The human body and mind are capable of much more than most of us realize in our day-to-day
lives.
From joint pain that predicts the weather to the ability to smell certain personality
traits, here are 6 superpowers that you didn’t know you have!!
6.
Humans are Smile Psychics
The human mind has an impressive ability to gauge even the subtlest forms of nonverbal
communication.
Have you ever “just known” that someone was lying and credited your gut instinct for
it?
Well, your brain’s facial recognition skills may also have something to do with this lie-detecting
ability.
An experiment conducted by researchers at Bangor University concluded that not only
is there a distinct difference between a genuine smile and a fake one, but the human mind is
also capable of distinguishing between the two.
In fact, we’re able to detect and reciprocate a real smile subconsciously, before the expression
is evident on a person’s face.
The same doesn’t hold true for fake smiles, however, which humans appear to have no ability
to predict.
Just like people are likely to respond to a real smile with a genuine one of their own,
they’re also likely to respond to a fake smile with a fake smile, indicating that our
brains are programmed to treat the two as completely separate facial expressions.
We can mimic them, real for real and fake for fake!
The experiment also found that people use an entirely different set of muscles when
faking a smile, referred to by researchers as a “polite smile.”
This, coupled with our capacity to somehow detect a real smile, points to an ability
among humans to pick up on seemingly imperceptible facial movements, since phony and genuine
smiles appear the same on the surface.
Try getting an AI to figure that one out!!
5.
Ovulation Detector
Even science has struggled to come up with an explanation for this one, but it’s true!
It looks like both men and women can subconsciously identify an ovulating woman in their presence.
See?
Bet you didn’t know you could do that!!!
There are no known external cues for what can best be described as an evolutionary ability
to detect fertile females.
Scientists at Florida State University had women smell t-shirts worn by other women at
various stages of their cycles and made a surprising discovery: just like men, the testosterone
levels in women increased when they smelled a clothing item worn during a phase of high
fertility.
Weird!!
Research indicates that men tend to find women more attractive when they’re ovulating and
therefore in prime mating form, but the reasons for why other women are equipped with the
same ability are less clear.
It’s thought that perhaps it enables women to “sniff out” any potential threats to
their relationships, which would imply that monogamy among humans isn’t just a cultural
or social norm, but a biologically embedded trait.
Who knows?
But if you try really hard, you can do it too!
4.
Smelling
Female fertility status isn’t the only thing that can be detected in human body odor.
Scientists believe that things like sex, age, and genetic compatibility can also be signaled
via smell.
You know, there is a baby smell and an “old person” smell.
To take things even further, recent research suggests that you can even pick up on certain
personality traits by using your nose.
The study was carried out by Agnieszka Sorokowska and her colleagues at the University of Wroclaw.
They took thirty men and thirty women, all of whom were single and slept alone, and had
them wear the same t-shirt for three nights in a row.
The shirts were then frozen.
A week or so later, 100 men and 100 women were asked to rate the smell of three men’s
and three women’s thawed t-shirts that had been worn.
I bet you’re sorry you missed out on THIS study!!
The sniffers picked up on three main traits: extraversion, dominance, and neuroticism.
These ratings were equally accurate to; and in some cases, more accurate than, videotaped
behavior from prior studies.
To be fair, no effects on the traits of conscientiousness, agreeableness, or openness to experience were
detected during the study.
The conclusion?
Based on their findings, the researchers believe that "judgments of dominance based on body
odour might be especially important in a mating context.”
The authors of the study suggest that the three detectable traits, which are highly
emotional dimensions of personality, may be related to physiological processes that directly
or indirectly influence body odor more than other traits, including the production of
sweat.
While this all makes sense for the most part, researchers aren’t entirely sure why conscientiousness,
agreeableness, and openness can sometimes be smelled, and admittedly could be mistaken
with the above-mentioned theory.
So don’t be afraid to try this experiment at home!
Just sleep in the same shirt for three nights and pass it around to see what people smell
about you!
3.
One Trillion Odors!
The smell is the strongest of our five senses, which is why you’ve probably noticed that
smell is often linked to nostalgia - you know, when you get a whiff of something and are
instantly taken back to a certain memory.
That happens to me with…(include personal example).
When it comes to scent molecules, our noses detect one part per million, and our brain
processes them and encodes them as memories.
Some of the most pleasant and memory-invoking smells among humans are flowers, trees, fresh
fruits, herbs, beach, and campfire.
On the other hand, pungent and otherwise bad odors can remind us of bad times in our lives.
People who suffer from anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder may even have their symptoms
triggered by negative aromas.
