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Showing posts from May, 2020

ACHOO! is When You Sneeze at the Sun - Photic Sneeze Reflex

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If you look at the sun (hypothetically; do not do it and suffer), you are sure to look away sooner (unless you are either my man Karna, who was the Sun's son so he can stare or my other man Galileo, who was determined to look at it for, you know, Science!) to avoid discomfort (yeah the necessary comfort not like your optional 'comfort zone' comfort).  But did you know that a third of the population sneezes at the Sun upon staring ? This is called Photic Sneeze Reflex . SOLAR SNEEZING, SON... It is also called as Photosneezia, Autosomal Compelling Helio-Opthalmic Outburst (ACHOO : Now that's some god-tier naming : approved, sealed and delivered) and colloquially sun sneezing. This condition is reported to affect 18 to 35 percent of the world population and its exact mechanism is unknown ( there you go, open topic for probing research ). HISTORICALLY HAH-CHOO! Aristotle has mused about sneezing and sun being correlated in his The Book of Problems