The Ins and Outs of Belly Button Lint

Your navel hard at work

Now for a cultural reference that Star Wars nerds like me will recognize: Remember the Sarlacc from Episode VI -- the ravenous creature in a huge desert pit lined with inward-facing spines that swallowed hapless victims (like Billy Dee Williams) alive?

Well, that's how your navel gathers lint.

An Austrian researcher named Georg Steinhauser devoted 3 years of his life to studying belly button fuzz and here are his in-depth findings: You belly hair scrapes it off your shirt and sucks it remorselessly down into your omphalos.

"The hair's scales act like a kind of barbed hooks," Dr. Steinhauser proudly reported. "Abdominal hair often seems to grow in concentric circles around the navel."