37 Amazing Things You Didn’t Know About Your Own Body (Part 2)

Health 5 Minutes

Human nails grow faster today than they used to.

If you feel like you have to trim your nails more than you used to, it’s not just your imagination. A 2010 study out of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill comparing the growth of fingernails and toenails to two previous studies from 70 and 50 years earlier found that growth had increased by almost a quarter over the decades.  For example, the big toe nail was found to grow by more than 2mm per month, compared to 1.65mm per month in the 1930s. The reason, according to researchers? The proliferation of protein-rich diets.

Your body position affects your memory.

That bad posture isn’t just giving you a backache—a 2012 article published in Biofeedback found that sitting and looking downward makes it easier to recall negative memories, while sitting upright and looking upward makes it easier to recall positive, empowering memories.

Humans “glow”—you just can’t see it.

When we talk about someone having a “glow” about them, that’s often literally true. Research has found that the human body does, in fact, emit visible light, but since it’s about 1,000 times less intense than the levels the human eye can spot, it’s not “visible” in practice. The results of a 2009 study published in PLOS One reveal that this body glow rises and falls throughout the day, with the least glow coming off of the humans they tested at about 10 a.m., and the highest at about 4 p.m. (perhaps because they were about to wrap up work for the day).

A blink is a micro nap.

You probably thought that a blink was just something you did to keep your eyes moist or keep dust out of them. That is a very valuable service, of course, but we actually blink way more than needed for that alone—about 15 to 20 times per minute.

In fact, according to a 2012 study conducted by researchers at Washington University, blinking can help sharpen attention and provide our bodies time to recharge.

Big eyes cause nearsightedness.

Big eyes may be considered beautiful by some, but they can cause nearsightedness. Also known as myopia, this condition that causes distant objects to look blurry is caused by light not properly reaching the retina.  If your eyeball grows too long, light is focused too soon before it hits the retina—so when it does hit the retina, the image is blurry.

It’s impossible to tickle yourself.

Your cerebellum—the area in the back of your brain that monitors movement—predicts the sensation you will feel when you attempt to tickle yourself, countering the response that the tickle would otherwise elicit in other parts of your brain. Two distinct parts of the human brain are responsible for giving you that ticklish feeling: The somatosensory cortex and the anterior cingulate cortex.  As Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, a research fellow at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London, explained to Scientific American, “We found that both these regions are less active during self-tickling than they are during tickling performed by someone else, which helps to explain why it doesn’t feel tickly and pleasant when you tickle yourself.”

Stomach acid dissolves razor blades.

You probably shouldn’t be swallowing these things, but you might be surprised to learn that your stomach could do some serious damage on razor blades if you did.  Researchers out of Meridia Huron Hospital tested the effects of gastric juice on metal objects and found that over 24 hours, the stomach acid reduced razor blades to 63 percent of their original weight (pennies and batteries, however, were barely affected).

Your intestine is four times as long as you are.

Among the many things you probably didn’t know about your body is that your small intestine is about 18 to 23 feet long, meaning that, if you uncoiled it, it would stretch to almost four times your height.

Your gut has a “second brain.”

We’ve all felt that “butterflies in the stomach” sensation (say, before a first date or major presentation). There’s good reason for this: There’s a network of neurons that lines the gut, which some scientists have taken to referring to as our “second brain.”  The gut doesn’t just handle digestion, but comes with its own reflexes and senses, and is intricately and inextricably interwoven with your nervous system. So, yeah, trust your gut.

Sneezes can travel up to 20 feet.

You may think you’re safe when the guy all the way across the subway car sneezes, but you could be in the line of fire without even realizing it. A video study conducted by researchers at MIT found that sneezes travel much farther than previously believed—as far as 20 feet.

Earwax is good for you.

To be clear, you don’t want to eat earwax! But that icky stuff serves the important purpose of lubricating, cleaning, and protecting your ears from infection. It’s as much as 50 percent fat, coating the ear and catching dust and debris—keeping your ears healthy, even if it looks gross.

Taste buds dull with age.

Wine may taste better as it ages, but as we age, it’s harder for us to appreciate it. Just as hearing and vision tend to deplete as the years go by, your sense of taste does the same. As you get older, your taste buds regenerate more slowly after injury or if you take certain medications.  And bad news for the ladies: Women generally experience a decrease in their taste sensitivity beginning in their 50s, while men don’t experience that until their 60s.

You have a one-of-a-kind tongue print.

Just as your fingerprint is uniquely yours, so too is your tongue print, according to a 2016 study by the Thai Moogambigai Dental College. Biometric scans can be done to compare the individual shape (long or short, wide or narrow) and texture (ridges, wrinkles, and marks), with specific details tracked and mapped by a “tongue image-acquiring device.”  Of course, while this thing you didn’t know about your body might be interesting, it probably is not very useful to forensic investigators.

Humans are the only animals that weep.

While many animals produce tears as lubricants for their eyes, humans are the only ones who cry as an emotional response.  Thomas Dixon, PhD, director of the Centre for the History of Emotions at Queen Mary, University of London, suggested that tears serve a social purpose for humans and that, “Even for those who think they really are just weeping for nobody apart from themselves, it’s still a sort of performance. You’re showing yourself things have really got bad, or whatever it might be.”

Your liver can almost completely regrow.

The liver is resilient. Even if reduced by as much as 75 percent, it can grow back to normal size. This happens through the rapid replication of liver cells, with the thing reaching its original size (or very close to it) within about a month, according to the University of Iowa.

Humans have more than five senses.

While we have sight, smell, touch, taste, and hearing, humans also have “proprioception” (sense of space) and “nociception” (sense of pain). There’s also “equilibrioception” (sense of balance), “thermoception” (sense of temperature in and around the body), “temporal perception” (sense of time), and more, depending on who you ask.

