Our bodies are pretty amazing machines that do countless crazy things every single day without us even thinking about it. Even simple stuff like breathing and blinking gets totally wild when you look at the details.
This list covers 15 of the most fascinating and unbelievable facts about our bodies that will blow your mind.
1. Your Nose Can Detect a Trillion Smells
Your nose is super powerful! It can pick up on over a trillion different scents. That’s way more than there are sounds for your ears to hear or colors for your eyes to see. No wonder smells can trigger such strong memories – your nose is incredible!
2. You Burn Calories When You Think
It’s not just exercise that burns calories. Your brain is actually an energy hog that uses up around 20% of your body’s calories, even when you’re just sitting around thinking. The more you concentrate, the harder your brain works and the more calories it torches.
3. Babies Have More Bones Than Adults
Newborn babies are born with around 270 bones! But as they grow up, many of those bones fuse together. By adulthood, the average person has just 206 bones in their body. Those extra baby bones make it easier for them to fit through the birth canal.
4. You Get a Completely New Stomach Every 5 Days
The lining of your stomach is constantly being regenerated. Every 4-5 days, you get a totally fresh new layer of cells. That’s a good thing, considering all the acid churning around in there. Your stomach basically gets a brand new interior every week!
5. Your Body Has Antimatter Particles
Even though antimatter doesn’t exist naturally on Earth, your body is actually made up of a small amount of antimatter particles like positrons. They don’t stick around for long, but you’re made of the same stuff as outer space for a split second!
6. You Can’t Keep a Secret on a Lie Detector
It’s true – your body gives off physical reactions that a lie detector can pick up on if you’re being untruthful. Things like sweating, eye movements, and blood pressure changes are impossible to control, making lie detectors extremely difficult to fool.
7. Fingers Prune to Grip Better
You know how your fingers and toes get all wrinkly after being in water too long? That’s actually an evolutionary trait to help you grip wet surfaces better. The pruney grooves give you better traction!
8. You Shed Your Entire Skin Monthly
You shed around 600,000 particles of skin every single hour. Over the course of a month, you’ve completely gotten rid of the old outer layer and regenerated a whole fresh coat of new skin. You literally have a new body covering every 4 weeks!
9. Your Brain Can Process Photos Faster Than Video
It takes your brain only 13 milliseconds to process an image. But for video, it needs around 40 milliseconds to process each individual frame. That’s why scrolling images seem smoother than most videos at normal speed. Your brain prioritizes still images.
10. Your Body Literally Glows
All living things, including humans, naturally emit a tiny amount of light that’s too small to see with the naked eye. It’s called bioluminescence and is caused by biochemical reactions going on inside you. You’re basically a gentle nightlight!
11. Your Heart Starts Beating Before It’s Fully Formed
A baby’s heart actually starts beating around day 22 of pregnancy – before the rest of it is completely developed and while it’s still just a flexible tube! The tiny heart is already pumping before it has its full organ structure.
12. Your Knuckles Crack From Gas Bubbles
That distinctive “crack” you hear when popping your knuckles is caused by gas bubbles bursting in the synovial fluid around your joints. As the space between your knuckles expands, the gas gets released, resulting in that pop sound. But it’s harmless!
13. Your Body Is Taller in the Morning
You’re actually about 1/2 inch taller when you wake up in the morning compared to later in the day. That’s because the cartilage between your vertebrae gets compressed over hours of walking around, making you slightly shorter. It decompresses at night.
14. Your Hair Is Nearly Indestructible
Hair is one of the strongest and most durable substances produced by the human body. An individual strand can hold up to 6.6 lbs before snapping! It’s also basically immune to digestive acids in your stomach if swallowed by accident.
15. Your Liver Can Regenerate Itself
The liver is the only internal organ that can fully regenerate itself from just a portion of its original mass. As long as at least 25% of a person’s liver remains intact, it can regrow entirely within a couple months. Now that’s incredible healing power!
Conclusion
The human body is truly an amazing, weird, and awesome thing. From burning calories just by thinking to literally glowing with light, our physical forms are capable of all sorts of unbelievable feats.
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