From wisdom teeth to your tailbone, here are 13 of the most useless body parts!
13.
Wisdom Teeth
Wisdom teeth are the third and final set of molars that most people get in their late
teens or early twenties.
With all the money spent on removing them and all the pain that one has to endure during
the process, it’s frustrating to know that wisdom teeth don’t serve any practical purpose.
They are simply the remnants our ancestors’ teeth, who had larger jaws than we currently
do.
The reason why wisdom teeth have no use anymore is because human jaws have become smaller
as they evolved, leaving little space for wisdom teeth to grow in comfortably.
Another theory suggests that early humans used to lose their teeth quickly as they aged,
so wisdom teeth could take the place of lost teeth and allow them to eat normally (and
thus survive) for longer.
Now they just cause all kinds of problems if they are misaligned such as jaw and nerve
damage as well as infections that can be extremely painful.
12.
Body Hair and Arrector Pili We all know about body hair, but what exactly
are arrector pili?
These are the smooth muscle fibers that give humans the peculiar sensation we commonly
call “goose bumps”.
If the arrector pili are activated, hair that come out of the nearby follicles stands up,
giving us those famous goose bumps on our skin.
Goose bumps are important to certain animals (like cats), which use those hairs on the
body to swell up and make themselves look ‘bigger’ than they actually are.
But human body hair is so small and fine that it does little more than give us a shiver,
or let us know that something is frightening us!
Yes, you can say that body hair protects us from the cold, and the hair on our head may
help you look stylish, but that’s about it for legitimate functions of human body
hair and arrector pili.
11.
Eyebrows The evolutionary purpose of eyebrows is debatable:
In one camp, scientists believe brows keep sweat and rain off your eyes, which would
help in primitive hunting and navigation.
Moreover, diverting the sweat away is also beneficial as the salt in sweat irritates
the eyes, making them sting.
Other scientists favor the hypothesis that eyebrows serve to communicate your emotions,
but they may also communicate your identity.
Behavioral neuroscientists from MIT found that people were less likely to recognize
pictures of celebrities without their eyebrows than without their eyes.
The researchers speculate that eyebrows have remained because they’re crucial to identifying
faces and navigating social circumstances.
10.
Tailbone/Coccyx Although we don’t sport these animalian
appendages anymore, our ancestors once had tails.
Tails were used to maintain balance while we walked, but as the human body evolved,
the need for a tail disappeared.
The tailbone, or coccyx, is situated at the end of the spinal cord.
When we did have tails, this part of our anatomy was vital to our survival and balance.
However, as tails disappeared, so did the functions of the tailbone.
While we don’t really need it, it has been suggested that the coccyx helps to anchor
minor muscles and may support the pelvic organs, so, it’s better to not underestimate its
existence in the human body.
9, Male Nipples This has been a topic of significant discussion
over the years, and has sparked all kinds of weird arguments, one even stating that
‘men have descended from women’.
This isn’t true, but if you want to know the real reason behind male nipples, one has
to go pretty far back, all the way to your time as a fetus.
Both men and women have nipples because in the early stages of fetal development, an
unborn child is effectively sexless meaning it has no gender yet.
Thus, nipples are present on both males and females.
During the later stages of fetal development, it is ‘testosterone’, a hormone, that
decides the gender of the fetus – either male or female.
It should be noted that certain males have been found to lactate and there have been
numerous cases of breast cancer in males.
8, Third Eyelid This is the part of the eye that you can see
at the corner of the eye (next to the tear duct).
Although certain animals, like dogs, reptiles and fish, need it for a variety of functions
and protected vision, humans do not need this third eyelid to maintain proper vision or
survival.
This doesn’t mean that the third eyelid does nothing and just sits there.
When we move our eyes, the third eyelid (plica semilunaris) ensures proper tear drainage
and sweeps debris away from the eye.
For anyone who has ever walked along a windy beach, we can appreciate that particular function,
right?
7.
Darwin’s Point Around the sixth week of gestation, six swellings
of tissue called the Hillocks of Hiss arise around the area that will form the ear canal.
These eventually come together to form the outer ear.
Darwin’s point, or tubercle, is a minor malformation of the junction of the fourth
and fifth Hillocks of Hiss.
It is found in a minority of people and takes the form of a node or bump on the rim of their
outer ear, which is thought to be the vestige of a joint that allowed the top part of the
ancestral ear to swivel or flop down over the opening to the ear.
Technically considered a defect, Darwin’s point does no harm and is surgically removed
for cosmetic reasons only.
However, the genetics behind it tells an interesting tale.
The trait is passed on according to an autosomal dominant pattern, meaning that a child needs
to only inherit one copy of the gene responsible to have Darwin’s point.
That suggests that at one time it was useful.
However, it also has variable penetration, meaning that you won’t necessarily have
the trait even if you inherit the gene.
6.
