20. Death erections exist.
Careful. You can die if you get a hard enough erection.
19. Every person has a unique tongue print.
...just like fingerprints.
18. Sleepyheads die first.
The popular "8 hours sleep per night" recommendation is wrong. Study shows higher death rates over 6 or 7 hours of sleep.
17. The stomach produces a new lining every 3 days to avoid digesting itself with its own acids.
Self-explanatory. Strong acid is constantly breaking down not only the food, but your own stomach.
16. We can eat upside down.
The "pipe' that goes from your mouth to your stomach is divided into sectors. Each sector is a muscle which squeezes the food to the next sector. Traveling to your stomach.
15. Humans are the crybabies of nature.
Just like animals make squeeky noises when they're emoitionally down, we make tears when we're emotionally down.
14. White skin has evolved over time.
It seems we were all black ones (consistent with evolutionary fact of first humans in Africa). White skin was a result of humans moving away from the equator.
There's tons of PROOF today that skin color is NOT permanent. Typical is Micheal Jackon who was once black. His skin lot pigment, and turned white.
13. Humans pee - a lot.
It seem we pee about 16 tons of pee every year. Enough to make a wonderful family swimming pool in your back yard.
12. An 8-hour sleep saves us just energy to eat a piece of toast.
Weird. I wonder why we feel more energetic then sleeping after a hard day of work.
11. The foot is home to the body's thickest area of skin.
It's also got the most sweat glands then in any other area.
10. We don't need no stinkin' colored contacts.
Ever wonder why some people have two different-colored eyes? This extremely rare condition, known as heterochromia iridium, is caused by an increase or decrease of pigmentation in the iris.
9. It takes a special kind of sweat to create BO. That, and not bathing.
All sweat is not created equal. The type of sweat that stinks is found it areas with hair, including: Scalp, armpits, genitals
8. We can go a loooong time without sleep.
The world record for staying up is held by Randy Gardner, who went 264 hours and 12 minutes (that's 11 days) without sleep in 1964; he was 17 at the time. Gardner did not use any stimulants to keep him awake, and was considered to be in good health when he completed his task, though he did experience some hallucinations, short term memory loss, and grogginess.
7. Our cells are suicidal.
Bottom line: For organs to form during embryonic development, some cells must commit suicide. Without such programmed cell death, we would all be born with webbed feet, like ducks.
6. The appendix isn't as useless as you think.
It's found that it acts as a good safe house for bacteria.
5. It is possible to have black and white twins.
Eg:
4. The soul does not weigh 21 grams.
It makes for a nice poetic story, and one very depressing Sean Penn movie, but the theory that the soul weighs 21 grams hasn't exactly been proven.
The whole thing started in 1907, when Massachusetts doctor Duncan MacDougall conducted a series of experiments with six dying patients, in which he noted that their bodies weighed 21 grams less upon death - hence marking the departure of a 21-gram soul. MacDougall also measured dogs and noted no difference in pre- and post-mortem weight, thereby concluding that dogs do not have a soul.
The problem, as Great Moments in Science notes, is that MacDougall's six patients are too small of a sample to offer significant proof, and the experiments were plagued by technical difficulties and inconsistencies. In fact, only one of MacDougall's patients actually had a 21-gram drop in weight.
3. It is possible to die laughing.
Just ask the dearly departed Alex Mitchell, who spent his final moments laughing uncontrollably at an episode of the 1970s UK TV show "The Goodies," reports Snopes.com. As his wife watched in horror (or glee?), Mitchell laughed for 25 straight minutes before he "slumped on the settee" and died of heart failure.
2. We resist weight loss.
Proof once again that we are own worst enemies, researchers at the Queensland University of Technology in New Zealand last year discovered that our bodies are "programmed" to protect themselves against weight loss.
1. The body is taller in the morning than in the evening.
You might want to schedule that basketball game for first thing in the morning. That's because our bodies are on average about half an inch taller in the morning, thanks to excess fluid between our discs, which is replenished while we sleep. As the day goes on, and our bodies undergo the strain of standing, the discs get compressed and the fluid seeps out, so the body loses that small bit of extra height.
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Date: 14 Nov 2007 | Author: mesmerX | Category: News | Views: 15758
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