Miscellaneous
Here are a few things you might not have
known about all different parts of your
anatomy.
90. The colder the room you sleep in, the better
the chances are that you’ll have a bad
dream. It isn’t entirely clear to scientists why
this is the case, but if you are opposed to
having nightmares you might want to keep
yourself a little toastier at night.
91. Tears and mucus contain an enzyme
(lysozyme) that breaks down the cell wall of
many bacteria. This is to your advantage, as
the mucus that lines your nose and throat,
as well as the tears that wet your eyes are
helping to prevent bacteria from infecting
those areas and making you sick.
92. Your body gives off enough heat in 30
minutes to bring half a gallon of water to a
boil. If you’ve seen the Matrix you are aware
of the energy potentially generated by the
human body. Our bodies expend a large
amount of calories keeping us at a steady
98.6 degrees, enough to boil water or even
cook pasta.
93. Your ears secrete more earwax when you
are afraid than when you aren’t. The
chemicals and hormones released when you
are afraid could be having unseen effects on
your body in the form of earwax. Studies
have suggested that fear causes the ears to
produce more of the sticky substance,
though the reasons are not yet clear.
94. It is not possible to tickle yourself. Even the
most ticklish among us do not have the
ability to tickle ourselves. The reason behind
this is that your brain predicts the tickle
from information it already has, like how
your fingers are moving. Because it knows
and can feel where the tickle is coming
from, your brain doesn’t respond in the
same way as it would if someone else was
doing the tickling.
95. The width of your armspan stretched out is
the length of your whole body. While not
exact down to the last millimeter, your
armspan is a pretty good estimator of your
height.
96. Humans are the only animals to produce
emotional tears. In the animal world,
humans are the biggest crybabies, being the
only animals who cry because they’ve had a
bad day, lost a loved one, or just don’t feel
good.
97. Right-handed people live, on average, nine
years longer than left-handed people do.
This doesn’t have a genetic basis, but is
largely due to the fact that a majority of the
machines and tools we use on a daily basis
are designed for those who are right
handed, making them somewhat dangerous
for lefties to use and resulting in thousands
of accidents and deaths each year.
98. Women burn fat more slowly than men, by a
rate of about 50 calories a day. Most men
have a much easier time burning fat than
women. Women, because of their
reproductive role, generally require a higher
basic body fat proportion than men, and as
a result their bodies don’t get rid of excess
fat at the same rate as men.
99. Koalas and primates are the only animals
with unique fingerprints. Humans, apes and
koalas are unique in the animal kingdom
due to the tiny prints on the fingers of their
hands. Studies on primates have suggested
that even cloned individuals have unique
fingerprints.
100. The indentation in the middle of the area
between the nose and the upper lip has a
name. It is called the philtrum. Scientists
have yet to figure out what purpose this
indentation serves, though the ancient
Greeks thought it to be one of the most
erogenous places on the body

hmm....Noted

Senses
The primary means by which we interact
with the world around us is through our
senses. Here are some interesting facts
about these five sensory abilities.
53. After eating too much, your hearing is less
sharp. If you’re heading to a concert or a
musical after a big meal you may be doing
yourself a disservice. Try eating a smaller
meal if you need to keep your hearing pitch
perfect.
54. About one third of the human race has
20-20 vision. Glasses and contact wearers
are hardly alone in a world where two
thirds of the population have less than
perfect vision. The amount of people with
perfect vision decreases further as they age.
55. If saliva cannot dissolve something, you
cannot taste it. In order for foods, or
anything else, to have a taste, chemicals
from the substance must be dissolved by
saliva. If you don’t believe it, try drying off
your tongue before tasting something.
56. Women are born better smellers than men
and remain better smellers over life. Studies
have shown that women are more able to
correctly pinpoint just what a smell is.
Women were better able to identify citrus,
vanilla, cinnamon and coffee smells. While
women are overall better smellers, there is
an unfortunate 2% of the population with
no sense of smell at all.
57. Your nose can remember 50,000 different
scents. While a bloodhound’s nose may be a
million times more sensitive than a human’s,
that doesn’t mean that the human sense of
smell is useless. Humans can identify a wide
variety of scents and many are strongly tied
to memories.
58. Even small noises cause the pupils of the
eyes to dilate. It is believed that this is why
surgeons, watchmakers and others who
perform delicate manual operations are so
bothered by uninvited noise. The sound
causes their pupils to change focus and blur
their vision, making it harder to do their job
well.
59. Everyone has a unique smell, except for
identical twins. Newborns are able to
recognize the smell of their mothers and
many of us can pinpoint the smell of our
significant others and those we are close to.
Part of that smell is determined by genetics,
but it’s also largely do to environment, diet
and personal hygiene products that create a
unique chemistry for each person.
Aging and Death
From the very young to the very old, aging is
a necessary and unavoidable part of life.
Learn about the process with these
interesting, if somewhat strange facts.
60. The ashes of a cremated person average
about 9 pounds. A big part of what gives
the human body weight is the water
trapped in our cells. Once cremated, that
water and a majority of our tissues are
destroyed, leaving little behind.
61. Nails and hair do not continue to grow after
we die. They do appear longer when we die,
however, as the skin dehydrates and pulls
back from the nail beds and scalp.
62. By the age of 60, most people will have lost
about half their taste buds. Perhaps you
shouldn’t trust your grandma’s cooking as
much as you do. Older individuals tend to
lose their ability to taste, and many find that
they need much more intense flavoring in
order to be able to fully appreciate a dish.
63. Your eyes are always the same size from
birth but your nose and ears never stop
growing. When babies look up at you with
those big eyes, they’re the same size that
they’ll be carrying around in their bodies for
the rest of their lives. Their ears and nose,
however, will grow throughout their lives
and research has shown that growth peaks
in seven year cycles.
64. By 60 years of age, 60-percent of men and
40-percent of women will snore. If you’ve
ever been kept awake by a snoring loved
one you know the sound can be deafening.
Normal snores average around 60 decibels,
the noise level of normal speech, intense
snores can reach more than 80 decibels, the
approximate level caused by a jackhammer
breaking up concrete.
65. A baby’s head is one-quarter of it’s total
length, but by age 25 will only be one-eighth
of its total length. As it turns out, our
adorably oversized baby heads won’t
change size as drastically as the rest of our
body. The legs and torso will lengthen, but
the head won’t get much longer.

