I can see the advantage of having 2 eyes (depth perception), 2 ears, (stereo sound), 2 arms (grasping?), 2 legs (balance), etc. However…why do we have 2 nostrils? Is there some (medical maybe?) advantage to having 2 as opposed to 1 or 3?
It’s a myth that things only appear if there’s an advantage.
It’s the reverse, they disappear only if there’s a disadvantage, one great enough to prevent mating.
In this case, bilateral symmetry goes back to the earliest organisms. The pairs of facial features come from that event, not anything more recent.
A uni-nostril looks silly! (warning: mildly unpleasant)
Boy, that’s the worst faked photo I’ve seen in ages.
Ahem. I don’t want to burst your bubble, but that’s NOT a fake. It’s a well-publicised (over here) pic of a soap-opera (East Enders) actress who is fighting cocaine addiction. Not a pretty sight. FYI, the actress’ name is Daniella Westbrook. I feel sorry for her.
It’s not a fake. The woman is Danniella Westbrook, a British ex-soap actress with a famous coke habit. Her septum went AWOL some time last year.
After suffering a cold for the last, oh, three months, I will be the first to stand up and extol the virtues of being dual-nostrilled!
Invariably, one nostril will be more clogged than the other. This allows me to regulate my breathing and “stuffiness” by inclining my head to either side. Gravity pulls the snot out of one nostril and into the other, thanks to the shared sinus cavity, and I gain some control over an otherwise debilitating cold.
Wow, that was pretty gross. But if we’re voting to keep the 2-nostril system, I thought it was necessary.
Coke does that?!?!? :eek:
Ever have a bad cold or allergies? I know that I’ve sometimes been operating on one cylinder.
It certainly can do, if you’re a chronic user. IIRC she admitted to having done coke for the last 10 years, and at times in fairly mind-boggling amounts. I don’t know if there are other factors which make you more susceptible.
I think she was going in for reconstructive surgery at one point, but the doctors were unhappy about it unless she was clean. Last I heard, she wasn’t. Sad case.
because…
when you run out of boogers on one side,
you’ve got a back-up!
Because God didn’t give us only ONE picker-finger. duh! 
So you can stick a pea up one side and breathe through the other…Well known survival technique…
Known as a deviated septum. Before DS was well-known as an effect of coke use, it was what was listed when someone needed plastic surgury to fix it. But once it became common knowledge, it was a joke when someone needed surgury to fix DS, even if they had it for other reasons than coke use.
Deviated septum, nuthin! that’s a missing septum, due to chronic septum ischemia from the vaso-constrictive properties of cocaine. Her actual septum rotted away. A deviated septum is generally due to trauma, which breaks the septal bone or cartilage, pushing it out of true, and blocking one nasal passage. Surgery to correct this should not result in one nostril.
Qadgop, MD
Known as a deviated septum. Before DS was well-known as an effect of coke use, it was what was listed when someone needed plastic surgury to fix it. But once it became common knowledge, it was a joke when someone needed surgury to fix DS, even if they had it for other reasons than coke use.
That is not a devited septum…that is a nonexistent septum…
A deviated septum (which I have, but never touched coke) happens when the cartilage of the septum detaches from from the bone then heals crooked (deviated)…Just so you know…
It’s so schoolboys can’t poke their entire thumb up there. A bit of forward thinking on nature’s part all those millions of years ago…
That’s what I was thinking, too. But then I had to wonder: why only one mouth?
the double nostril has an actual purpose… there is a small node that swells on alternating sides every few hours… it enhances the ability to smell, but it blocks airflow significantly.
so… one hole to breathe, one to smell. you can figure out which side yours is active on.
try it- even when your nose is clear, it is harder to breathe through one nostril, as it is partially blocked.
however, as a design function, having no nostril separator wouldn’t be a problem as long as the bone structure inside remained normal. so that actress probably dosn’t have any problems, aside from the asctetic effect.
two words: snot rockets.
without our dual-nostril dynamics, this science/sport would not be nearly as evolved.