Philtrum No, that little indent under your nose isn’t
there to make it difficult to apply lipstick in the dark, but it doesn’t serve any other
purpose either.
The indent, called the philtrum, is just a residual reminder of your time in the womb:
in utero, the two sides of your face develop independent of one another, then join at the
middle.
When the two sides fail to fuse properly, the result is a cleft palate, which occurs
in about 1 of every 750 births.
Ancient Romans found the philtrum erotic, and named that dip in the upper lip the “Cupid’s
Bow.”
In fact, the word philtrum comes from a Greek term meaning “love potion.”
If you’ve seen makeup tutorials on YouTube, you will know that women still highlight their
cupid’s bow to emphasize it, but they may not know exactly why!
2000 years later, it’s still sexy!
5.
Auricular muscles The auricular, or extrinsic, muscles of the
human ear include the anterior auricular muscle, the superior auricular muscle, and the posterior
auricular muscle.
Together, they control the pinna, or the visible part of the ear.
In many mammals, ear movements produced by the auricular muscles play a role in sound
localization and the expression of emotion.
You must have noticed your pets perking up their ears when startled or lay them back
flat if they are listening or embarrassed.
These extrinsic ear muscles are used to perk up their ears as a sign of alertness or to
move them around according to motion of predators or prey.
But in humans, the muscles are considered nonfunctional.
Darwin proposed that humans effectively capture sounds by positioning the head to receive
them, thereby compensating for the loss of or eliminating the need for the auricular
muscles.
Through repeated effort, however, humans can recover some ability to wiggle their ears,
if that is a goal of yours.
4.
Fifth Toe Have you often been injured by furniture,
especially on that all too useless pinky toe?
You are not the only one then who has been exposed to it being more of a disadvantage!
Used primarily by primates and our tree hugging ancestors for clinging and swinging off branches,
they have greatly reduced in size now and have become entirely obsolete.
Not required for balance, or mobility in any way; the fifth toe is a body part we don’t
really need.
Several mammals have already lost their digits thanks to evolution such as cows, horses,
pigs and camels and have hooves instead.
If humans were to follow and lose their pinky toe, it wouldn’t make much difference except
maybe much better fitting shoes!
3.
Tonsils One of the most removed organs, tonsils are
basically collections of lymphoid tissue, one on each side of the back of the throat.
They do function as a part of your immune system fighting infections as the first in
line for defence in the throat.
The major problem with its bacteria fighting effect is its tendency to get sore and inflamed
and get recurring infections.
If the infection is virus initiated, antibiotics don’t help and doctors almost always recommend
getting tonsil removal surgery called a tonsillectomy.
So for many people the tonsils aren’t even that helpful to begin with!
2.
Chins Who knew a body part could be such a hot topic?
It turns out there are endless debates when it comes to whether or not the chin has a
purpose.
It becomes even stranger when you consider that among all the primates – including
our extinct relatives – only we have chins.
Chimpanzee and ape jaws slant inwards for instance.
Even our closest extinct relatives such as Neanderthals did not have them.
Nobody seems to know why – although over the last century several theories as to its
purpose have been offered.
To start with it has long been proposed that our chin may help us chew food.
The theory goes that we need the extra bone to deal with the stresses involved with chewing.
However, this idea falls flat when you compare us to other great apes with similar-shaped
jaws.
When we chew, our jaw gets pulled apart a bit like a wishbone and the further apart
our jaws are the weaker the bones are.
If we were to protect ourselves from the stresses of chewing we would need more bone on the
inner wall of the jaw near the tongue, not beneath our jaw.
That's exactly what you see in chimpanzees and macaques.
They have extra bone on the tongue-ward side of their lower jaw, called a "simian shelf",
which we do not have.
The added bone that forms our chin is not very useful for additional chewing strength.
While it has no obvious function, it might simply be there because we like it—the result
of sexual selection.
While some experts believe that the chin helps us control the forces our jaw produces when
we chew, the Iowa Facial Growth Study determined that "chins are unlikely related to the need
to dissipate stresses and strains."
1.
Appendix
This is an organ located at the junction of the large and small intestines.
Since it is connected to the intestines, many people think it plays some role in the digestive
process, but it serves no purpose whatsoever.
At least, as far as we know.
The main function of the appendix in other species is to aid in digestion for diets that
are largely herbivorous.
This is why the appendix is an important part of digestion in plant-eating vertebrates.
But in humans, it doesn’t seem to do anything.
A study in 2009 showed some signs that the appendix may store good bacteria that can
help people suffering from digestion issues.
But so does the small intestine.
Most medical practitioners believe it is a useless part left over from our evolutionary
past.
What we do know, is that it can become inflamed and rupture.
In severe cases of appendicitis it has to be removed or you can die!
Pretty scary for something that is just sitting in your body doing nothing the rest of the
time.
There are no known health problems from having your appendix removed.
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