This article was originally published on RightLivin
Magical Fetal Cells
Hormonal changes, back pain, fatigue, constipation, heartburn - yes, pregnancy is quite the ride for the human body. But it's also an amazing journey that, all being well, ends with the birth of your child. Mothers often talk about their children being 'a part' of them, and it turns out that biologically, this is actually a fact! During pregnancy, cells from the fetus can cross the placenta and enter the mother's DNA.
A mother carries a child's genetic material in their bloodstream and in their DNA for what could be decades! Thanks to these 'magical' fetal cells, a mother basically morphs into a 'chimera,' an organism that contains more than two sets of DNA. Epic.
Super Strength Moments Are a Real Thing
We have all heard of the phenomenon: we detect something with the potential for danger - an angry look on someone's face, a bus veering out of control, a polar bear charging toward us - and our brain kicks into gear, sending out flashes of messages to our nervous system. Our brain is alert, our blood pressure is high, the adrenaline begins to pump, and any organs that aren't important at that moment begin to slow down.
And as all of this is happening, our systems band together and, in actual emergency situations, allow for a moment of 'superhuman' or hyper strength. Incredible.
Our Nose Bacteria Can Taste Danger
Ever taken a bite of a bitter potato? If you have, then you probably know that the tongue immediately realizes this is most definitely not food for eating, even as your stomach grumbles to be fed. Bitter tastes can sometimes warn human bodies of dangerous toxins in food, and our taste receptors helpfully save us (thank you, taste receptors!) from poisoning ourselves. According to new research, our noses have this amazing ability too!
Our noses have bitter taste receptors that scientists think belong to our immune systems. Their thinking is that the bitter taste receptors in our noses might act as an early detection system - reacting to chemicals that bacteria use to communicate! Who knew bacteria could communicate?
Foreskin: The Holy Grail
Who would have guessed that the seemingly unnecessary flap of skin that covers some people's private parts could turn out to be a miracle cure! Sometimes removed via circumcision or for other health reasons, researchers have been using foreskin to treat burn victims. Donated foreskins are one of the biggest resources doctors have for skin grafts - apparently, multiple football fields of skin can be grown from just one foreskin. Amazing, but not a mental image that we needed.
Even more bizarre? Scientists also discovered that the foreskin is an amazing source of fibroblasts, the cells found in connective tissue which contain high amounts of collagen! And if there's one thing the cosmetic world is obsessed with, it's collagen. Go smear that foreskin cream on; it'll take ten years off of you.
Brains Are Our Knights in Shining Armor
Pilates, walking the dog, commuting to work and back, collecting the kids, dance parties with the kids, mealtimes, bathtimes - on a day like that, the average human would justifiably feel they used up a ton of energy and be pretty exhausted at the end of the day. But according to scientists, the energy we use up isn't even a fraction of what we could be using! That's right; we have untapped potential.
Spoiler alert: sadly, we'd also be massively harming our bodies if, for every action we took, we used all our potential energy. Broken bones, pulled muscles, aching joints - or even death! Like knights on white horses, our brains smartly swoop in and prevent that from happening.
We Can Feel the Weather in Our Bones and Joints
Old Wive's Tale or science? Believe it or not, it's the second. Our bodies are connected to our environment! According to some scientific research, when the temperature drops, barometric pressure goes down, which might cause fluid in our joints to thicken and tissue to gently expand. That thickening makes joints stiffer and, therefore, more painful. For those with arthritis or sports injuries, it can be really painful when the weather gets colder.
Note to self: when grandpa complains of aching bones before bad weather, he isn't making it up to get out of taking a walk!
Yawning Has a Very Important Purpose
Yawning is one of those signals, for children and adults alike, that it's time to get to bed. And once you've yawned, it will never stop! Apparently, yawning serves a higher purpose inside the temple that is the human body: it cools down our brains. Yes, yawning is that important. Did we even know our brains can get really hot? We do now. But, of course, our bodies know just what to do to get that under control.
Now, if yawning is so necessary for our bodies, then why do we insist on covering our mouths when we do it? It seems like something we should let out freely.
