Holy smokes, like their own built-in motorboat booties?

They've actually found some in aquariums where the manatee was constipated and it just kind of floats with its tail sticking up and its head down because it's got all the stored gas in its rear end and it can't bring that below the surface of the water. Wait, whoa, so it can't dive down without being able to fart? Yeah, it's like their gas pedal is broken. Guess they need the bubbles to get out of their troubles. Ha ha!

Give that wheel another spin!

Oh, cows! Ooh! Wait, I thought cow farts were bad for the planet. Aren't they, like, causing climate change? Everyone always says, oh, cows, you know, they're farts, they're heating up the planet. But really, it's actually the burps. Most of it comes out the front end. It's the burps that are producing the methane. It's not the farts. Cows' butts are getting a bad rap. It's their mouths you've got to look out for. Huh, who knew? Now spin that wheel!

Ooh, chimpanzees! What good fortune are they bringing to the land? We had some chimp researchers say that sometimes if they can't find the chimps in the forest, they'll listen for the sound of them farting, and then they'll find them by that sound. If the troop is large, it can just be just a lot of farts. Unashamed, just letting loose in the jungle. Ha!

So we got Batman with a bat signal and chimpanzees have butt signals? They sure do. All right, time again to spin that wheel.

Birds. Ooh, I've never heard a bird fart. They could if they wanted to. What do you mean they could if they wanted to? There's nothing anatomically that should really prevent them from farting. But just everyone we spoke to, even people that spent all their time with birds, was like, I've never heard it. I've never seen any evidence of a bird farting. Except for people that own parrots. But then it's because they're just mimicking all the people farting with their mouths.

Okay, it's time for one final spin. This one's for all the marbles. All right, here goes nothing. Sloths. I bet they fart a lot, but it's like really long and slow, like...

They only actually poop every three weeks. Oh, buddy. And sloths don't fart because if they get gas trapped in their intestines, because their digestive system takes so long, they will get really sick. But then what do they do with all the gas that gets produced in their bodies during digestion? They reabsorb it into their bloodstream from their digestive system and then they breathe it out.

Ew, stinky sloth, bruh. Well, that about concludes the game show. Did I win? Nope. Our grand prize winner is... Sloth! Yay! Tell them what they've won on a... A whole can of beans! Take it easy with those magical fruits, buddies. And Nick and Danny, thank you for playing... Wheel of Fortune! Of course. No worries.

Now, with all this functional farting in the world, it really makes you think. What would happen if we did what Lulu wanted us to do and stopped farting? No more passing gas. No more tooting from our booties. Manatees would balloon out of the water. Cows would burp us into oblivion. Pupfish would explode. And the ecosystems around us would collapse. And people, what would happen to us and our world that we've built?

The world would stop if people just couldn't control their bowels. We'd have to make a toilet in every room. Or why even have indoor plumbing at all? We would just live out in open fields like cows and horses pooping whenever we had to. We would not have been able to develop agriculture, develop industry. And beyond that, our entire idea of art and literature would crumble before our eyes. Because authors and composers, playwrights and poets...

have made references to flatulence since the dawn of time.

For example, in A Thousand and One Nights, which is a collection of stories from the ancient Arab world, a character flees his homeland out of embarrassment after farting at his own wedding. The Italian poet Dante wrote of a demon who farted like a trombone or a trumpet. Both Shakespeare and Mark Twain wrote fart-tastic literary moments, and the singer Madonna even performed a poem about farts. And don't forget the fart jokes that classical composers like Haydn wrote into their symphonies.

Maybe Haydn wrote that fart joke because when we all experience an unexpected moment together, an unexpected fart bassoon-ing in the silence, it's funny. It's a sound that I think there's a commonality that everybody has experienced embarrassment about. But it's also something that we can kind of share in that embarrassment. And so our lives have humor in them.

