Mucus grosses people out. Whether it’s coming out of your nose or slime oozing from an animal, it’s not really a pleasant substance. But scientifically, mucus is super cool—it can be used for protection, hunting, lubrication, or plain old stickiness. Why do some cephalopods spew out specialized mucus? Does slathering snail slime on your face actually do anything to your skin? And could eating boogers be… good?

Sources:

[Truth or Fail]

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/328/5979/704

https://www.mbari.org/mbari-researchers-discover-what-vampire-squids-eat-its-not-what-you-think/

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/b94c/447075249a39cac514cbb3c6bf24c4e8306c.pdf

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4052311/

[Fact Off]

Snail mucus:

Parasitic worms:

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/discoblog/2010/12/02/a-new-treatment-for-bowel-problems-eating-1000-parasitic-worm-eggs/#.W-ICt3pKgW8

https://www.ecco-ibd.eu/index.php/publications/congress-abstract-s/abstracts-2015/item/p389-a-double-blind-clinical-trial-on-trichuris-suis.html

[Ask the Science Couch]

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11465519

https://aem.asm.org/content/81/1/332.long

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/gene/727897

https://virologyj.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1743-422X-3-99

[Butt One More Thing]

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/phenomena/2016/05/10/how-this-fish-survives-in-a-sea-cucumbers-bum/