Listed below are 15 fun facts about the human body.
15- I’m sorry, but your hair is dead
Hair is only alive while it is still inside the epidermis. In chemical terms, hair is composed of 50% carbon, 21% oxygen, 17% nitrogen, 6% hydrogen, and 1% sulfur, the right amount of heat for blood circulation and, consequently, Hair growth. But the color of the air influences the number of locks: the blondes have the most hair, while the redheads are in the last position. Although dead, his hair is stiff: it contains information about everything that went through his blood, including drugs. That is why it is used in anti-doping tests.
14- The fingernails grow faster than the toenails.
Nail growth varies based on age, gender, health, and genetics. In fact, fingernails grow faster than toenails because our hands are physically closer to our hearts. They end up receiving a better supply of oxygen and nutrients, transported through small capillaries located just below our nails. Regardless of the growth rate, fingernails and toenails have the same growth mechanism, being composed mainly of keratin, a substance that is also found in the skin and hair, as well as in the horns and hooves of animals.
13- The tongue is one of the strongest muscles in the body
The size of the muscles is not synonymous with strength, the human body has more than 600 muscles. The tongue is one of the strongest and most flexible muscles in the human body. It is also one of the regions of our body with the highest number of microorganisms: 1 ml of saliva has around 1 million bacteria. If the language didn’t exist, we wouldn’t be able to speak, eat, swallow, or even sing properly! The tongue helps make certain sounds, allows people to taste the food, and can give clues about people’s general health.
12- Déjà vu is real
Déjà vu has a supernatural reputation. But the feeling of having already lived through a present situation while it is happening occurs when the brain sends signals to see if there was some kind of “memory error.” In other words, the phenomenon is our brain checking if there was any inconsistency between what we really lived and what we think we lived. Having déjà-vu can be a good sign because it shows that the “memory check” system is working well and you are less likely to mistake past situations for current ones.
11- Butterflies in the stomach
The stomach is stimulated by a nerve. Falling in love or being interested in someone awakens the pleasure system that provokes responses in the body. The feeling of butterflies in the stomach is just a sign of bodily stress. Dopamine is the first neurotransmitter to appear when you see someone attractive. The release of different hormones makes the heart rate accelerate, the temperature of the face rises, and causes the color change in the cheeks. See also; 10 misconceptions about the female body.
10- Children have more bones in their bodies than adults
Bones fuse throughout human growth, and as a result, the skeleton of an adult human has 206 bones of different shapes and sizes. In the baby’s skull, for example, we consider that there are six bones, which then fit together and become one. The vast majority of bones will only join after the end of the growth phase. The femur, the thigh bone, is the longest in the human body and the strongest bone. Despite being hollow, it supports more weight than concrete. The smallest bone in the human body is the stapes, one of the three bones that we have in our ears.
9- You have 160 thousand km of blood vessels
The extent of the circulatory system is incredible. The blood vessels of an adult are more than 160 thousand kilometers long, this is enough to go around the earth four times.
The aorta is considered the largest artery in the body, it leaves the heart, passes through the thorax, and goes to the abdomen, where it divides to carry blood to the legs, on the other hand, the capillaries are extremely small and measure about 5 micrometers. Although capillaries are the smallest blood tubes, they make up about 80% of this total length.
8- You can identify the umami taste
In addition to the four basic tastes we learned in school: sweet, salty, sour, and bitter. The researchers recognized the umami flavor, which means delicious, as the fifth flavor that humans can distinguish. An adult’s tongue has about 10,000 taste buds, which develop throughout life. Children have a natural preference for sweets because they have fewer taste buds than an adult, throughout life the palate changes with the activation of the taste buds. So when you grow up, you no longer like the same foods that you did as a child.
7- The brain is not able to feel pain
There are no pain sensors directly connected to the brain. But there are sensors in the membranes and skin that cover the skull and brain. The pains we feel when they hit us or during a simple headache are emitted by these sensors. The body’s pain production mechanism works through nociceptors, nerve endings that are pain receptors found in the skin, joints, and some internal organs. Its function is to detect physical, chemical or thermal variations that can destroy our tissues. The headache associated with a hangover is usually the result of dehydration caused by drinking alcohol, which causes pain in the blood vessels in the head.
6- The skin is the largest organ in the human body
An adult human being wears about 3.6 kilos of skin, and at this stage, the organ is approximately two square meters long. The skin is constantly renewed and serves as protection. The skin of the fingertips has a special mark: fingerprints are unique for each human being and help us to hold objects more easily. Nagali syndrome patients do not have fingerprints. See also; 10 useless parts of the human body.
5- We are water
The body is made up of 70% water, which corresponds to half our weight. In a newborn, the number is even higher: 78%. Every part of the body has water, including our bones. The lungs and liver are the organs with more water, even more than blood itself. Water plays an important role in the transport of nutrients and in regulating body temperature. Despite this, our body is not able to store water, after consumption, the water is distributed throughout our body. A glass of water takes between 30 and 60 minutes to go all the way, some of it remains in the blood and then spreads to all organs and muscles.
4- You have 2 meters of DNA in each cell
The intensity of DNA compaction is extreme. So extreme that if all the pieces of DNA on each human chromosome were attached to each other end to end and then stretched, we would have 2 meters of genetic material. This amount corresponds to the genetic material of a single cell. Another curious fact is that bonobo monkeys and humans share 98.7% of the same genetic map, the same percentage that humans share with chimpanzees. Bonobos, chimpanzees, and humans shared a single common ancestor about 6 million years ago, but that common ancestor remains unknown.
3- The heart beats, on average, 100 thousand times a day
An adult’s heart beats 60 to 100 times per minute. In other words, there are about 100 thousand times a day, 35 million hits in a year and, at age 70, the heart will have beat 2,500 million times; and in children, this number is even higher. The heart has its own electrical system, which allows the organ to function outside the body, provided it has an adequate supply of oxygen. The human heart is so strong that its contractions have enough pressure to send blood out at a distance of almost 10 meters. Also, see 10 Shocking Things Found Inside the Human Body.
2- The human eye can distinguish up to 10 million different colors
The retina has 120 million cells specialized in detecting colors and light intensities, which are rods and cones. Color blindness is a disease in which the person has difficulty seeing colors such as red or green. Also, images captured by the eyes are projected onto the retina (lower part of the eye) in reverse. However, the brain reverses them, so we have the perception that they are in the normal position.
1- There are more bacteria in your mouth than people in the world
Approximately 50 billion bacteria inhabit the mouth of every human being! These microorganisms live in a well-organized manner and not all are bad for your health. In fact, some are essential to maintaining good health. The role of bacteria in the environment also deserves mention: it is of utmost importance for the recycling of organic matter, that is, bacteria, together with fungi, carry out the decomposition process transforming dead organic matter and returning it to the soil. in the form of inorganic matter.
