Health and Medicine
PUBLISHED
Even when you're not cutting onions or watching Titantic, your eyes are constantly producing tears.
The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.We actually produce three different types of tears: basal, reflex, and emotional. Basal tears and reflex tears are pretty easy to understand: they protect our eyes from debris or wash away potentially harmful substances and microorganisms. However, scientists are only just beginning to deduce why we produce emotional tears – is it to release hormones, or more of a social signal?
This video by TED-Ed gives you the science behind sobbing with an animation of Iris, the iris.
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