These scientific FACTS will probably read as part of a “Ripley’s Believe It Or Not” column. Compiled in The Beacon (a Burnt Store Marina, Florida newspaper), columnist Bob Bottel writes about “The Wonders of the Human Body.” Here then are fascinating excerpts from his January/February/2016 column:
Did you know that our all-important lungs used for breathing are made of 5 lobes: three on the right side and two on the left? The left lung has a cardiac impression, which allows room for the heart.Ā Bob tells us “To enable the efficient exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide from the blood to the atmosphere, the lungs contain the largest surface area of any part of the body.” The website Inner Body, further informs us that if the lungs’ inner surface were stretched out, it would occupy an area of 80-100 square meters or the size of 1/2 (one report says a whole) tennis court.
Here’s a fact that might not appeal to our Sun City swimmers and aqua exercisers. The average human produces 25,000 quarts of saliva in a lifetime, which is enough to fill two swimming pools!
You probably already know that the human body’s skin is the largest organ in the body, weighing in at about 15% of our total weight and measuring 21 square feet in area. Wikipedia informs us that in hot weather, this organ discharges 3 gallons daily of perspiration. Our author reminds us that “Your skin drops around 30,000 to 40,000 lifeless skin cells from the exterior about every minute.”
It is hard to believe this fact, but we actually do have more hair follicles per square inch than most other mammals. Bob relates, “All humans shed between 40 to 150 strands of hair a day – unless they are bald.” The web page DailyMakeover collaborates this fact. An average male actually spends 5 months of his lifetime shaving. Ladies, did you know that a man set the Guinness World Record for longest known hair length at 22 feet, 3 inches?
Another incredible, but very believable truth, is that our fingernails grow four times as fast as our toenails. The nail of the middle finger grows the fastest of all. You might have guessed the fact that our dominant hand’s thumbnail is larger than our non-dominant hand’s thumbnail.
Even though babies are born with 300 total bones, by adulthood we have only 206 in our bodies. It seems that many small bones in infancy merge into larger bones as we gain age.
With the exception of the minerals that can be found in our teeth enamel, every body molecule is replaced on an average of once every 7 years.
As of the present, the human brain is still considered the fastest known computer. Ā Bottel informs us, “It has been estimated to be capable of about 10 quadrillion (10 million billion) calculations per second. Reported in the May 2, 2014 LiveScience publication, Ā Bioengineer, Kwabena Boohen’s invention of his Neurogrid is a microchip modeled on the human brain.Ā The scientist ‘s Neurogrid has been found to be 9000 times faster than a personal computer.Ā
A normal person’s height may change as much as 1 inch or 2.5 cm. in a day’s period.
You might have heard the fact that when you sneeze, your heart will stop for a tiny fraction of a second. If you sneeze too hard, you could infrequently fracture a rib, but if you try to suppress a sneeze, you can rupture a blood vessel in your head or neck, which could lead to very serious consequences.
Bottel gives us these astonishing facts about sleep: “A person living to age 75 will have slept about 220,000 hours or about 23 years. About 20% of that time will be spent dreaming, which is almost five years’ worth of dreams! On (an) average, we each have about 1500 dreams per year.”
Concerning our senses, by the age of 60, most adults have lost 50 percent of their use of taste buds and 40% of their sense of smell. Our author adds “We have no statistics on our hearing loss!”
