Hey, have I told you that you have an AMAZING body!
No, no, no!
I didn’t mean it that way!
What I’m saying is, your body is a thing of wonder!
Agh, that didn’t come out right either.
Put it this way: the human body does a bunch of really ccool stuff – check it out with
me!
1) People literally shine.
While it’s much more apparent in some jellyfish and other sea creatures, every living being
on this planet emits light.
Yep, humans included.
This effect is called bioluminescence, and the only difference in our case is that we
can’t see this light at all.
It’s 1,000 times dimmer than our eyes can naturally pick up.
But if you could look at someone through a highly sensitive camera in a light-proof room,
you’d see it.
This light is brighter during the day and dimmer at night, and the brightest light comes
from our faces!
2) We have the best cameras out there, no wait, IN there.
The best camera humanity has been able to make so far has around 400 megapixels.
Guess what, you don’t need it because your eyes are even better!
How does an image quality of 576 megapixels sound?
Yep, that’s how good your vision is.
Too bad those pictures get printed on the back of the eye instead of a piece of paper
that you can frame.
Still, technology has a lot of catching up to do!
3) We’re all long-distance runners… partially.
The human heart is a small but powerful engine.
In one day, it pumps blood so effectively, that it travels around 12,000 miles to run
through every vessel in your body.
That’d be like running from coast-to-coast all the way across the continental US…4
times!
Not only that, but if you could stretch all your blood vessels out in a line, well, you’d
be extinct, but the blood vessels would wrap around the Earth…several times!
4) You have as much hair as a chimp.
Um…No offense.
The difference between us and our little ape cousins is not in the quantity of hair at
all – that’s the same.
It’s all in the quality.
We use nicer shampoos, I know!
No, it really comes down to the way we evolved our hair – we needed to sweat more effectively
and thus control body heat.
Another good thing about our fine dainty hair – it’s much less likely to harbor parasites.
And we look better this way, so it’s a win-win!
5) You cough almost at the speed of sound.
Your lungs are capable of forcing air out of them so hard that it moves almost at the
speed of sound.
Ok, 1/3 the speed of sound, but still!
This is for particularly boisterous coughs coming from a pretty large set of lungs.
Like this.
{coughs].
Wow I need some water…Just imagine if it was a little faster and you created a sonic
boom!?
Well, don’t count on it – our lungs regulate the speed.
6) Your body knows when it’s underwater.
Gee aren’t bubbles kind of a clue?
Nope.
It has a special mechanism to manage going into water.
It’s called the diving reflex, and it’s in almost every kind of mammal, including
humans.
This reflex redistributes oxygen in your body by channeling it to your heart and brain.
The moment you dive into the water, your body automatically slows down the heart rate, constricts
blood vessels, and releases red blood cells stored in the spleen.
This reflex is also triggered by wetting the face and especially the nostrils, but it won’t
work just from running your hands or feet under water!
Speaking of which…
7) There’s a reason why your hands and feet get wrinkly in water.
It may seem like something that just happens to your skin if it’s wet, but here’s a
curveball fact: people with damaged nerves in the skin don’t get wrinkly fingers in
the water!
It turns out that this wrinkling is a purposeful reaction to water, triggered by the nervous
system.
We need these wrinkles to achieve a better grip with wet surfaces.
Experiments have proven this too: a person with these raisin fingers was able to collect
more wet marbles than a person with smooth dry hands.
We’re halfway through the list, but don’t forget that you can always add your own examples
of crazy body facts down in the comments!
Ok, now for the biggest myth…
8) Forget all about this “we use 10% of our brains” thing.
This myth came from outdated research that only proposed that we don’t use the full
potential of our brain – but it didn’t say anything about 10%.
Today, we know for sure that our brains are always active, every zone and gland in them
are working at any time, even during sleep!
See for yourself: if we don’t use 90% of the brain, then why does it needs around 20%
of all our energy?
For a mere 10% of activity?
I don’t think so!
Though, I probably use only about 10% on Monday mornings…
9) There’s a part of your body that doesn’t get any blood.
Every piece in your body is somehow connected to the blood supply.
It transports all the goods to it and all the unwanted stuff away from it.
Except for one thing – your corneas.
The corneas are transparent layers on the front side of your eyes that are like lenses
and shields for the more sensitive parts inside.
There are no blood vessels in them – they get everything they need thanks to the tear
ducts and direct contact with oxygen in the air.
That’s why it’s so important to keep your eyes moist and let them rest every once in
a while.
10) Your ears and nose don’t stop growing.
Somewhere around age 21, our bodies stop growing.
No matter how hard you wanted to become an NBA star, at 21, your fate is sealed.
It wouldn’t be like that if basketball stars needed big ears and noses, though, because
those things grow your whole life!
This happens because they’re made of cartilage.
Unlike bones, that stuff can’t heal itself naturally, but it grows bigger to cover micro-wounds.
This, and the fact that gravity affects cartilage more obviously than other parts of our body,
making it grow ever so slightly with each year.
11) A woman’s brain shrinks during pregnancy, but that’s a good thing!
Yeah, it gets a bit smaller during this time, but smaller isn’t always worse.
There are zones in our brain that are responsible for feelings and nonverbal communication.
When a woman is pregnant, these zones go through a complete overhaul.
They get physically smaller, but only because they change their structure to become more
focused, efficient, and in-line with the ultimate goal – the birth of a child.
Basically, this shrinking is a sign of the brain’s swift development, and not otherwise.
12) Babies have many more bones than adults.
While a grown person has 206 bones, a newborn baby has around 300 of them!
Their bones aren’t entirely formed or fused together when they’re born.
Most are fractured into different pieces but linked by a more elastic material – that
cartilage stuff I just mentioned.
With time, as the baby grows, the bones will become hard and merge with each other.
13) Half of all the strength in your hand comes from the pinkie.
It’s our fancy opposable thumbs that make us human, and without the index and middle
finger, our hands would be pretty much useless, right?
Well, don’t underestimate that little pinkie hanging out on the sidelines!
Your little finger teams up with the middle one to provide strength.
Without the pinkie, your grip would be much weaker.
It also provides control to an all-wrist movement, like when you’re working with some kind
of a tool.
14) Teeth aren’t naturally white.
Yeah, brace yourself for this one.
Human teeth are covered by a unique substance called enamel.
It’s the hardest thing a living being can possibly have.
It’s harder than steel, yet it’s still quite brittle, so don’t get any ideas here.
And another thing about tooth enamel – it isn’t white.
It’s cloudy transparent with a tinge of blue.
The color we see is because of the second layer that’ beneath the enamel – dentin.
And it’s yellow.
Just don’t take this as an excuse to not take care of your teeth.
Hygiene is still king!
Wait a minute.
Enamel is cloudy with a tinge of blue?
Hmm, Bluetooth?
Just sayin’.
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