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Hic Hic Hooray: Hiccups Explained
Anonymous Hero writes "Finally after millions of years (and zillions of hiccups) New Scientist gives us an explanation for this most annoying and least obvious of adaptations!"
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...try being taken seriously at work when you have the hiccups...
BlackNova Traders
Why do I yawn when I see someone else yawn?
and knowing is half the battle!
Let's get drunk and delete production data!
Because basically, we are fish....
People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.
I'm sorry, where did that article provide the explanation? I saw theory, but no proven, scientific answer, as the last two paragraphs indicate...
The doctor also said that they have no clue why it happens, and that at least one study had shown that if you bring a baby out into bright light they will often start hiccuping. I keep pointing my daughter at the sun, but so far, nuthin. :)
www.HearMySoulSpeak.com
The article seems to indicate that this is a concept - something that may have arisen from brainstorming, and may not be backed up by any data at all!!
This "explanation" is apparently supported by the thinnest of threads in terms of evolutionary history, and hard evidence is not presented to back this claim. This does not stop the Slashdot editors from posting this as "stuff that matters."
Please let the brainstormers check their ideas with research, show correlation, then causation, then present their findings in a way that can be checked by others.
This hypothesis, if you can call it that, is not tested and is perhaps not testable.
Why this reflex motion a) exists at all, and b) why it persists, if it descende from the frog may only be fodder for spectulation.
Science requires more than mere speculation.
Phooey.
Anomaly
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
There is a trick to making them go away. It takes some concentration, but you can consciously prevent your muscles from doing that to you. I wish I knew how to explain it - it's like teaching someone to burp on command - I just "know" how to do it, but I'm not sure how to explain what to do.
Score one more for the we came from a puddle of sludge team!
Not that I wouldn't prefer creation over evolution. Probably wouldn't have hiccups. Thanks a lot, natural selection.
Which shuts down the higher level brain functions and allows the inner fish to express itself.
On the surface I may seem very profound, but deep down inside I'm actually a very shallow individual.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
like people coughing in a theatre, once one person starts the others follow.
:
My hypothesis
Falling asleep and/or coughing is a dangerous activity with predators around. So when one person coughs and gives the game away it would be prudent to get your coughing over and done with now rather than when it goes quiet again.
With yawning maybe it's a trigger to take an oxygen blast before it's necessary.
Will that do?
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
I'll have to show to article to the wife. That way the next time I get the hiccups, she'll understand why I start going for, uh well, if you read the article you'll know.
Have you ever noticed hiccups in babies.
:)
My brothers just had a little girl. She quite a noisemaker - Cries almost all the time. Now I've noticed that sometimes in her rare quiet periods when she gets hickups - she doen't seem to care.
Now this is a child that uses high screaming as the first symptom of hunger, or any othe discomfort - but when she has hickups she doesnt seem to notice. She'll just go on watching our faces - or whatever little people does for fun. This is even though every hickup makes her little body jump.
While not even resembling proof for anything - it might suggest that the theory that suckling and hickups are related behaviour is not that far of.
I get the worst hickups myself. My little 100kg 190 cm body, shakes in cramps an my head and throat aches - and they last for a long time. We once threw a dinner party - and I had the hickups all through dinner - quite conversationkiller
Knowing why and how it happens is good, but what about healing hiccup?
For most of us, hiccups are just a small annoyance for a couple of minutes, but I remember watching a medical TV emission where people explained that they suffered from chronical hiccups. These persons could have hiccups for several days (night and day), and their life was not funny at all.
JB.
I've got another one, but you can't use it on yourself.
Put your thumb on the person's (victim's) forehead. I've no idea why this works, but it seems to be extremely effective. I think part of it has to do with the person concentrating on your thumb on their forehead.
BTW-It does not work on yourself, I've tried.
If only I had known this in elementary school. It would have saved me from detention.
Remember how all of the school health books had a little blurb on hiccups? The Q&A form went like this:
Q: What causes hiccups?
A: Hiccups are a spastic contraction of the diaphragm combined with the closing of the windpipe. Drink some water...
I got in trouble for not accepting that. The teacher gave the class the same answer and I told him: "OK, so that's what they are, but WHY do we get them?" Same answer again. So I explained to the teacher and the class the difference between cause and effect.
2 hours after school...oh, the trauma! Freakin' great way to foster a sense of inquiry.
I have this argument with my significant other all the time. She gets hiccups fairly regularly - perhaps once a month. I haven't had the hiccups in over 15 years.
When I was young, I remember reading an article that suggested hiccups were purely psychological. Since then, I've been convinced that it was purely a matter of will.
