the.com/secretion
the body's polite way of saying it made something and wants it gone
means The process by which a cell or gland produces and releases a substance, such as saliva, sweat, or hormones — or the substance itself that's released.
from From Latin 'secretio,' meaning a separating or setting apart, built from 'secernere' (to sift, separate, set aside) — 'se-' (apart) plus 'cernere' (to sift, distinguish). So a secretion is literally something the body has sifted out and set apart. That same 'secret-' root quietly hides inside 'secret' itself — a thing kept separate, set aside from others — making 'secretion' and 'secret' distant cousins both born from the act of putting something apart.
- saliva output
- about 1.5 liters produced daily, mostly swallowed unnoticed
- venom counts
- snake venom is modified saliva secreted to kill
- tear types
- emotional tears chemically differ from onion-induced ones
- sweat glands
- roughly 2 to 4 million cover human skin
- silk source
- spiders secrete liquid protein that hardens into thread
insulin secretion — pancreatic beta cells release ~40-50 units daily to regulate blood glucose
mucus secretion — goblet cells in human intestines produce ~1-1.5 liters daily for protection
tears — lacrimal glands secrete 0.5-2 microliters per minute to protect the eye
saliva — salivary glands produce 0.5-1.5 liters daily in humans for digestion