16 Unusual Facts About The Human Body

The human body is a truly amazing vessel that many people take for granted. Whether you’re laying in bed or out for a jog, your body is doing tons of amazing things that you may not even realize. Simple things like

• Sweating,
• Blushing,
• Growing and regenerating tissue.

…can be more complex and amazing that you might have previously thought. This is why it’s so important to take proper care of our bodies by exercising, eating well, and sleeping. Even though it might not feel like it, there are some incredible things happening inside of you, even right now.

Here is a list of 16 amazing things that the body does. Whether it be on a daily basis or at certain times, the meaning behind some of these facts may surprise you!

1. Eye Muscles: As you go about your day, you may not realize that your eye muscles are getting an intense workout! Each time you look at something the eye has to move in order to focus. This happens over 100,000 times per day. If you were to give your legs the same workout you would have to walk at least 50 miles.

2. Body Hair: Science has determined that humans evolved from primates. If you take a closer look, there are definitely several physical clues that support this! For example, humans have as much hair as a chimpanzee. Though it may not appear this way, because chimps have much darker and coarse hair, humans have just as much of it. Luckily, human hair is much thinner and therefore almost impossible to see. 

3. Fingernails: Unless you regularly go for manicures, you may not pay much attention to what your actual nails looks like. If you take a look at them you should notice a little white crescent at the bed of the nail. This is called the lunula, which means moon in Latin. It’s white because it’s thicker than the rest of the nail. It’s there to protect the blood vessels underneath the fingernail. If you don’t have lunulas it can be a sign that you have slow digestion, slow metabolism, or toxins in the body. Damaged lunulas can lead to deformities in the nail, and if you only have one on your thumb this can be a sign of a weak immune system. It can also be a sign of disease. You can certainly tell a lot about your health through your fingernails.

4. Saliva: This one is a bit gross, but the average human creates 25,000 quarts of saliva in their lifetime which is enough spit to fill two average-sized swimming pools.

5. Senses: While most people know that there are five senses, some people may not know that there are several others! In fact humans have about 15 other senses that include sense of direction, pain, time, balance, and temperature. Not to mention sense of thirst or hunger. There are also a few other, more complicated senses that you may not realize you have. This includes proprioception, which is the ability to tell where your body parts are in relation to other body parts.

6. Gold: Did you know that the human body contains about 0.2 milligrams of gold. This can mostly be found in blood but it’s not something you withdraw. It would take the blood of 40,000 humans to create one gold coin that would weigh eight pounds. I don’t think this is the best trade-off.

7. Running: Humans are among the top five long distance runners in the animal kingdom. Though we may not be able to run as fast as certain animals, we have always been able to outrun our prey to a point of exhaustion. Beating horses, humans are the best long distance runners losing to a few exceptions such as antelopes, ostriches, sled dogs, and camels.

8. Iron: Similar to how our bodies contain gold, there is also a lot of iron in our blood. The human body has enough iron in it to make a metal nail that is three inches long.

9. Blood Vessels: Some animals have the ability to grow parts of their body back once they lose them. For example, an octopus can grow back a missing leg and some lizards can regrow their tails. Did you know that humans also have the capacity to grow new parts? Each time the body gains fat or muscle, new blood vessels are created in order to sustain it. For every pound of fat or weight added, the body has to create seven miles of blood vessels.

10. Blood Flow: You can’t feel it but blood flows in the body at an incredible speed. It travels 12 thousand miles per hour around the body in a day. Imagine if we could travel as fast as blood flows? At that rate, a human would be able to travel across the US four times in one day. 

11. Blushing: Everyone knows that when you get embarrassed or flustered, there’s a good chance your cheeks might turn red. But did you know that when you blush, your stomach does too? When you get embarrassed, the sympathetic nervous system increases the blood flow of the body. This causes corresponding blood vessels to dilate which is what causes the red color. At the same time that your cheeks and neck are turning red, the inside of your stomach also changes color.

12. B.O: I bet you didn’t  know that sweat is actually odorless. While you may be blaming the liquid that drips down your arms and forehead for causing you to stink, it’s actually the process of sweat mixing with bacteria on the skin that creates the smell.

13. Still Growing: While you may think that you’re all finished growing after you’ve hit puberty, this is actually not the case. Though your bones stop growing after puberty, there are still parts of your body that continue to grow as you age. Parts like ears and noses which are made of cartilage continue to grow as you age up until the day that you die. Ears also droop over time due to gravity.

14. Finger nerves: The human fingertips are so sensitive that if they were set to scale with the earth, you would be able to tell a car from a house. This is so that we can tell textures apart and have the ability to tell how much pressure to apply. This is how humans are able to pop bubble wrap with the same fingers that gently hold a berry.

15. Human strength: Human muscles are incredibly strong and can be even stronger than they appear. Our strength is limited in order to prevent damage or injury but sometimes, due to an adrenaline rush, it can become unblocked. Humans have been known to lift heavy cars or boulders in desperate situations. Some people refer to this as a “Hulk” moment.

16. Body Heat: The human body can get pretty hot. Most of us have been outside on a hot day and started sweating or even feeling light headed, and there’s a good reason for that! Humans give off enough body heat to boil water after just thirty minutes. While this may sound like a super human skill, it’s not like we can just touch a pot and bring it to a boil. This is because the body has ways of cooling itself down, like sweating.