Our noses, along with our eyes and mouths, are the facial points of our appearance, and whether you love or hate your nose, you have to give it credits for its diverse and impressive abilities.

Adding to the fact that we breathe through it, the nose contributes to preventing infections and works to determine the smell and taste; it also has an impact on the depth of our voice. Below is a set of interesting facts about our noses:

1- There are at least 14 different forms of the nose!

Many specialists agree that the 14 classifications are unable to include all forms of the nose, which is determined by the shape of the nasal bone and the shape of the upper and lower side cartilages, so any difference in these three parts may result in a completely new and different shape. The 14 major classifications range from the Greek to the overhanging, long nose, and other shapes.

2- Your sneezing method may be genetic

When we smell the scent of an irritant, such as black pepper or dust, a group of reactions occurs in our bodies to flush out these irritants. Sneezing is a nervous reaction, and the tissues are very similar within the same family. All the muscle procedures, including smiling and laughing, are also similar among family members.

3- The nose grows downward

When we reach the age of 10 years, the shape of our nose will be determined, and it will continue to grow in females until the age of 17, and until the age of 19 in males. However, with the passage of time and years, the nose becomes longer and begins to drop due to the constant gravity, and the collagen in the skin decreases with age.

4- The nose works as a moisturizer and air cleaner

When the air that we inhale passes through the nose, the corneas of the nose moisturize it, because the throat and lungs are unable to withstand dry air, which is why we feel dryness in the throat when we breathe for long periods of time in the mouth instead of the nose. The nose also works to clean and filter the air we breathe from dust, dirt, bacteria, and allergens, through epithelial cells with mobile cilia that line the nasal cavity.

5- The nose can identify more than 10,000 scents

When we inhale any odor, its molecules enter the nose and spread through a group of functional olfactory receptors, which in turn transmit chemical signals to a central processor in the brain called the olfactory bulb, which is responsible for recording odors. People have approximately 12 million cells of functional olfactory receptors, the number of which decreases with age, which is why older people are less sensitive to odors.

6- The nose is linked to the memory center

Odors are directly related to the limbic system; It is the part of the brain that is believed to be responsible for attributing emotion to events. The smell is the only sense among the five senses that have direct paths to the hippocampus in the brain (the part that contributes to the formation of memories) and to the amygdala (which addresses emotion and memory).

7- The nose has an effect on the pitch of your voice

Much of what we hear from others when they speak or sing has to do with the resonance that occurs in the structure of both the throat and nose. The degree of sound is determined by the way it is treated in the nose and throat after it is produced in the throat. The sound of a person suffering from a cold and allergy is due to the loss of this nasal resonance because the air cannot pass through the nose.

8- The nose regulates the temperature of the air you breathe

In the same way that the throat and lungs don’t like dirty air, they don’t like very hot or very cold air. When the air passes through the nose, its temperature becomes similar to the human body temperature. And because we spend more time (98.6%) in an environment in which temperature is less than the body temperature, the process of heating cold air in our nose is much more than it does the process of cooling hot air in it.

9- Our nose works to protect us!

The sense of smell is necessary for our safety. It is through the smell of smoke that we may discover a fire. We also smell spoiled foods and thus avoid eating them.

10- Some smells that the nose cannot smell are fatal

Although the nose is very sensitive, it cannot smell the natural gas used in heating homes and cooking, so gas companies add a compound of thiol to it to give it a noticeable smell so that we can detect if there are any gas leaks. Toxic carbon monoxide is another type of gas that is odorless and may cause death when inhaled.