DORA: Wendell, so what are hiccups?
WENDELL: Your diaphragm is a muscle in your chest just below your lungs. When it contracts or tightens up, your lungs contract and you inhale. When it loosens up, your lungs contract and you exhale. With hiccups, your diaphragm muscle suddenly jerks and you find yourself sucking in air quickly. That air flow causes the flap at the top of your windpipe, the pipe that leads to your lungs, to abruptly snap shut. That inhaling and then snapping shut sound is hiccupping.

DORA: But what makes us keep hiccuping?
WENDELL: Your brain talks to your diaphragm telling it to jerk up and down. Why? I don't know. Doctors don't know. And, you can't just tell your brain to stop sending that message! It's one of those unconscious things. But sometimes eating or drinking too much or too quickly seems to start you off. Sometimes irritation or illness. But mostly, no one knows.

DORA: How can I stop hi-i-i-i-c-c-c-c-uppp-ing?
WENDELL: Try breathing in deeply and holding your breath. Or exhaling and inhaling into a brown paper bag. When you do that you're breathing back in some of the carbon dioxide gas you just exhaled. That seems to help.

DORA: Are there any good hiccup remedies?
WENDELL: Try downing a glass of water quickly; some people even put a cloth over the glass and drink through the cloth. Or trying swallowing some dry bread or some crushed ice. Who knows...one of these might work...
DORA: Hi-i-i-i-i-c-c-c-c-c-u-ppp!!!!
WENDELL: Or not!