Occasionally I'll get a single hiccup - usually after drinking a carbonated beverage of some variety. But I know that hiccups are psychological, and I never have a second hiccup. As I said, this has worked for over 15 years.
My significant other? She swears that it's some biological function. Her hiccups? They last for at least five minutes - sometimes up to half an hour.
Call me crazy, but at least I'm hiccup-free.
> The article relates a new theory, nothing more. It's a promising theory, and one which can be disproven easily. If the test fails to disproove the theory, then it can be taken more seriously as an explanation. Still, it may never be PROVEN, per se.
In the natural sciences, theories are never proven, per se.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I know a way to prevent them....Try this...Fill water in your mouth and hold your nose with your hand...(such that you can't breathe)...Do this for a few seconds...and then release your nose...You will find them gone!! Try again for few seconds if the hiccups still persist!!
The parent to my post was referring to having the hiccups while at work. I don't really suggest you try this while in a meeting!
A bullet to the back of the head usually works.
Of course, this has other undersirable consequences, but I could find nothing in your list of requirements that covered preserving the life of the hiccup victim.
black humour, n.: a form of humour that pokes fun at sad, or otherwise undesired occurances (i.e. "NASA: Need Another Seven Astronauts," and "You can always count on NASA to put on a great fireworks show.")
You could've hired me.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the article seems to be a bunch of speculation.
...
// old code. don't touch.
// FIX added to work around infinite loop
// FIXME: We have no idea what this does,
// but we're afraid to touch it. It caused
// an infinite loop in the Eden testing lab.
// See workaround below. -Adam 1.0 team
Brain::hiccup()
{
while (1)
{
memcpy(GLOTTIS, 0xff);
sleep(2000 * (random() + 0.5));
if (fearLevel() > 0.7)
break;
}
}
It would be great if this research could help bring an end to Chronic Hiccups, a condition in some people which lasts for hours, days, or, in extreme cases, indefinitely, as a result of various illnesses of the lower abdomen. This could help afflicted people return to a normal lifestyle and regain their social life.
-
UNIX can prevent hiccups in the first place with the nohup command.
nohup whoami
"UNIX: It sure beats drinking a glass of water while standing on your head!"
I don't know how scientific my technique is, but it's practical. :)
Place both of your fingertips so that you feel the "bottom" of your rib cage, about 2 inches above either side of your belly button. Then move your fingers down about an inch, and then finally push in about an inch. Basically, you're pushing on your diaphragm. Hold for about 30 seconds. (Basically two hiccup cycles.)
I discovered it after learning musicians should be breathing from their diaphragm. Has worked like a charm over the many years.
Cheers
This has only failed me once in the last ten years. YMMV.
1. Get a glass of water.
2. Take a deep breath and let it out, but don't push it out. Don't worry if you hiccup during that breath.
3. Without taking another breath, start taking *tiny* sips of the water; try to take at least one per second. Swallow each one. Keep your epiglottis closed as much as you can, in case you hiccup in the middle of doing this.
4. After 10-15 sips, the muscles in your mouth and throat will start to get tired, making it more difficult to do this. Keep going.
5. After a few more sips you won't care about the tired muscles, because you'll really REALLY want to breathe. Force yourself to take a couple more sips, then stop drinking and take that breath.
You should have no more hiccups after this. If you keep hiccuping wait a few minutes and try again. If it doesn't work on the second try, you're screwed. Also, this will not work if the hiccups are from being drunk and it may not work if they're a side-effect of medication.
Allow me to ANSWER ALLLLL your Questions (how come no-one knows this stuff). a) We yawn when we are TIRED -- the extra oxygen and the expelling to stale old CO2 rich air helps to WAKE US UP. Thats why you yawn when you are tired. b) The whole you yawn I yawn thing is due to humans being social animals. If one of our 'tribe' is tired (i.e. ANYONE else) then its probably time for sleep, yawning is a way of passing the message around (or so it is thought). Its kinda like when you see other people sleeping you want to go to sleep... c) Based on answer a: i) SIT UP -- give your lungs space to move ii) Breath more deeply iii) Get some fresh air and some light. Ultimately, 'yawning is just a BIG breath of fresh air'. Thats also why you yawn when you get up in the morning.
There's a problem for fighter pilots called photopic sneeze which affects them when they are suddenly hit in the eyes with bright sunlight and can cause loss of control at high speeds. Interesting that some guy here mentions a drinking buddy who used to both sneeze and hiccough when out drinking. Wonder how closely these two spasmodic reflexes are linked.
