Science & Technology,CuriositiesJUL 12, 2022

40 Cool But Pretty Disturbing Facts About The Human Body That Not Many People Know About

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The human body is a crazy thing. After evolving for about 6 million years, our bodies that include 206 bones, a couple gallons of blood, around 600 muscles and much more, are capable of incredible things. We might not all be climbing Mount Everest or competing in the Olympic Games, but every single one of us has a body that is working incredibly hard to keep us alive. And while we spend our entire lives in these fascinating skin suits, many of us don’t actually have a great understanding of how they work.

That’s why one Reddit user, Alwaysclimbing5, reached out asking others to share cool facts about the human body that a lot of people don’t know. Readers chimed in with fascinating information, including anything from how we can be born with extra ribs to how sensitive our noses are to the scent of rain, so we’ve gathered the most interesting responses down below for you to read, as well as an interview with Dr. Scott Ross about some of the craziest things he knows about the human body. We hope you'll enjoy your daily dose of biology and that you learn something new about yourself while you're here. Don’t forget to upvote the facts that really blow your mind, and then if you’re interested in finding out even more about our bodies, check out this Bored Panda piece next.

#21

A small percentage of people are "Super Sleepers" and are fully recharged after 2 to 4 hours of sleep each night. They get to burn the candle at both ends!

lokensnarm

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159points

Something else that is fascinating about being a human is our long childhoods. While some other species have long lifespans like Asian elephants and blue-and-gold macaws, we are special in the way that it takes us so long to mature. Our childhoods are twice as long as chimpanzees, and even earlier versions of humans reached adulthood faster than we do today. There are several possible explanations for this, including the size of our brains and our long lifespans.

According to Associate Professor of Psychology Suzana Herculano-Houzel at Vanderbilt University, “It makes sense that the more neurons you have in the cortex, the longer it should take a species to reach that point where it's not only physiologically mature, but also mentally capable of being independent. The delay also gives those species with more cortical neurons more time to learn from experience, as they interact with the environment." I sometimes envy kids for their freedom and lack of responsibilities, so I am feeling really lucky right now that I'm a human. At least I got 17 years to enjoy being a kid, rather than a measly 3!

#22

40 Cool But Pretty Disturbing Facts About The Human Body That Not Many People Know About

Your heart rate increases about a minute before partaking in exercise. It is known as the anticipatory rise and happens involuntarily.

Wizzkidsjay, Ketut Subiyanto

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152points

#23

The microscopic mites living on your face feeding off the oil glands.

You can't see them, but they're there. They are microscopic mites, eight-legged creatures rather like spiders. Almost every human being has them. They spend their entire lives on our faces, where they eat, mate and finally die.

There are two species of mite that live on your face: Demodex folliculorum and D. brevis.

It's cool cause that means I'll always have some friends with me.

alienandro, Pixabay

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144points

#24

Blind people process Braille in their visual cortex. Amazing example of neuroplasticity.

Sydney2London

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142points

Humans, particularly females, are also very fortunate to have long lives after giving birth, without being expected to create more babies until they die. It is common for mammals to keep populating until they simply can’t go on, and even many species of octopuses die once they have mated and ensured their eggs would survive. But giving birth as a human is not supposed to be a death sentence. Of course, it can be in tragic cases, but most mothers get to live for many decades after having kids. Having kids is considered the beginning of many people’s lives, for individuals who view raising a family as their greatest dream. We are quite a lucky species because so many of us get to grow up with grandparents, sometimes even great-grandparents.

#25

When you first set your sight on the seconds of a watch (or anything with a rapid regular movement) you will sometimes feel like the first second lasts a little bit too long. It's because your brain replaces the motion blur that happens when you moved your sight from wherever it was to the watch with a fixed image.

And the cool thing is that it replaces it "after the fact", or rather gives you a very short false memory that you were already watching the watch while your eyes were moving, making that first second seem longer.

It's called Chronostasis.

Wdebense

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135points

#26

Some humans do not feel any pain and have to be closely monitored because they can get sick/injured so easily and not even realize.

AidansSeenSomeS**t, Thirdman

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133points

#27

When you're a baby you have several defence mechanisms that stop you from drowning: you reflexively hold your breath when underwater and your heart rate and consumption of oxygen decreases, allowing you to last significantly longer underwater than an adult.

natpri00

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132points

While we tend to view ourselves as completely different from animals, the reality is that we just evolved in a different way. Our bodies are so special and incredible, and we are lucky to have complicated enough brains to have some level of understanding about how they work. We hope you're enjoying this list of fun facts about your body. Be sure to keep upvoting all of the facts that blow your mind, and let us know in the comments if you have any other little-known facts about humans that you would like to share. I'm sure it's been a long time since many of us have taken biology, and we would love to have a better understanding of ourselves.

#28

A baby's body has about 300 bones at birth. These eventually fuse (grow together) to form the 206 bones that adults have

Dee_Jay77

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123points

#29

The human body contains enough fat to make seven bars of soap.

obliterator101, Valeria Boltneva

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122points

#30

We are, by cell numbers, more bacteria than human.

sandysanBAR, Tima Miroshnichenko

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120points

#31

Your hands and feet alone account for more than half of all the bones in your body (106/206)

gianthooverpig

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117points

#32

The femur is stronger than steel and concrete.

anon, Polina Tankilevitch

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111points

#33

Cutting the corpus callosum ( connects two brain hemispheres) can produce some freaky results. Such as your hand doing s**t that your conscious mind isn't aware of, writing a sentence or scratching an itch without knowing for instance.

anon, Andrea Piacquadio

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109points

#34

We breathe out most of our weight during weight loss.

EpsilonRider

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102points

#35

Amniotic fluid is mostly baby urine.

purpleRN, Anastasiia Chepinska

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95points

#36

Your bones are always wet.

verifiedone

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95points

#37

You're taller in the morning than the rest of the day/night.

crazynights87, charlesdeluvio

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94points

#38

Babies don't have full color vision until 5 months old!

pretendimgoodatthis

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94points

#39

There is a muscle, called palmaris longus, in the forearm missing in about 10% of the population. You can easy test if you have it by putting your pinky and thumb together, while holding your palm facing up, and flex the hand upwards. If 1 tendon is standing out more than the others that's palmaris longus.

johigangan, wikimedia.commons

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91points

#40

We have a bunch of microplastics in our body.

gayboyuwu, Brian Yurasits

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77points

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