So, farts build community. There, I said it. Amen, bro. Farting is this experience that's universal on the planet. Well, except for maybe sloths. Right, except for sloths. Most creatures on this planet fart in some way. And human beings, we love to laugh at it. And that brings us all together. Yeah, it makes us more connected to our farting animal relatives.

Okay, that is shockingly sweet. Lulu, you're back! I am. I've been listening and I cannot believe I'm going to say this, but you have convinced me for a brief moment to appreciate toots.

Enough to call them farts? Absolutely not. What about bottom burps? No. A booty belch? No. Or a trouser trumpet? Ew. What about a mattress mumbler? I hate that one. An air biscuit? No. Insane in the methane? Maybe. A sulfur squeak? Ew. Fecal fumes? No way. Absolutely not. Great brown cloud? No. Out of tune bassoon? Putt-putt? Quacker. Raspberry? I'm writing you down. Steamer? I'm resuming. I'm coming back.

Back to the controls and I am turning you down. Turning your microphones down. Ah, much better. Thank you, Anna and Alan, for that musical journey. And that is it. There is nothing else cool about to happen on this show. What's that? Excuse me, I have a question. Me too. Me three. Me four. The Badgers. Listeners, with badgering questions for the expert.

Are you ready? Yeah. Hi, my name is Sequoia. I'm 12 years old. And my question is, what's the difference between burping and farting? Burps usually are coming from the very beginning part of your intestine versus gas that comes from...

the end part of your digestive tract that we call a fart, but that's why they smell different, too. Burps, because the food is less digested, will smell more like what you just ate. Hi, my name is JJ, and I'm six years old. And why do farts happen during your sleep?

Farts happen 24 hours, seven days a week. And when you're sleeping, you have less conscious control of your muscles to hold in the fart. So the sphincter of steel doesn't really work as well when you're catching some Zs. Unless you're me and you've had a lot of reps in. Strength training comes in all forms.

Hi, I'm Steven, and I'm 42 years old. And my stomach grumbles. Is that farts? When your stomach grumbles, that is gas and fluid and basically everything that you've eaten being churned up and digested and passing through your intestines. And so, yes, there could be farts in there moving through. Did dinosaurs fart? Isn't that what led to them all dying out? Someone had a really big fart? Ha ha ha!

That, my friends, is what we call sarcasm. The dinosaurs were way more likely killed by a giant asteroid. Whew.

And as to whether they tooted, Juan says... Probably. What do you call farts in your house? We just stick with farts. A lot of my patients are Asian American. In Cantonese, farts is pay. In my house, my dad would say... Oh, really, Ana? Uh-huh. Si. Which is very similar to pay. It's a universal language. Okay.

Well, gracias Juan, gracias Ana, thank you Alan. I think that's going to do it. It's all the toot knowledge I can take for one day. Tell us what you call toots in your family. You can write us an email at T-E-R-R-E-S-T-R-I-A-L-S-W-N-Y-C dot org. Turn

Terrestrials was created by me, Lulu Miller, with WNYC Studios. This episode was reported and produced by the dynamic duo, Ana Gonzalez and Alan Gofinski. Our executive producer is Sarah Sambach. Our team includes Ana Allen, Mira Birtwintonik, Tanya Chala, Joe Plord, and me.

Thank you.

Special thanks to Dr. Juan Pablo Zenlio, Nick Caruso, and Danny Rabaiati. Their book again is called Does It Fart? The Definitive Field Guide to Animal Flatulence. And thank you for listening. If you do like our strange little show about the earth and the creatures and gases on it, with the occasional singing and bad puns, please rate and review us and share episodes with your friends. It really makes a huge difference.

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That'll do it for today. See you in a couple spins of this dirty old planet of ours on an episode in which I promise there will be no toots. Fresh air ahead. Terrestrials is supported by the John Templeton Foundation, funding research and catalyzing conversations that inspire people with awe and wonder. Learn about the latest discoveries in the science of well-being, complexity, forgiveness, and free will at templeton.org.