- All right, so, the field of biology is--
(record scratching)
- Hey, Matt, sorry to interrupt.
Don't forget to talk about twins.
- Well, yeah, I'm about to.
Okay.
Sorry.
Anyway, the field of biology is massive, diverse,
and sometimes confusing.
But, as advanced as modern science is,
there are still many things that are unexplained.
In fact, very few genetic anomalies in humans
have ever been explained.
On top of that, there are many living things
that exist right now that defy
everything we thought we knew about biology.
Even as heavily studied as they are,
things like microorganisms, immune systems,
or even our own genetic structure
continue to stump the scientific community.
So today, I'm going to reveal exactly
what those things are,
and some of them might just surprise you.
So, without further ado, here are 10 biological anomalies
science can't explain.
Number one is the placebo effect.
The placebo effect occurs when an individual is tricked
into believing that a certain treatment
that they were given will fix their ailment,
when in reality, the treatment itself
is actually ineffectual.
Yet, despite that, the patient exhibits real improvement.
There have been many cases where a patient
who is experiencing pain is given a painkiller drug
that actually relieves their symptoms.
However, after just a couple days,
the painkiller is secretly replaced
with a placebo, like sugar pills,
and they continue to feel better.
Somehow, because the body believes that it's getting better,
it actually begins to get better.
This is one example of the incredible power
of the human mind and its connection with our bodies.
There have even been cases of patients having cancer
that go into remission,
simply through the power of positive thinking.
Now, how this mind-body connection works
is still widely not understood by the science community.
But, it does prove that somehow,
the power of positive thinking has real results.
Number two is left handedness.
Left handedness is pretty common in society,
with many tools and objects that have been created
that are geared towards lefties.
But, out of the world's population,
only about 10 to 30 percent of people
are actually left handed,
meaning that there are way more right handed people.
But why is that?
Well, actually, nobody knows.
However, what researchers have found
is that lefties, believe it or not,
have more health problems than righties,
and they statistically have more learning difficulties
and mental disorders.
In addition, it was found that
they aren't as advanced in athletic fields,
they typically enter puberty later in life,
and overall, believe it or not,
have a shorter life expectancy.
But, interestingly, lefties seem to excel more
in things like music and math,
and are more likely to have left handed children.
And, I might add, that there are plenty of famous lefties.
Barack Obama, Bill Gates, Opera Winfry,
and Leonardo Da Vinci, just to name some.
So even though we don't know why left handedness occurs,
that doesn't mean that you were dealt a bad hand,
pun intended.
Number three are two-faces.
There is a condition that exists called diprosopus,
also known as cranial-facial duplication.
It's when someone grows two faces,
and it's not just in humans.
This extremely rare congenital disorder
affects everything from humans to birds,
in which the subject is born
with often two identical faces.
Although not entirely clear as to why this happens,
scientists believe that
it may be due to conjoined twinning,
that is, a fusion or incomplete separation of embryos.
Most babies who get this are unfortunately stillborn,
due to the huge complications that arise
from having two faces.
However, that isn't always the case.
In a few rare cases, some subjects
live as much as a few hours after birth
with this anomaly.
However, most recently, in 2014,
a child was born under two names, Faith and Hope,
because they had two identical faces on one skull.
Further complicating this was that they had two brains
that were conjoined to one brain stem.
Unbelievably, they lived an astonishing 19 days
before passing away.
Neither this instance, nor the condition itself,
have yet to be fully explained by science.
Number four is animals living without oxygen.
Up until recently, it was believed that everything on Earth,
from humans to microorganisms,
need oxygen to survive.
That was, until a groundbreaking discovery was made in 2010.
Deep within the Mediterranean Sea,
microscopic animals called loricifera were discovered
that live and reproduce entirely independent of oxygen.
They look like tiny little jellyfish,
and have astonished the scientific community.
Their cells contain no mitochondria,
which is the cell component
that uses oxygen to create energy for the cell.
It's still a mystery as to why
these microscopic animals exist,
but they provide extremely valuable information
into how life evolved from our early oceans,
which theoretically contained very little oxygen.
Number five is the evolution of flowers.
Okay, flowers are probably something
that you never really think about,
and they seem simple, except that they're anything but.
Way, way back, about 400 million years ago,
flowers and plants actually used to rule Earth,
and did so for over 250 million years.
And they never used to look like they do now,
but somehow, they evolved into what they look like today
with the ability to blossom.
But the question is, why didn't they grow stronger?
And for that matter, where did they come from?