Oh Stop, Don't Make Us Blush
If we're talking about things human bodies do that we cannot control, blushing should be top of the list. It's an automatic reaction that we just can't help. It pretty much always happens in embarrassing or shameful moments, sometimes when we're innocent, sometimes when we're guilty, often when we're angry - but there's nothing we can do to stop it! Only humans have the "privilege" of this bizarre bodily function - animals, apparently, do not blush.
In the 1930s, a scientist in Vienna linked blushing to necrophilia and repressed cannibalism. So let's all be thankful that theory gained zero traction in the scientific community.
Gut Fermentation: The Hippest Brewery in Town
True story: some human bodies are actually microbreweries. Officially named 'Auto-brewery syndrome,' but often called gut fermentation syndrome or 'drunkenness disease,' the rare condition means the person is intoxicated, naturally, without drinking an ounce of alcohol. How does it happen? The body "brews" or ferments any carbs ingested into alcohol (ethanol). Yeast in the person's gut teams up with bacteria to convert the sugars into alcohol, and voila - drunk, just from eating too much pasta.
Why would a person already have so much yeast in their intestines or digestive tract? Maybe from Crohn's disease, overuse of antibiotics, diabetes, or other possible causes.
The Human Glowstick
People are often described as 'glowing with pride' or satisfaction, glowing from within, or that infamous 'pregnancy glow.' But researchers in Japan have found that our bodies are even more bizarre than we realized - we actually emit light that goes undetected by the naked human eye! Japanese scientists found that our human bodies, in complete darkness, give out very low levels of light - with the face glowing more than the body.
The research suggests that if the whole body emits light, perhaps weaknesses or medical conditions can be identified in areas that give out less light.
Who Needs a Crystal Ball When We Have Eyes
No need for a weather application, forecast, or checking the news; just have a look in the mirror! Our eyes are apparently great predictors of changes in temperature and weather. During cold spells, the eye's blood vessels constrict, sometimes even freezing our corneas. Our eyes get dry and itchy. But interestingly, eyes can also 'detect' when warmer weather is on the way - along with all those allergens, such as pollen and dust, which make eyes itchy, watery, and red.
Bizarre eye facts: it's impossible to sneeze with your eyes open, and 80% of all learning we do comes via our eyes.
Groove Is in the Heart - Literally
For those of us who think we have no rhythm, a new study has found that our cardiovascular system naturally reacts to music! Participants in the study listened to selections from Beethoven, Bach, and Puccini, among others, with monitors recording their physiological reactions. During the parts with crescendos, blood vessels constricted, and the participants' experienced an increase in blood pressure, heart and breathing rates. In other words, our blood and breath can synch with the music.
Even more incredible - these findings could play a part in treating stroke and heart patients in the future. We're off to make some more playlists!
Sebum on Trial
Greasy skin? Sebum is the likely culprit. Scientists who study sebum - one of the components of oil that are produced by our bodies - say acne has little to do with what we eat and is mostly all down to genetics. Sebum comes from tiny glands often connected to hair follicles on the face, chest, and back. They secrete sebum directly onto the skin, causing annoying blackheads, pimples, and acne outbreaks. Verdict? Sebum is guilty as charged!
However, dermatologists remind us that sebum is absolutely necessary for maintaining healthy, glowing skin - sure, an excess might lead to pimples, but today creams and medicines can fix an outbreak. Conclusion? Let's not be so quick to put sebum in the slammer.
Growing in Your Sleep - Myth or Fact?
Gravity has a lot to answer for! Squeezing us a little bit smaller during the day by putting pressure on our cartilage and joints, we lose about 1/2 an inch during the day - only to gain it back while we sleep. Normal human growth in children and adults relies on healthy hormone production, as well as good nutrition and a bunch of other factors. Here's the fun part: human growth hormone is produced in our brains as we sleep!
For children and teens, this is crucial - there's a lot happening in our bodies while we sleep! Vitamins and growth hormones are absorbed into our bloodstream, and our immune systems grow stronger. So make sure to get a good night's sleep; you might wake up a full inch taller tomorrow.
You Won't Believe What People in the Past Did With Pee
If we thought brewing yeast in our bodies was bizarre, it turns out we are also a urine factory. The average adult produces around 6 cups of pee per day, but we can be ready to pee with just one cup full in our bladders. Historically, urine was considered quite useful, used for teeth whitening, as an exfoliator, and in gunpowder! Yeah, the teeth whitening and exfoliator also surprised us.
