Incredible Things Most People Probably Never Knew About the Human Body

Although it might seem impossible, in ten years, you will have a brand new skeleton. Yes, that might sound strange because there isn’t a point where all your bones disappear and then reappear, but that is because your skeletal system’s cells are constantly regenerating. 

If you want to feel good about yourself, make sure the doctor measures you in the morning when you are your tallest. This is because there is a lot of pressure put on your joints throughout the day, which causes your spine to compress.

Remember when you were in grade school, and people would return from summer break much taller than the previous school year? This might be because children grow faster in the summer. It is not because they are getting more sun like flowers but because apparently, growth spurts are seasonal. 

Have you ever noticed that babies are extremely flexible? That might be because they don’t have knee caps when they are born. Although it seems like a necessary part of the human body, their softer cartilage eventually turns to bone as they start to grow. 

At some point in most people’s lives, they experience a broken bone. However, our bones are made of an incredibly tough substance. They are so strong that, ounce for ounce, our bones are stronger than steel. In addition, our bones have greater pressure tolerance than a rod of steel. 

While some people have small feet and others have larger feet, all humans have a quarter of their bones in their feet. Each foot has 26 bones, totaling 52 bones in both feet. They also contain 33 joints and more than 100 muscles, tendons, and ligaments. 

The adult human skeleton is made up of 206 bones. While it might not seem important, the smallest and lightest bone in the body is the stapes, located in the middle ear. It is shaped like a stirrup, and it helps measure sound vibrations. 

When you are born, your body has 300 bones. Eventually, your bones fuse together to create 206. As we age, the cartilage hardens, and this fusing process happens by the time we reach young adulthood. 

Chances are, you are one of the many people that have an innie belly button. It is much more common for people to have innies, and outies are rare and only found in 10 percent of adults. Contrary to popular belief, the navel doesn’t depend on how the umbilical cord is cut at birth. 

While our fingers help us do countless things like opening doors and picking up things, they don’t have any muscles. Therefore, we can’t attribute any strength to our actual fingers. However, our fingers can do so many things because of the bones and tendons inside of them. 

Although there aren’t any muscles in the fingers, most of our hand’s strength comes from the pinkie finger. It helps the thumb pinch and gives more power to the ring, middle, and index fingers. If you were to lose your pinkie finger, it would cause you to lose 50 percent of your hand strength. 

Stick out your tongue and move it around! When you do that, you will realize it isn’t really attached to anything. That is because it is the only muscle in the body that doesn’t join two bones. Every other muscle in the human body connects to bones at both ends. 

Although there are debates about which muscle is the strongest, there is no denying that the glutes are the largest muscle in your body. These muscles help keep your body upright, move your hips and thighs, and help you walk uphills and upstairs. 

When you look at a chimpanzee, you might think they are extremely hairy, but it turns out we are just as hairy as them. In a 2011 study, researchers found that we have the same number of hairs as a chimpanzee. However, there is a big difference between the type of hair we have compared to them. 

Speaking of hair, did you know that some of yours can “taste?” Your nasal passages and lungs are lined with super fine hairs, aka cilia, that can detect impurities. They sense this by picking up on bitter tastes of things passing through them. 

It knows when you are asleep, and it knows when you are awake, but we aren’t talking about Santa Clause; we are talking about your hair. Hair can track your sleeping patterns, according to a 2010 study. 

Surprisingly, dirty hair is actually not a bad thing. In fact, greasy hair can be good for the environment because it absorbs air pollutants. Scalp oils help this process, so if you want to skip a wash, it could be better for the environment. 

These days, we feel like our nails are growing faster than ever, and there is an evolutionary reason for that. A 2010 study compared nail growth from the present, 50, and 70 years ago showed nail growth had increased by a quarter over the decades. 

When you sit at your desk, do you ever find yourself hunching over? Many people have trouble keeping their posture perfect throughout the day, and it could be affecting their memory. Bad posture isn’t just irritating your back, but it also makes it harder to remember things. 