Source: Best Life website

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Published by pat frederick

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48 thoughts on “37 Amazing Things You Didn’t Know About Your Own Body (Part 2)”

  1. Good Morning and Thank You, Miss Pat.

    That last one about senses is fascinating – especially with all the background I have re: Sally’s disease involving diminished proprioception and equilibrioception and hearing…as well as loss of reflexes, vision problems, and more. I need to cogitate on all that.

    Liked by 1 person

  2. Interesting, Pat, but I always distrust studies like most of those discussed. Not to mention….why are we wasting sooooo much money studying things that are completely irrelevant and unimportant. Who GAS if fingernails grow faster now or in the past? We wasted research $$$’s on THAT??!!?? SMDH – that is just as much a waste as shrimp on the danged treadmill!!! Not to mention their sweeping generalizations!!!

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  3. “Hungary’s Powerful Stand Against the European Union’s Sexual Agenda for Children (Video)”
    Amy Mek, April 21, 2023

    ENTIRE ARTICLE @ RAIR Foundation: “The left-wing European Union is attempting to strip Hungarian mothers and fathers of their parental rights by falsely accusing the Hungarian government of adopting discriminatory and homophobic laws, in a bid to drum up support for their Marxist cause.

    Children are not merely under attack in schools, but they face an insidious sexual threat that is plaguing our society. With governments increasingly pushing sexual education onto children, concerned citizens around the world are understandably up in arms. The situation has reached a boiling point in Hungary with the passing of the “Child Protection Law.” This law has led to a legal case against Hungary, with more than a dozen left-wing European Union countries joining the fight to protest the passage of this law to protect children from the state sexualizing them. The battle lines have been drawn, and the fate of millions of innocent children hangs in the balance.

    The European Commission, the governing body that brought forth the legal proceedings, has said that the Hungarian law “violates EU law, fundamental rights, and EU values.” Countries controlled by hard-left governments, including France, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Finland, Spain, and Sweden, are joining the case against Hungary.

    The left-wing-controlled countries are fighting to strip Hungarian parents of their rights while falsely accusing the Hungarian government of adopting discriminatory, homophobic laws. The new law enacted various anti-child abuse and anti-pedophile measures, including a ban on institutions promoting transgenderism and homosexuality to children under 18 years of age.

    Critics argue that the law will restrict the rights of the LGBTQ community and violate their freedom of expression. However, supporters argue that the law is designed to protect the rights of parents and their children. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s government has emphasized that education in schools must not conflict with the will of parents and that they have the right to decide how issues of sexuality are discussed with their children.

    Last year the Prime Minister released a statement reiterating the bill’s objectives, “education in schools must not conflict with the will of parents; it must at most be supplementary, its form and content must be clearly defined, and it must be subject to parental consent.” Furthermore, “parents also rightly expect that on platforms used by our children, pornography, sexuality for its own sake, homosexuality and gender reassignment programs should not be available.”

    PM Orbán was clear that no one in Hungary will ever dictate how adults choose to live their lives, “the Hungarian law does not apply to the lives, sexual identity or practices of adults over the age of 18 — nor to how adults wish to express or present themselves publicly.” Furthermore, “a free adult should not have to give an account of his life in front of any secular authority — only before God when the time comes.”

    https://rumble.com/vkco1d-hungarian-law-only-allows-parents-to-decide-on-the-sexual-education-of-thei.html

    In a recent interview on Tucker Carlson Tonight, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s Political Director, Balazs Orban, spoke out against the EU’s legal proceedings, saying Hungarians voted to say no to “gender propaganda.” “In 2021, when we in Hungary started to realize that something was coming. It’s like a storm that is coming. Woke ideology or LGBTQ propaganda is arriving in Hungary, to schools through media and through NGOs. And, you know, you can imagine how a grassroots, normal Hungarian citizen reacted to that,” he said to Tucker Carlson. “We don’t have the word ‘woke’ in Hungarian. So people were asking, what are you talking about? ‘Woke?’ Is that the French magazine or what? But then they started to realize that this is, you know, something serious.”

    Balazs Orban added that nearly 4 million Hungarians voted in favor of the law and sent a clear message that they wanted to “ban transgenderism and LGBTQ propaganda for minors.” He said the EU countries’ efforts to protest the bill are a “legal persecution” of Hungary. “The Brusselian Deep State, it’s very similar to the DC one. It started a legal persecution against Hungary, which is backed by many Western European countries. Eastern European countries think differently, but there is an ongoing political and legal cold war,” he told host Tucker Carlson.

    Balazs Orban said his government would not back down and that the Hungarian people are “behind us.” “This is their expectation. My job is not to be popular among the Brusselian elites. But to represent the interests of my people in Brussels. This is why we have no other chance than just to take the battle,” he explained. “This is what Hungarians want. It’s out of [the] question. And if the media, the state, and the big powers are against you, your only backing is the support of the people. We are very grateful for that. And we have to serve them.”

    Watch Balazs Orban’s April 19, 2023, interview with Tucker Carlson:

    https://rumble.com/v2jiq16-segment-of-tucker-carlson-from-april-19th-2023-trans-terror-and-hungarian-r.html

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  7. Hey All,

    My daughter woke at 4am when her water broke & headed to the hospital hours later for labor & delivery of her first child, our 2nd grandchild. I’m heading out in minutes after gathering Lots of stuff to ease the process, hopefully. Her father-in-law & hubby have been hanging in there for the Long Slog & my hubby is holding back until things get closer to completion, as his ADHD is going nuts right now.

    Should be an interesting day ❤ 😍 ❤

    Would appreciate your prayers for this precious event.

    God is So Good!

    In Jesus’ Love,

    Valerie

    Liked by 2 people

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