Urine can be a window into our general health - its smell and color reflect what else is going on inside our bodies. Pink pee: could be blood! Or did we just eat beetroot for dinner?
Vital Or Not?
Newsflash - we do not need every single organ in our body! There are a number of vital organs that human beings can have removed and still live a potentially healthy life. Some of those organs include the appendix, kidney, gall bladder, liver, spleen, tonsils, testicle, and ovaries. Without too much impact on a person's life, any of those organs could be removed, and we think that's pretty cool.
In some cases of stomach cancer, the entire stomach is removed in a procedure called a 'gastrectomy,' and there are also many people living with one lung or one kidney.
Your Nose Isn't the Only Body Part That Can Detect Smell
Apparently, the ability to smell cannot be solely claimed anymore by just the nose. Sorry, nose. Dr. Jennifer Pluznick was studying kidney disease when she found 'scent receptors' on the kidneys. And it turns out they're not just on the kidneys! Bizarrely, scientists have found that organs and tissue all over our bodies contain these receptors for 'sniffing' out certain smells. So our kidneys can 'sniff' the urine as it passes by. Weird.
The research suggests that the 'smells' our organs are detecting are of things bodies probably don't need - like bitter or spoiled food, toxins, or poison. Wow!
We're More Like Snakes Than We Realized
Our body's largest organ and defense system #1 against the outside world is our skin. In order to avoid infection, the outer layer of our skin, the epidermis, sheds every 28 days. Sheds! Yes, like a snake! And we shed about 9 pounds of it every year. What's actually happening is new skin cells are generating below the epidermis, and it's taking them a little bit of time to make their way to the surface - shoving those old, dead skin cells off. So our body is naturally exfoliating! Pretty cool.
Where does all that dead skin go? All over your home. Yep, that's right. Everything we own is likely covered in dead skin cells.
Sounds Like Something Only a Superhero Could Do
Grab an antacid; things are looking dicey. The acid in our stomachs is apparently strong enough (due to its low enough PH) to dissolve certain metals, bones, teeth, and other organs in our body. This digestive juice, hydrochloric acid, is protected by a super thick layer of mucus which stops the stomach, um, eating itself. In fact, our stomachs secrete so many different chemicals it's like their own tiny laboratory in there.
Imagine if that deadly stomach acid escaped? Spoiler: it's called heartburn, or acid reflux, and it's a super painful way of experiencing what happens when stomach acid gets into the tube that carries food from the mouth to the stomach (the esophagus). It is not recommended!
Saliva: It Rolls Right off the Tongue
Saliva is not usually the first thing we think of when enjoying a really good meal, but we should praise saliva for the fact that we can taste all the variously yummy tastes on our plates and that it goes down easily. Why? Because saliva waits all day to spread the food's tastes around to all of our tastebuds. It also helps our food go down the hatch easily by beginning digestion for us in our mouths!
Every day, our salivary glands produce around two to four pints of saliva, but when we're stressed, saliva production actually slows down - sometimes leading to that familiar dry-mouth feeling. Who knew!
How Does It Feel to Be Beat by a Baby?
A study in the UK by scientists at the University of Sheffield and UCL found that infants can tell the difference between human faces at six months old and can even differentiate between monkeys' faces. Adult brains that were tested, however, could not detect the differences between the monkeys' faces! Interestingly, facial recognition seems to be a skill we only get worse at with age and time, not better.
On the other end of the spectrum, a condition called prosopagnosia makes it impossible for adults to differentiate between faces - even family members and friends. The condition often leads to social anxiety or depression, as people often assume that sufferers of the invisible condition are just being rude, blanking them, or maybe have forgotten them. So if your new neighbor keeps failing to recognize you, maybe think twice before judging!
Strongest Muscle in the Body - Thats How We Eyeroll
Maybe we're alone in this, but we usually think of the heart or legs as our hardest working muscles. But surprisingly for us, it turns out that's not the case. Because it can move in all directions and reacts quicker than other muscles, the eye has proven itself a champion - working so hard for us every day. There are more than 2 million working parts to our eyes!
In conclusion, they may not be the strongest, but the eye muscles are the fastest reacting and most hard-working and efficient of all our muscles.