We have all heard of the pregnancy glow before, but we never knew every human had it too. Being a human that glows sounds like a superpower, but it turns out that everybody emits light like a shiny diamond. However, we aren’t able to see this light because it is too low to detect with the naked eye. 

We always thought blinking was just to keep our eyes moist, but there are other purposes for it. While that is an essential part of blinking, blinking actually helps us sharpen our attention and recharge our batteries. 

Big eyes have been desired by people for a long time because we usually equate them with being more beautiful. Although they might look pretty, having larger eyes can cause nearsightedness. This causes distant objects to look blurry because light doesn’t properly reach the retina. 

Have you ever tried to tickle yourself? If you haven’t, that’s completely normal because most people haven’t thought about tickling themselves. No point in trying, though, as it is impossible. This is because the part of your brain that monitors movement and predicts sensations that won’t allow you to feel like you are being tickled. 

We highly advise against swallowing razors because you could potentially die, but you might be surprised to find out that your stomach could do some damage to one of the blades. Researchers found that stomach acid could reduce metal objects to 63 percent of their original weight. 

Even if you are very short, the things in your body could be much larger than you think. In case you didn’t know, your small intestine is usually 18 to 23 feet long. Therefore, if you uncoiled it, it would be about four times your height. 

Your gut is a lot smarter than you think, and when people tell you to trust it, you might want to listen. The gut is lined with a network of neurons that scientists often call the “second brain.” 

Have you ever been so hungry that your stomach started making all kinds of grumbling noises? It’s pretty embarrassing because it feels like the whole world can hear your stomach growling. Well, there is a pretty funny word for those noises. 

Having a good cry is one of the best ways to relieve all your pent-up emotions. Although many animals produce tears as a lubricant for their eyes, no other species besides humans can weep. We are the only ones that use crying as an emotional response. 

Have you ever wondered why colds and the flu pass between people so quickly? It might be because when people sneeze, the germs travel up to 20 feet. So while you may have thought you were safe from germs by giving people personal space, you should back up a little more. 

We have all done it before; you know what we are talking about. Everyone has stuck a Q-tip in their ear to clean out earwax. However, that stuff you are trying to remove serves the important purpose of lubricating and protecting your ears. 

Although some things taste better as they age, as people get older, it is harder for them to appreciate those delicious things. Like our hearing and vision tend to weaken as we get older, so does our ability to taste things. 

We have talked a lot about tongues already, but did you know that your tongue is completely unique compared to everyone else in the world? Just like your fingerprints are unique to you, your tongue also has a one-of-a-kind print. 

Our eyes are truly incredible. There are so many things we can see that show how beautiful the world is. Although it might seem silly to compare our eyes to a phone camera, in abstract terms, it is quite interesting. 

Have you ever wondered how much storage space is in our brains? The human brain has approximately 100 billion neurons. Each of those creates 1,000 potential synapses that store data. If you multiply those together, our brains technically have 100 terabytes of information. 

You have probably heard of people donating part of their livers to someone else, and you must have wondered how someone can live with a smaller liver. But the liver is actually the only organ that can regenerate itself. So even if it is reduced to 75 percent of its size, it can ultimately grow back. 

There is a lot of data on this planet between humans and the technology we create. According to the scientific channel Veritasium, by the year 2020, all the stored data on the world will reach 40 zettabytes. In the human body alone, there are 60 zettabytes of data. 

Each second, about 100,000 chemical reactions happen in our brains. Just imagine how many reactions are happening as you read this sentence. In case you were wondering how fast that would be in terms of miles per hour, it is equivalent to a bullet train. 

The five senses that we know about are touch, taste, feel, smell, and hearing. However, there are other senses that people don’t include, like the sense of space, sense of pain, sense of balance, sense of temperature, and sense of time to name a few. 

Have you ever wondered what it would be like if we could download all of our memories onto a computer to rewatch them like a movie? You would need a lot of storage space because a second of human sight is equivalent to 21.45 GB.

There has been a longstanding myth that humans only use ten percent of their brains. However, that is not true because the brain uses as many resources as it needs in that particular moment.