Well, it seems like a simple question,
except that, believe it or not,
scientists have never been able to find an ancestral link
to the creation of the later-evolved flowers
in plants of today.
That's right, there is literally a missing link
between today's pretty flowers,
and the original plants that used to dominate everything.
That's a pretty shocking trait
for something that you thought was so simple.
Number six are identical twins.
Identical twins are the result of a fertilized egg
that splits into two,
which occurs only about three times
in every 1000 pregnancies around the world.
Each twin is born with the same DNA and gender
as their brother or sister,
and could be considered clones.
But there are some interesting differences.
In some cases, twins will have opposing handedness,
with one twin being right handed
and the other being left handed.
And some will even have bigger feet than the other,
and they can even look different.
Now, in theory, twins should look identical,
but their genes can mutate
and produce unique physical appearances,
including never having similar fingerprints.
Scientists to this day still do not have all the answers
as to why identical twins occur,
but studies on willing participants continue.
Number seven are how plankton survive.
Plankton are microscopic organisms
that benefit life in our oceans as food
and by providing oxygen.
But, as simple as they seem,
they actually pose a huge contradiction
to what scientists thought they knew
about organisms and the environments in which they live.
The paradox that confuses scientists lies
in the fact that they don't just live,
but thrive in environments that lack enough nutrients
for them to survive.
And even stranger is that in environments full of food,
it's the opposite.
They aren't as plentiful.
This baffles not only your and my basic logic,
but science in general.
So the question is, how do they survive
in such seemingly bad conditions?
This is the very question that researchers
are trying to figure out,
since it goes against our conventional understandings
of natural selection.
Number eight are chimeras.
You and I are made up of one set of DNA.
But what would happen if a second set existed within us?
That is wat a chimera is,
an organism or creature that contains
at least two different sets of DNA.
What's incredible about them is that,
as it grows, each population of cells
from each DNA set keeps its own character,
which has some crazy results.
Now, most chimeras show subtle signs,
such as mismatched eyes.
However, some have far more obvious signs
that you're not gonna believe.
Some chimeras have two sets of genitalia,
or completely different DNA than their parents.
An example of this was in 2002,
when a British woman named Lydia Fairchild
took a DNA test with the man that she believed
was her children's father,
only to find out that yes, he matched, but she didn't.
Science cannot explain why chimeras occur,
however, the likelihood of offspring being a chimera
is increased greatly if you use in-vitro fertilization.
Number nine is magneto-reception.
Aside from sounding like an X-Men villain's waiting room,
magneto-reception is a strange but extremely useful ability
that certain animals possess.
It allows them to actually sense magnetic fields,
like the one that's around Earth, for example,
as well as determine directions, altitudes, and locations.
This is exactly why birds like homing pigeons
have the ability to fly straight back to their homes
after being transported long distances to areas
that they have never been before.
They literally have built-in compasses.
Scientists cannot explain why animals
like bats, mice, hens, worms, fruit flies,
and other animals have magneto-reception,
and why they can navigate in ways
that are invisible to humans.
Now, some researchers think that it's through
a sensitivity to iron in their body,
reacting to the magnetic fields,
or possibly through a protein called kryptochrome
that can possibly sense such fields.
But perhaps the strangest thing
is that humans posses both of these,
leading scientists to believe that magneto-reception
is something that we might be able to activate
within ourselves one day.
And number 10 are extra fingers.
Some people are born with better vision,
or better hearing, or superior athleticism.
But, others are born with a different trait,
an extra finger.
This deformity is a condition called polydactyly,
in which a person is born
with one or more fingers on their hands.
Most often occurring beside the pinky finger
or beside the thumb,
and least occurring in the middle of the hand,
this anomaly has stumped scientists
as to why it happens.
Most occurrences are sporadic,
meaning that they occur without
any specific cause.
But it's believed that the majority
are caused by either a genetic defect,
or an underlying hereditary syndrome.
And the most shocking this is that
it isn't even all that rare.
It occurs in about one out of every 500 to 1000 babies.
Luckily, the condition does not cause pain,
and the extra digit can be removed through surgery.
And even more interestingly is that African Americans
are more likely to have an extra little finger,
while Asians and Caucasians
are more likely to get an extra thumb.
Scientists continue to try to study embryos
in an attempt to learn more about this condition.
So, those were 10 biological anomalies
that science can't explain.
But I wanna know from you in the comments.
Are these simple mutations,
or are they a sign of some new evolution?
But as always, thank you guys so much for watching.
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