How do we know?
↻ One of the pages with a moving picture
High-speed cameras filmed coughs and sneezes.
- Dust, pollen or germs tickle the inside of your nose.
- A message zips to the sneeze center in your brain. It tells many muscles to work together in just the right order.
- Your chest pushes air out fast, and your eyelids usually shut. The sneeze sends the tickly stuff flying out.
- A sneeze makes a cloud of gas that carries tiny droplets much farther than scientists once thought.
A sneeze makes a cloud of gas that carries tiny droplets much farther than scientists once thought.
In a 2014 study, MIT researchers found that the sneeze cloud can carry some droplets 5 to 200 times farther than earlier estimates. Their advice: raise your elbow to cover a sneeze!
The scientists, at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts, studied coughs and sneezes with high-speed imaging.
Wow number
40,000 One sneeze can send out up to 40,000 tiny droplets!
Myth or fact?
It’s a good idea to hold in a sneeze. Myth. Don’t hold one in. Cover it with your elbow.
Some people sneeze when they look at bright light. Fact. About 1 in 3 people are “photic sneezers.”
Think about it
Why do you think coughing or sneezing into your elbow is better than into your hand?
Where in the world?
Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA where, at MIT, scientists studied coughs and sneezes with high-speed imaging — 42.3601° N, 71.0942° W.
Where these facts come from
Every number on page 75, and who measured it
This page tells us how a tickle in your nose turns into a sneeze.
KidsHealth, a health site for kids from Nemours Children's Health
kidshealth.org/en/kids/sneeze.html
We checked it on 31 October 2026
This page tells us about sneeze droplets and why some people sneeze in bright light.
Sneezing: Causes and How To Make It Stop — Cleveland Clinic, a big hospital in Ohio
my.clevelandclinic.org/health/body/sneezing
We checked it on 31 October 2026
This page tells us how far a sneeze cloud can carry tiny drops.
In the cloud: How coughs and sneezes float farther than you think — MIT News, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a science university
news.mit.edu/2014/coughs-and-sneezes-float-farther-you-think
We checked it on 31 October 2026
Has this changed?
Why we sneeze is not going to change.
What did change in 2014 was how far scientists think a sneeze cloud reaches: much farther than they once thought.
Words from this page
- sneeze center
- The part of the brain that sends the sneeze message to the muscles.
- droplet
- A tiny drop of liquid.
- photic sneezer
- A person who sneezes when they look at bright light.
Try it!
Test a spray, and a paper-plate “elbow”.
1. Outside, tape paper to a wall. Fill a spray bottle with colored water. 2. Stand back and give one spray at the paper. Look at how far the dots spread. 3. Now spray again while a grown-up holds a paper plate (the “elbow”) in front of the nozzle.
What happens: the plate catches most of the spray, just like your elbow catches a sneeze.
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