File this away in the category of things no one needed (or ever wanted) to know, but the curious case of belly button fluff has finally been cracked by an Austrian scientist.
How did he figure it out?
Easy … he collected 503 pieces of his own navel lint and examined them.
From the Telegraph UK:
Chemical analysis revealed the pieces of fluff were not made up of only cotton from clothing. Wrapped up in the lint were also flecks of dead skin, fat, sweat and dust.
Dr Steinhauser’s observations showed that ‘small pieces of fluff first form in the hair and then end up in the navel at the end of the day’.
Writing in the journal Medical Hypotheses, he said the scaly structure of the hair enhances the ‘abrasion of minuscule fibres from the shirt’ and directs the lint towards the belly button.’
“The hair’s scales act like a kind of barbed hooks,” he said. “Abdominal hair often seems to grow in concentric circles around the navel.”
Beautiful.
Mande forwarded us this the other day, ostensibly because she’s grown tired of watching Sic Willie pull out pieces of his own navel lint during our editorial meetings … and flicking them across the room at people.
True story.
Think that’s gross, though?
Consider Guiness record-holder Graham Barker, who has been collecting his navel fluff in little jars dating back to 1984.
Update- Oops … looks like Mande’s whole point in sending us this was to demonstrate the sort of crap that venerable newspapers like the Telegraph are covering these days.
