www.heptune.com/farts.html
The Gas We Pass : The Story of Farts by Shinta Cho, and Amanda Mayer Stinchecum (Translator), and the Canadian picture book, 10 Good Families Don't, by Alan Daniel and Robert N. Munsch, about a highly visible fart infesting a proper middle class family. Is it possible for a talented person to earn a living through flatulence? But a friend of mine says that he saw a carnival act in which the performer whistled tunes with his farts, blew out candles on the opposite side of the stage, and sent flames all the way across the stage. A famous performer who earned his living this way was 19 Le Petomane , who performed in France at the beginning of the 20th Century. However, my friend isn't old enough to have seen Le Petomane, so maybe he had a chance to see Mr. Methane lays claim to the distinction of being the world's only performing flatulist. However, people may also earn a living through the prevention of flatulence (as do the manufacturers and sellers of Beano and other products), through the practice of medicine specializing in the treatment of flatulence and other gastrointestinal problems, by writing books about flatulence (see the question before this one), and through the production and sales of various fart gags such as 23 whoopee cushions and farts in a can. You can visit the 26 FartMart to obtain an astounding number of wonderful fart products, including the famous 27 Crepitation Contest CD, and several other recordings, 28 Pull-My-Finger Fred (a doll that responds with farts and wisecracks), whoopie cushions and a variety of other fart-noise generating products (some of which are quite high tech), some products which produce a fart-like odor, prosthetic poop, fart sludge, and the famous 29 Fart Machine. A carnivore's protein-rich diet produces relatively small amounts of intensely stinky gas because proteins contain lots of sulfur. A dog's or cat's farts are rarely audible, but the odor is overwhelming. I have asked biologists why dogs and cats generally fart silently, and their theories include: the amount of gas produced is small, but potent, the horizontal orientation of their gastrointestinal system puts less pressure on the anal opening, so the gas is expelled more slowly, their anal sphincters don't close as tightly as humans' because it takes less force to hold in the contents of the colon -- again because of the horizontal orientation of the gastrointestinal system -- and a loose anus makes less sound, and, my favorite dogs and cats don't feel embarrassed about farting, so their sphincters are more relaxed, leading to less noisy flatulence. Large herbivorous animals such as cows, horses and elephants, on the other hand, produce vast quantities of relatively non-stinky fart gas. The farts of these animals are noisy and can go on for astoundingly long periods of time. Cows in particular are productive, in part because they swallow huge amounts of air. They need oxygen in their guts for the various protozoa employed there as digestive aids. Dogs respond to the smell of farts, rotting fish, and carrion the same way we respond to the smell of bacon frying or cookies baking. A dog will often sniff the butt of the farter in order to inhale as much of the odor as possible. I have heard only one story about a dog being disconcerted by a fart. According to a friend, her brother once delivered a fart so evil that it made the dog sneeze, shake his head, and paw at his nose. According to our ichthyologist at the University of Guam, fish flatulence per se has not been studied, although people have investigated fish digestion. They find that although most fish have alkaline intestinal environments like our own, coral-eating fish have acidic intestinal contents. Coral has the same composition as Tums (calcium carbonate). One product of the reaction between acid and calcium carbonate is carbon dioxide gas. Therefore, it is logical to assume that coral-eating fish fart a lot. The other fish probably fart also, for the same reasons that we do. However, Mike Pulte, a great fish enthusiast, said that he has never seen a fish do it. I asked our ichthyologist if it were possible that fish gas would go into the swim bladder instead of out the anal opening. He said that modern fish have an air bladder that is independent of the gastrointestinal tract. The gas comes from enzymatic activity and not from the intestine. Older models of fish have their swim bladder connected to the gastrointestinal tract, but it is attached high up, closer to the mouth than to the other end, and these fish come to the surface and gulp air to fill the bladder. Therefore, we can assume that intestinal gas leaves the fish through the anal opening. We also pondered the possibility of fish making noise via flatulence, but apparently most fish noises are made through belching rather than farting. You'd see a little bubble come out of his anus and stay there, trapped in the mucus of a long string of poop. I have only owned two coral-eating fish so far, but I have never seen either of them fart. It seems most likely to me that much of this gas comes from air swallowed during eating. In fact, it is my opinion, based on personal experience with reptiles and not on any formal research, that many reptiles use farts as a weapon. Reptile farts smell so bad that sometimes you can tell that one is nearby in the woods, even on a windy day, before you can see the animal. In an article published in the December 2000 issue of Discover, "the world's leading expert on snake sounds," Bruce Young of LaFayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania, affirmed that snakes do fart. The sonoran coral snake and the western hook-nosed snake fart with an audible popping sound when disturbed. Horses have a different diet from us and different gut microbes, so their farts have a different composition. They also fart more voluminously than humans, and the volume of the gas can be overwhelming if one is unfortunate enough to be near a farting horse indoors. What kind of animal has the highest worldwide output of flatus? Believe it or not, the animal that wins this honor is the humble termite. Because of their diet and digestive processes (with more than the usual microbial assistance), they produce as much methane as human industry. Termite farts are believed to be a major contributor towards global warming. Recent research has shown that most methane produced by cows and sheep emerges from the mouth rather than the anus. So one could more accurately say that cow and sheep belches are contributing to global warming. New Zealand researchers are investigating methods of breeding methane-free sheep. Most animals possess intestines and an anus, but there are some that don't. These include: Sponges: These organisms lack true tissues and organs. They have just a few types of cells organized into a bag with holes in it. Sponges are so different from other animals that some biologists think we shouldn't even call them animals. Cnidaria: This phylum includes the jellyfish, corals, sea anemones and hydra. Their tissues are organized into a bag with a mouth surrounded by stinging tentacles. Food enters the mouth and is digested inside the bag, after which the leftovers are expelled via the same opening. In effect, the same hole serves as both a mouth and an anus. Any gas expelled by a cnidarian would be more appropriately termed a belch rather than a fart, since the animal lacks intestines and separate anus. Pogonophoran worms: These remarkable animals, who dwell on the sea floor near active volcanic regions associated with mid-ocean ridges, possess no mouth, no stomach, no intestines, and no anus. Apparently they retain their svelte, worm-shaped figures by giving up on eating completely! They survive by means of a mutualistic relationship with chemosynthetic bacteria that live in their flesh. A second category of animals that probably don't fart are animals that live very deep underwater. At high pressures, gas remains in solution rather than forming bubbles. So there is a good chance that all those clams, echinoderms, fish and other animals living near the seafloor don't fart because their farts stay in solution and ...
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