Amazing Facts About The Human Body

We either see the parts of our bodies as ordinary or take them for granted. But we aren’t aware of the amazing things the parts of our body can do — they are more complex and complicated than we realize!

The red blood cells

The average life of every blood cell lives up to 120 days. And they move around inside your body pretty fast, as they circumnavigate there in about 20 seconds.

Eyes of different colors

You would not believe it, but a few numbers of people have eyes whose color is different from one another. This condition is called heterochromia, which is mostly caused by excess or lack of melanin.

Hair and nails

Your hair and nails are both made of keratin, a protein consisted of dead cells. Now you know why cutting your hair and clipping your nails never hurt at all — because they’re dead.

Salivary glands

Our salivary glands can produce around 1 to 1.6 liters of saliva each day!

Our Nose

Our nose can do amazing things we could never imagine. It can actually distinguish over one trillion different smells and odors! And do you know that the nose is our built-in air-conditioner? It regulates temperature by cooling hot air and by warming cold air. It also filters impurities from the air we breathe — and the dirt inside your nose is the reason for picking it!

Eyebrows and eyelids

Our eyebrows and eyelids are thought to protect the eyes from sweat.

It is impossible to sneeze with your eyes open

It is impossible to sneeze with your eyes open

Supposedly, it is possible to sneeze with your eyes open — and it is not entirely true that if you sneeze with your eyes open, your eyeballs will pop out of its skull.

But sneezing, as an involuntary act, will just force your eyes to shut. It’s probably because of a reflex. The nose and the eyelids are connected by the cranial nerves. So when you sneeze, the stimulus travels the nerve towards the eyelids and another one down to the nose, triggering your eyelids to automatically shut while you sneeze.

A human baby has more bones than an adult

Babies have a combination of 300 bones as well as cartilages. Many of the bones are separate, but will gradually fuse as they grow older.

Mites in eyelashes?

We may never be aware of them or feel them crawling, but there are actually mites in our eyelashes. They are called “Demodex,” microscopic parasitic mites also called simply as eyelash mites. A full-grown adult Demodex folliculorum measures only 0.3–0.4 millimeters (0.012–0.016 inches) long and has eight segmented legs. Their infestation doesn’t cause so much trouble except perhaps for minor skin irritations.

Sweat itself is odorless

Sweat itself is odorless

It’s the bacteria that mix with the sweat and make it odorous.

Having excessive hair is linked to higher intelligence

A recent study conducted on men found a connection between hirsuteness and intelligence as well as educational attainment. The study concluded that guys who were students or graduates were a lot hairier than men who were not degree holders or men who worked in menial jobs. It also revealed that male students who excelled in their college courses had more hair than those who lag in their studies.

You have gold in your body

Human blood contains 0.2 mg of gold, most of it in our blood supply. If hypothetically, you could extract gold from forty thousand people, you will end up with enough to forge a coin—a gold coin extracted from human bodies. Since you carry a miniscule amount of gold in your blood, you are slightly richer than you thought you were before reading this article.

You are actually two people

Our brains are fascinating. You might be familiar with the fact that the human brain is divided into two halves. The right side of the brain controls the muscles in the left side of your body and conversely, the left side controls the right. The left half is concerned with logical reasoning and intelligence, while the right half involved with creativity. But here’s the doozy, these two halves are separate entities, this means there are two individuals residing in you.

I’ll explain how. Corpus callosum is what bridges the two halves of your brain and allows them to interact. If this connection is severed, both halves start acting out as separate individuals. They enact their own thought patterns, problem-solving capabilities, and separate inclinations. This is exactly how epilepsy is surgically treated. This connection between two parts of the brain is cut off, resulting in a condition called split brains.

People with this condition demonstrate sharper memory, the ability to draw and write with both their hands, separated vision which allows them to see and process two different objects at the same time, allowing them to simultaneously read two different pages. When subjects are asked to pick their favorite object from an assortment, their both hands pick their own favorites.

How much data is transferred per ejaculation?

All the 46 DNA molecules – chromosomes – in each human cell contain the equivalent of 75 megabytes of information. Each sperm and egg carry half of the 46 chromosomes. This means a sperm contains about 37.5 megabytes of data on average. Continuing with this equivalence, when a human male ejaculates, transfer of a mind-numbing 1500 petabytes of data takes place. Speaking of eggs and sperms, they are the largest and smallest human cells, respectively.

Newborn babies are amazing

Newborn babies have some astonishing abilities. Their instinctive grip is strong enough to support all their body weight, reflexes allow them to hold their breath with their eyes open when submerged under water. They can crawl right after they come into the world.

Humans were once endangered

Scientists have undisputable evidence that humankind originated in Africa and then it started migrating to other continents. Speaking of human origins, humanity almost went extinct about 70 thousand years ago when the human population worldwide dwindled to only two thousand humans. Technically speaking, at one point in history, humans were an endangered species until our population rebounded.

We are still evolving

Humans have not stopped evolving, blue eyes, for example, are a mutation that was naturally selected and allowed to propagate. Another example would be the ability of some humans to digest milk, which is another mutation that natural selection favored. This mutation is called lactose tolerance. Contrary to lactose intolerance, which is the inability of human adults to digest lactose consumed from dairy products.

While we are on the topic of evolution, we have evidence to support that chimpanzees are our closest cousins and we share 98.8 percent of our DNA with them.

You are bioluminescent

Humans are bioluminescent – emit visible light from their bodies. We cannot see this light because it’s thousands of times less intense than the threshold of light intensity we can perceive. You emit the most visible light at 4 pm while the least at 10 AM. In other words, you are your brightest in the afternoon and dullest in the morning, literally speaking.

Your body is made of dead stars

To put in Carl Sagan’s words,” We’re made of starstuff”. This is because elements in your body were forged inside stars, save for hydrogen and helium. Hydrogen was created with the big bang, some of which fused to form helium. This means the hydrogen inside your body is 14 billion years old.

Music cures humans

Music can help lower your blood pressure and slow down your heartbeat. Ancient African, American and Greek civilizations used music in their healing rituals and apparently science supports their ancient methods.