Disease and Injury
Most of us will get injured or sick at some
point in our lives. Here are some facts on
how the human body reacts to the stresses
and dangers from the outside world.
66. Monday is the day of the week when the
risk of heart attack is greatest. Yet another
reason to loathe Mondays! A ten year study
in Scotland found that 20% more people die
of heart attacks on Mondays than any other
day of the week. Researchers theorize that
it’s a combination of too much fun over the
weekend with the stress of going back to
work that causes the increase.
67. Humans can make do longer without food
than sleep. While you might feel better
prepared to stay up all night partying than
to give up eating, that feeling will be
relatively short lived. Provided there is water,
the average human could survive a month to
two months without food depending on
their body fat and other factors. Sleep
deprived people, however, start
experiencing radical personality and
psychological changes after only a few
sleepless days. The longest recorded time
anyone has ever gone without sleep is 11
days, at the end of which the experimenter
was awake, but stumbled over words,
hallucinated and frequently forgot what he
was doing.

Sex and Reproduction
As taboo as it may be in some places, sex is
an important part of human life as a facet of
relationships and the means to reproduce.
Here are a few things you might not have
known.
43. On any given day, sexual intercourse takes
place 120 million times on earth. Humans
are a quickly proliferating species, and with
about 4% of the world’s population having
sex on any given day, it’s no wonder that
birth rates continue to increase in many
places all over the world.
44. The largest cell in the human body is the
female egg and the smallest is the male
sperm. While you can’t see skin cells or
muscle cells, the ovum is typically large
enough to be seen with the naked eye with
a diameter of about a millimeter. The sperm
cell, on the other hand, is tiny, consisting of
little more than nucleus.
45. The three things pregnant women dream
most of during their first trimester are frogs,
worms and potted plants. Pregnancy
hormones can cause mood swings, cravings
and many other unexpected changes. Oddly
enough, hormones can often affect the
types of dreams women have and their
vividness. The most common are these three
types, but many women also dream of
water, giving birth or even have violent or
sexually charged dreams.
46. Your teeth start growing 6 months before
you are born. While few babies are born
with teeth in place, the teeth that will
eventually push through the gums of young
children are formed long before the child
even leaves the womb. At 9 to 12 weeks the
fetus starts to form the teeth buds that will
turn into baby teeth.
47. Babies are always born with blue eyes. The
color of your eyes depends on the genes
you get from your parents, but at birth most
babies appear to have blue eyes. The reason
behind this is the pigment melanin. The
melanin in a newborn’s eyes often needs
time after birth to be fully deposited or to be
darkened by exposure to ultraviolet light,
later revealing the baby’s true eye color.
48. Babies are, pound for pound, stronger than
an ox. While a baby certainly couldn’t pull a
covered wagon at its present size, if the
child were the size of an oxen it just might
very well be able to. Babies have especially
strong and powerful legs for such tiny
creatures, so watch out for those kicks.
49. One out of every 2,000 newborn infants has
a tooth when they are born. Nursing
mothers may cringe at this fact. Sometimes
the tooth is a regular baby tooth that has
already erupted and sometimes it is an extra
tooth that will fall out before the other set of
choppers comes in.
50. A fetus acquires fingerprints at the age of
three months. When only a small fraction of
the way through its development, a fetus
will have already developed one of the most
unique human traits: fingerprints. At only
6-13 weeks of development, the whorls of
what will be fingerprints have already
developed. Oddly enough, those fingerprints
will not change throughout the person’s life
and will be one of the last things to
disappear after death.
51. Every human spent about half an hour as a
single cell. All life has to begin somewhere,
and even the largest humans spent a short
part of their lives as a single celled organism
when sperm and egg cells first combine.
Shortly afterward, the cells begin rapidly
dividing and begin forming the components
of a tiny embryo.
52. Most men have erections every hour to hour
and a half during sleep. Most people’s
bodies and minds are much more active
when they’re sleeping than they think. The
combination of blood circulation and
testosterone production can cause erections
during sleep and they’re often a normal and
necessary part of REM sleep.