I don't know about the rest of you, but I only get hiccups when I have air trapped in my stomach. I've found there are two ways to get rid of them (for me). Both involve burping. The first is to swallow more air by closing off the windpipe and sucking air into the stomach, which almost immediately causes me to burp and usually takes both the trapped air and the new air I swallowed with it. This is what I've always assumed that my hiccups were trying to make me do, so bully on the article that was posted. The second, which I prefer, is to tense my stomach muscles in such a way that at the next hiccup, the air is forced out of my stomach. Using these techniques, I rarely hiccup more than three times. In fact, the last time I couldn't get rid of them was right after I had my wisdom teeth removed (years ago) and I was still recovering from the effects of whatever valium derivative they used.
GreyPoopon
--
Why is it I can write insightful comments but can't come up with a clever signature?
1. A spoonful of dry sugar works for many.
2. My mom taught me this - get a glass of water, then hold your breath and take 8-10 little sips, swallowing after each one. 80% success rate, for me.
The article seems to indicate that this is a concept - something that may have arisen from brainstorming, and may not be backed up by any data at all!!
This "explanation" is apparently supported by the thinnest of threads in terms of evolutionary history, and hard evidence is not presented to back this claim. This does not stop the Slashdot editors from posting this as "stuff that matters."
Please let the brainstormers check their ideas with research, show correlation, then causation, then present their findings in a way that can be checked by others.
This hypothesis, if you can call it that, is not tested and is perhaps not testable. Why this reflex motion a) exists at all, and b) why it persists, if it descende from the frog may only be fodder for spectulation.
Science requires more than mere speculation.
Phooey.
Anomaly
I've found that taking a gulp of coca-cola and letting it fizz in my mouth before swallowing usually does the trick. If no carbonated beverage is available, swishing water in my mouth really hard, then swallowing really fast also works.
Need a Linux consultant in New Orleans?
I don't really suggest you try this while in a meeting!
Why not? It could get rid of the hiccups. I am sure the rest of the people in the meeting could relate. And if it didn't work, and you hiccuped with a mouth full of water, causing you to inhale a portion of it, and then invoulantarily cough and spew that water all over the conference table, well, that would just provide some comic relief that was probably sorely needed anyway.
Right?
When you yawn, you're readjusting the pressure inside your head. It's why your ears pop. When someone else yawns, they've just altered the pressure around your head so now YOU have to calibrate your pressure to match the NEW air pressure.
It helps if you've had any relazation training. The best way I've found to describe it is to concentrate on your chest and try to relax the muscles that are unusally tense. It takes some practice to get it right but it usually works.
Feminism is the radical notion that women are people.
You're not here to argue your position, fine. Neither am I. Actually, I am only reluctantly posting as a non-AC because I'd actually like you to read what I've got to say.
The problem is that there are a large number of different positions that can be lumped under the "creationist" title. In one point of view, it forms a continuum:
Young Earth Creationist to Old Earthers
6000 years old ala Archbishop Ussher, the earth is flat, pi is exactly 3, rabbits chew their cud, etc. uber-strict literalism(yes these people exist)
6000 years old ala Archbishop Ussher, literal 7-day creationists
~10,000 years old earth, literal 7-day creationists
~10,000 years old earth, "God's Time" 7-days; ie not using our notion of time, aka Day-Age
10,000-millions years old, with either day-age or literal 7-days
Billions of years old, often using day-age terminology for creation events.
Except for the first group all of the above might incorporate evolution or big-bang theories in some modified form. Common modifyiers might be that God created "kinds" of animals (the term "kinds" usually nebulously defined, if at all) and that they evolved into the current species we see today. Stricter I suppose would be those who agree with "kinds" being created and that they adapt via microevolution (never macro-) or that they can differentiate to some degree, but only through degeneration. Big bang might be incorporated as how God created the universe, stars, planets, etc. but with some different rate than the mainstream accepts or using day-age terminology for God's forming the stars and planets, etc.
After the more or less literal creationists come different positions in theistic evolution. People here might range from "God made everything look the way science tells us to test our faith" to "evolution happens but God made people with some day-age thingie" to "evolution happens, but God guides it" to "evolution and big bang yeah, but God's so friggin smart he coded it all into the laws of nature at the start" or "I don't mix my science and religion." The first group might prefer to be called creationists whereas the others would find the term insulting.
There are of course many other variants, but that's kind of the point of this: creationism applies to a lot of different points of view which directly contradicts what you've been saying. Also, you're calling the more literalist positions ignorant the same way evolutionists call creationists of all stripes ignorant. Pot. Kettle. Black.
For a history of the creationist movement in America and how the different camps relate to each other try Ronald L. Numbers' "The Creationists." It's a little dated now (1992) but is an excellent read. The guys' an evolutionist, but Gish (of Institute for Creation Research and one of those more literal guys you'd call ignorant) gave it the thumbs up, if memory serves. As for me, I like my religion and science seperated.