Contrarily, it is widely believed that smells can affect the mood in positive ways, and
aromatherapy has been used since Ancient Egyptian times to trigger relaxation and other positive
feelings.
While humans can remember around 50,000 scents, according to a 2014 study conducted by researchers
from Rockefeller University, our noses are capable of detecting one trillion or more
smells.
This means that the human nose can distinguish between more stimuli than both the nose and
the ear.
Sometimes, we’re hardly aware that we’re smelling anything at all, but our nose is
hard at work, registering the odors around us.
Charles Spence, professor of experimental biology at the University of Oxford, reminds
us that there’s a lot to learn when it comes to the human sense of smell, and that even
the best experts can’t detect the same amount of smells that “wordy wine experts might
have us believe.”
Professor Stephen Liberles of the Department of Cell Biology at Harvard Medical School
agrees that when it comes to the olfactory system, there’s a lot to be learned.
However, he has a bit more of an optimistic outlook than Charles Spence, and admits that
the large number of olfactory receptors the human nose is equipped with means that our
sense of smell could be even stronger than this latest estimate.
2.
Hysterical Strength
While it’s well-known that some people have amazing intellectual capabilities, the typical
limits of human strength have never ranked very impressively.
Sometimes mistakenly referred to as Superhuman Strength, which is actually a term more often
used to describe fictional characters, Hysterical Strength is the shocking ability for ordinary
humans to supersede the scientifically understood boundaries of their physical limitations.
Most commonly during instances of hysterical strength, the person is not a bodybuilder,
but of average strength, making the phenomenon all-the-more fascinating.
While these events often involve the lifting of heavy cars, that’s not always the case.
In 2006, a northern Quebec woman named Lydia Angiyou faced off with a polar to protect
her son and his friends while they played hockey.
Hysterical Strength often occurs when someone is in a life-or-death situation - one common
example is that of a parent lifting a vehicle to free someone who’s trapped underneath.
While supporting evidence is scarce, and what’s available is generally inconclusive, this
sudden burst in strength is often attributed to an increased production of adrenaline in
the body.
It is believed that this phenomenon is theoretically possible, despite research being difficult.
The reason it’s difficult to research Hysterical Strength is that it’s not ethically or safely
possible to reenact the life-or-death scenarios it requires for the purpose of studying it.
As E Paul Zehr, a professor of neuroscience and kinesiology at the University of Victoria
in British Columbia states, accurately examining Hysterical Strength would require making someone
think they were going to die, which can only usually happen by fluke, rather than a controlled
environment.
Robert Girandola, a professor of kinesiology at the University of Southern California,
asserts that enough research has been done, particularly on athletes, to know that Hysterical
Strength is, in fact, a real thing, even if we don’t understand the inner workings behind
it.
1.
Predicting the Weather
For over 30 years, rheumatology scientists have been trying to determine the answer to
the age-old tale that achy joints can predict the weather.
My elbow hurts, I think it’s going to rain!!
According to the popular belief, when the barometric pressure falls amidst high levels
of humidity, joint pain increases.
There are conflicting opinions regarding this, as well.
Alexa Meara, MD of the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center admits that research
has shown that some arthritis patients are affected by the weather more than others.
However, she says that it’s not possible to predict who will be affected and that while
the results of one major study, published in 1997 in the Journal of Biometeorology,
pointed toward the theory being valid; smaller, subsequent studies have failed to replicate
the findings.
Robert Bolash, MD, a pain management specialist at the Cleveland Clinic, puts more confidence
in the theory, stating that despite the lack of scientific proof, the anecdotal evidence
is significant.
A recent five-year study further bolsters the evidence that joint pain can predict the
weather.
Researchers correlated online searches for “arthritis” with U.S. weather data and
discovered that once the temperature reached 86 degrees Fahrenheit, searches of this nature
declined.
According to Alexa Meara, cold, damp weather causes the most joint irritation.
How such pain is caused by the weather is a topic of debate among scientists.
One theory agrees with the common belief that a spike in humidity and a simultaneous decrease
in barometric pressure causes the pain.
Our tissues can swell slightly when barometric pressure decreases, and the enlarged tissue
may irritate the joints.
Alexa Meara points out, on the other hand, that changes in weather can affect patients’
behavior, thus making it difficult to measure the true effect of weather on their joint
pain.
While it’s interesting that the weather can have a predictive effect on peoples’
joint pain, I think it’s safe to say that most people would forego this ability if it
meant not being in pain.
To avoid joint pain, people are encouraged to stay active regardless of the weather by
engaging in low-impact activities such as stretching, yoga, walking, and warm water
therapy.
Thanks for watching!
Do you have any other super powers you’d like to add to this list??
Let us know in the comments below!!
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