#1
Have you ever wondered why we have fingerprints? Well, so have some scientists...
Initially, it was thought that the swirly patterns helped us to grip things. But it turns out that might not be the case. "Fingerprints actually allow less of our skin to come into contact with objects than perfectly smooth fingertips would," reports thehealthy.com.
According to the site, some theories about the evolutionary purposes of fingerprints include that they protect our fingers or provide touch sensitivity. But at the end of the day, scientists really don't know.
#2
When I got home I did some research - we don't know how anesthesia actually works, we just know that it does.
#3
Another "shower thought" you might have had is why some people are left-handed while others are right-handed, or why we even need to have one dominant hand.
Only about 10% of people are left-handed, and the vast majority are right-handed. Should we not have evolved enough by now for us to use both hands equally?
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#6
"Some of the theories think it's because of the way our brains are wired," says American evolutionary psychologist and behavioral geneticist, Dr. Nancy Segal, adding that "Handedness does seem to have a genetic component that is inherited but there's no simple pathway from parent to child we're able to figure out."
Segal told CBS News that "lefties" often have a more dominant right side of their brain, while righties have a more dominant left side of their brain.
"Why is still a mystery," reports the outlet.
#7
Symptoms all overlap for so many similar things and the treatments all work differently for different people until sometimes they randomly don't or do for awhile then quit. Maybe you have Lupus maybe you have Arthritis? Can't be sure so take this malaria medicine about it and let me know if you get mouth sores, your liver swells up, or it does nothing for no reason. Could be the meds, could be a flair.
Either way it's going to affect parts of your body you never knew interacted. How is your relationship with gluten and dairy because it's about to get weird. Which came first, the depression or the inflamation? No idea, but here's another four pills about it. You're hypermobile ever heard of Elors Danlos or pots? Similar but different but who knows... why did you come in again?
Fatigue 😩.
#8
#9
It's a horrible disease with no cure, no real treatment, no known cause, and 100% death rate. Diagnosis is often only through a lengthy process of elimination. Typical life expectancy after diagnosis is 2-5 years. It causes slow, progressive degeneration and loss of muscle function leading to paralysis. Probably something autoimmune related which is its own can of worms.
It has at least 3 common names for the same thing:
Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS)
Lou Gherig's Disease
Motor Neuron Disease (MND).
Then there's the issue of dreaming... Why do we do it? What's the point?
“Humans spend nearly a third of their lives asleep, yet science has still very little understanding of how and why we dream,” reveals Health and Wellness expert, Caleb Backe.
According to thehealthy.com, dreaming occurs during REM sleep, and our heart rates increase when we dream. As with other mysteries, scientists are divided about what purpose dreaming actually serves.
#10
We know that the brain is a network of neurons that send electrical signals to each other, something like a complex computer. We can observe the functioning of the hardware through functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans. We can even identify which parts of the brain are active when we feel happiness, sadness, or recognize a face.
But we have no idea how this electrical and chemical activity results in the creation of the subjective, first-person perception of seeing the color red, feeling heat, or possessing a sense of self. This is what philosophers call the hard problem of consciousness.
We are becoming extremely good at imitating the functions of the brain with artificial intelligence, but we haven't even begun to try to imitate the experience itself. It is the greatest mystery that exists.
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#12
And also w*f that house I keep dreaming of is. I've never lived in it. None of my friends have ever lived in it. I do not recognize it at all.
"A popular theory suggests that dreaming is how your brain sorts through the memories of the day, deciding which ones are valuable and which are irrelevant," reports the site.
"Other scientists, though, believe that dreaming actually serves no real function and that it’s just what our unconscious mind does when untethered by our awake selves," it adds.
#13
People with IBS have symptoms but otherwise will have completely normal gastrointestinal investigations, ie there is no structural problem that can be conventionally identified.
Increasingly it’s thought that IBS may be a disease of disordered microbiota which in itself isn’t well understood. The microbiota even more mysteriously seems to have some connection to the brain and mind itself which may be why IBS is often comorbid with psychiatric problems like anxiety and depression.
#14
#15
Antihistamines work REALLY well to stop the pain, and no one knows why.
Apart from the general mysteries about the human body, there are many individual medical cases that still remain unsolved. Take the girl who never aged, for example...
As Reader's Digest reports, Brooke Greenberg passed away in 2013, at the young age of 20. "But she didn’t look like your average 20-year-old because her body had stopped developing at the age of 5. Her hair and nails were the only parts of her body that continued to grow year by year," reads the site.
#17
Oh your kid screams uncontrollably for hours on end? Welp just don’t shake your baby. Good luck!
#18
- a doctor never truly understand how to fix a patient's problem (or even why a medicine works), but
- an engineer can truly expect to resolve a machine's root problem, because there is always a logic to how things work (or not work).
So I chose engineering and stayed in it for 40 years. No regret.
It's a phenomenon that doctors just could not explain, no matter how hard they tried.
"Numerous DNA studies showed no abnormalities in her genes associated with aging, nor did her parents have a history of abnormal development. Plus, all her sisters were normal and healthy," Reader's Digest notes, adding that scientists refer to her condition as Syndrome X, a metabolic syndrome.
"Yet her unusual condition remains unexplained by science," the site concludes.
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