

One of the most perplexing and vexing of mild human afflictions is the hiccup, or as it is medically known, the singultus. Through the years, many (ineffective) remedies have been suggested, from holding your breath to scaring yourself. But a larger question remained unresolved: why do humans have these involuntary spasms of the diaphragm, which produce uncontrollable funny noises at irregular and inconvenient times?

Now, University of Chicago anatomist, Neil Shubin, has provided the world with an explanation in his book Your Inner Fish. As described in the Guardian:

Hiccups are triggered by electric signals generated in the brain stem. Amphibian brain stems emit similar signals, which control the regular motion of their gills. Our brain stems, inherited from amphibian ancestors, still spurt out odd signals producing hiccups that are, according to Shubin, essentially the same phenomenon as gill breathing.

This is atavism, or evolutionary throwback activity, at work. Luckily, you do eventually stop trying to breathe through your gills when it dawns on your brain that you are actually a modern human, not a prehistoric fish.

So perhaps the next time you are hit with a serious bout of the hiccups, instead of drinking a shot of vinegar, concentrate on your humanity. Just read some Descartes, or Harold Bloom's Shakespeare opus, The Invention of the Human, and you'll be breathing like a person in no time.

Image: flickr/tarotastic

Link (Via Collision Detection)