Might Want to Think Twice Before Blowing Your Nose
Snot. Mucus. Boogers. Our bodies produce the green sticky stuff to act as a barrier and prevent dust or pollen from getting into our lungs. But it's actually 95% water and packed full of really good antibodies. There's also another name for it - phlegm, the stuff produced by our lungs or sinuses when they're inflamed, like when we're sick. What's bizarre about it? We swallow our snot or mucus all day long!
All. Day. Long. Think about it for a moment. We can't unthink it. Human bodies produce around a liter of snot a day, and it all goes down the hatch.
The Battle of the Gut
There is a war being waged. And it is happening inside our insides as we speak. Imagine a movie with 'good' and 'bad' bacteria battling it out to retain balance in the gut. We might be wondering at this point, um, where exactly is our 'gut'? Answer: it's the gastrointestinal tract, the long tube that runs from our mouths, all the way through our bodies down to the anus.
Don't freak out, but there are around 40 trillion bacteria inside our bodies, and most of them are inside our gut, battling it out. What are they battling for? Balance. When our 'gut flora' is imbalanced, we get sick. But in good news, we can restore our gut flora by eating more prebiotic, wholegrain, fermented, and plant-based foods! Sounds delightful.
And Just When You Thought You Fell Asleep...
At the end of a long day, what's better than climbing into bed, sinking into our pillows, letting go of all our stresses, and drifting into a nice, long sleep. Only to be woken minutes later by our bodies jerking us awake! What was that?! A leg flew up in the air, or an arm jumped up and hit our partner in the face? These hypnagogic or hypnic jerks are muscle twitches - involuntary muscle twitches - that occur in the first stage of sleep.
Some research suggests that in transitioning between wake and sleep, our nerves 'misfire', which causes us to twitch or jerk. Some other research suggests we don't dance enough during the day, and our bodies are making up for it at night.
Fingernails or Claws?
Other primates have claws, hoofs, and talons that can do interesting and helpful things, but human beings have ended up with fingernails that don't seem to do much at all. They also have no feeling! Our nails are made up of layers of keratin, and they can actually tell us a lot about our health. For instance, drastic changes in healthy nails can often signal kidney disease. We also know that fingernails pretty much grow without stopping. Ew.
Fun facts: our thumbnails grow the slowest, but the middle finger grows the fastest, and nail growth slows down as we age. The longest nails recorded by Guinness were an astonishing total length of 28 ft 4.5 in.
She Can't Get You Out of Her Head
One of the more bizarre things that we cannot control in our bodies is our brain and our thoughts - or, more specifically, intrusive thoughts! Ever seen a child at the edge of a swimming pool and imagined the worst possible scenario? Waiting for a train and imagining someone falling onto the tracks or in the middle of speaking to someone, our brain has us in a hot air balloon in the sky with our celebrity crush, putting on parachutes?
Intrusive thoughts are often caused by underlying worries or anxiety; our brains are simply showing us the 'movie' of the most inappropriate thing they can conjure up. Thanks, brain, but you can keep that to yourself.
Think Fast, Baby
If we ever need confirmation that our best years are behind us, research on newborn and baby brain development will do it. We are born with 100 billion neurons in a brain half the size of an adult's. By the time we reach adulthood, we have half that amount of neurons in a full-size brain. We learn, absorb and innovate an incredible amount between the ages of 0-3, and children's brains are growing faster during that period than any other organ in their body.
According to scientists, by the time a child is three years old, their brain will reach 80 percent of adult brain volume! Children's brains can also uniquely absorb information between the ages of 2-and 7. But over the age of 8? Time to retire.
What Do Hot and Cold Sound Like?
In a bizarre and wonderful investigation, a British 'sensory branding' marketing firm wanted to find out if people could tell the difference in sound between a hot drink being poured and a cold drink being poured. If they could identify the sound of a hot tea or cold beer being poured into a glass, would it make them more likely to want one if they heard that sound in a commercial? Astonishingly, they found that 96% of people can tell the difference in sound between hot and cold beverages!
The way a liquid splashes into a cup is affected by the viscosity of the liquid - and heat changes the viscosity of water. Most of us have listened to the sound of cold and hot drinks being poured out hundreds of times, and so our hearing has adjusted to the differences in sound. This is something we don't have any control over and makes for an awesome party trick - at least for kids!
Fighting Cancer Cells: The Daily Grind
Cancer cells are the bane of our immune system's existence. Acting as the first line of defense between us and viruses, pathogens, bacteria, and cancer cells are immune cells. These patrol our bodies, attacking rogue cancer cells in our bodies on a daily basis. Yes, that's right - daily basis. Sometimes cells don't divide perfectly, the divorce is messy, and damage or mutations occur. Along come the armed guards, the immune cells, to destroy those little tumors before they get worse.
In an unfortunate twist to the heroic plot, cancer cells are crafty and can 'disguise' themselves to hide from immune system cells! It's a complicated war that is being waged inside our bodies.
Get Busy Living While We Get Busy Dying While We Get Busy Living
According to scientists at the Weizmann Institute of Science, our bodies make 3.8 million cells every second and lose around 300 billion cells per day. There is so much absurdity going on in our bodies that it's hard to keep track. Around 1% of all our cells are replaced daily! Cells in our blood and our gut live less than a week - high employee turnover rate - and within one hundred days or so, almost all of our cells will have renewed.
Entirely new cells - not the same ones you had last year, or ten years before, or when you were born. This might be hard to wrap our heads around so think of it this way - at the same second, we should be dying; as millions of our cells die, they are regenerated, and we continue living.
Stomach Lining Cells - The Sequel
Have we ever thought of something more absurd but also incredible than our stomach lining regenerating itself every week? The acid inside our stomachs is strong enough to burn us - ouch! - only it doesn't, thanks to the enormous amount of mucus that protects the stomach lining. But the cells in our intestines are exposed to that acid, so they dissolve - only to regenerate again in five to seven days.
The stomach lining might be one of the hardest working but least glamorized parts of our bodies.
Cellular Mitosis - It's a Divisive Topic
Our cells are a little bit like teens in a Young Adult novel - they literally spend their entire time breaking up. Cell division, also known as mitosis, is the process where one cell 'breaks up' or divides into two identical 'daughter' cells. Our bodies are busy, all day, every day, with cell regeneration and reproduction - creating new cells to replace old ones. Harsh. And amazing! The mitosis process is happening 24/7, inside our bodies, without a break.
Mitosis is crucial to growth and repair inside the body - particularly in skin cells and the digestive tract.
Supercomputer Brains
Fun Fact: The human brain is thirty times faster than the fastest computer. Yes, seriously. And that's not all: there are actual computers in existence that were built to mimic the human brain. That's how awesome our brains are! But the key difference between our complex organs and complex computers is that our brains are described as a tangled mess of neuron communication, whereas computers are designed with logic and precision in mind.
So the fastest computer currently in China doesn't come even nearly close to the processing speed of our human brains. It sucks for you, technology! Human Body - 1, Computer - 0.
The Weather Outside Is Frightful
Heard the one about the joyful arthritis sufferer? Neither have we. Those with arthritis suffer from aching joints and stiffness throughout the calendar year, but doctors and studies have reported an increase in complaints during colder weather. What was once considered an urban legend or Old Wives' Tale, we now know, has some basis in scientific findings. Lower temperatures mean a change in barometric pressure. Arthritis affects everything around the joint, like tissue and muscle, and ligaments. All of those parts may feel tightness in the colder weather, with tissue swelling.
Tips for avoiding pain during rainy or cold weather: staying warm, staying hydrated and if the knees and elbows are communicating that there's a snowstorm on the way, please let us know first - thank you.
Sensor Receptors Are All Over Our Bodies
We have terrifying news - there are chemical sensors all over our bodies! Wait, what does that actually mean? What are chemical sensors, and what are they doing in our bodies? Some fascinating research in recent years on 'sensor receptors' shows that our organs are sensing different chemicals around our bodies through fibrous receptors, like hairs. Much like the ones we know of in our mouths and noses that detect taste, texture, and smell, so too in other organs.
How does this discovery help us? The researchers involved believe that the chemical sensors are picking up potentially harmful smells inside our bodies. We predict this being helpful in the future with small children if perhaps a series of fun bells and alarms go off when the stomach detects something like playdough, paint, chalk, or coins.