Interesting facts about the functioning of the human body that you will not find in standard anatomy textbooks. ......

From Masterweb

08.04.2017 04:55

Science has been trying to unravel the secrets of the human body for thousands of years. The information collected is so rich that it is simply unrealistic to fit everything into a regular anatomy textbook. That is why there is a huge amount of interesting data about the work of our body that we are not even aware of.

Facts about brain function

The average person's brain is capable of perceiving written speech at a thousand words per minute.
To function adequately, our brain needs the same amount of energy as a regular incandescent light bulb.
Intelligence is strongly connected with dreams: why more intelligent person, the more often he dreams.
The structure of neural connections in the human brain resembles the structure of the Universe. There is even a theory that our brain is modeled “in the image and likeness” of the Universe.
Pain receptors are located throughout the body, but not in the brain; the brain itself is not capable of feeling pain, it only processes receptor signals and sends impulses.

About 80% of the brain is fluid

The feeling of falling in love causes the brain to produce a cocktail of hormones and neurotransmitters, reminiscent of amphetamines. This results in increased heart rate, loss of appetite and sleep, and a feeling of euphoria.
If the human brain were computerized, such a computer would be capable of performing 38 thousand trillion operations per second. The most powerful supercomputer is capable of only thousandths of such indicators.
The brain perceives loneliness as physical pain. Just as we instinctively avoid pain, we are running from loneliness.

Crying releases stress from the brain, allowing it to calm down the flight-or-fight response. Tears ease feelings of anger, sadness and fear, so crying is really useful.

Facts about the senses

Human fingers are so sensitive that even if they were the size of the Earth, we could feel the difference between a car and a house.
There is a certain condition in which the senses become “mixed.” Synesthesia leads to the fact that irritation certain body feelings lead to a reaction from another sensory system. For example, synestats can not only hear words, but also taste them.

In addition to the historically familiar five senses (vision, touch, smell, hearing and taste), people have more than 10 other senses that are familiar and necessary to us, such as balance, temperature, pain, thirst, hunger and so on.
Good hearing requires constant production of earwax. Earwax It is also produced in large quantities when we are scared.

Facts about vision

The human eye is so sensitive that if the Earth were flat, we could notice a burning candle at night from a distance of 60 kilometers.

The human body is bioluminescent and glows in the dark. The light emitted by the body is too weak to be visible to the human eye.
Our eyes are able to perceive ultraviolet light. This ability is blocked by the lens. People who had their lenses removed or replaced were able to perceive ultraviolet light after surgery.

Some people, mostly women, are able to perceive more colors than everyone else. Most of us have three types of color receptors, but there are those who have four or even five types, which allows them to see many more colors.
To focus, our eye muscles strain about a hundred thousand times a day. To warm up your leg muscles like this, you need to walk about a hundred kilometers.

Facts about the circulatory system

When we blush inner shell The stomach also turns red.

We need to breathe so often not because we need to inhale oxygen, but because we need to get rid of the accumulated oxygen in the blood. carbon dioxide. If the body could get rid of CO
in another way, one breath per minute would be enough for us.
For every additional kilogram of weight, whether muscle or fat, the body creates about 20 kilometers of new blood vessels.
In one day, blood travels through vessels a distance of 20 thousand kilometers. This is the distance from Moscow to Vladivostok and back.

Every person on the planet has some gold. True, it is found in our blood and is only 0.2 milligrams. To fuse an 8 gram coin, it is necessary to bleed 40 thousand people.
But there is enough iron in our blood to fuse half an iron coin, that is, weighing 4 grams.

Cell Structure Facts

The recess of the navel is home to a huge number of bacteria, which create an entire ecosystem there, which is not inferior in diversity and richness to the tropical forest.
An average sized adult human is made up of 7 octillion atoms, that's 7 × 10
. For example, in our galaxy we managed to count about 300 billion 3 × 10 stars
.

We are made of the same atoms that were formed during the Big Bang, that is, almost 14 billion years ago.
Human DNA is almost half the same as banana DNA.

The egg is the largest cell in human body, and the sperm is the smallest cell.
One sperm carries 37.5 megabytes of information (male DNA) necessary to conceive an embryo. It turns out that as a result of sexual intercourse, a man leaves about one and a half thousand terabytes of genetic information.
The body produces 25 million new cells per second.

About 90% of our body is made up of non-human cells, mostly fungal cells and bacteria.

Facts about the skeleton and muscular system

Our muscles are very strong. Usually their strength and power are limited for the sake of self-defense. This limitation can be lifted during an adrenaline rush, when people are able to lift large stones and cars, and run great distances. If the self-defense mechanism were not working, such force would lead to damage to the tendons and the muscles themselves.
Frowning is much harder than smiling. A smile is annoying 17 facial muscles, and a gloomy face - 43.

Newborn babies have a third more bones than adults. A baby has 300 bones, an adult has 94 fewer.
Of the 206 bones in our skeleton, 54 are located in the feet.

Human bone is as strong as granite. A piece of bone the size of a matchbox can support a weight of nine tons.
Man is the best long-distance runner in the entire animal kingdom. No four-legged animal can run as long as a human.
The hardest and strong bone in the human body - the lower jaw.

The strongest and densest muscle is the tongue.
You need to use more than two hundred muscles to take one step in a straight line on a flat road.

Hair facts

Humans have as much hair as chimpanzees, we just don't need most of it, so it has become thin and light.
Men's hair is almost twice as thick as women's. Representatives of the Negroid race have thicker hair than representatives of the Caucasian race. Blondes have more hair than brunettes, but they are much thinner.

A person loses about a hundred hairs a day. Moreover, the average duration of growth and “life” of one hair is 7 years.
Hair decomposes the slowest. They are practically non-degradable.

The tongue is a very useful organ and not only for chatting. It turns out that our muscular organ, which is located in the mouth (and the tongue is exactly that), can surprise us with some facts about itself.

What is language?

The tongue is a muscular organ that consists of 16 muscles, covered with a mucous membrane. When a person sleeps, his tongue is still in constant motion, and blood vessels penetrate its entire thickness.

What's on the tongue?

Our tongue is able to distinguish tastes, thanks to which we can enjoy food, and they help it in this taste buds: filamentous are responsible for tactile receptors and touch; mushroom-shaped ones help to distinguish salty taste; leaf-shaped - sour. Also on the tongue there are ridge-shaped papillae, which are responsible for taste.

Newborn's tongue

The tongue is simply a vital organ for a baby, because with its help babies can suck milk. By the way, it’s interesting that newborns can do something that no adult can do: they can suck, swallow and breathe at the same time.

How do we distinguish tastes?

The tongue contains taste buds that send a signal to the brain as soon as food hits them. Thanks to this collaboration between the tongue and the brain, we taste food. Women, by the way, are luckier than men. They have more papillae, which allows them to distinguish more shades of taste.

Hunger

It turns out that the more papillae on the surface of the tongue, the less often a person is visited by the feeling of hunger. If there are few papillae, then a person constantly wants to eat due to the fact that he does not perceive the taste of food well.

Language protects us from danger

It is thanks to the ability to sense tastes that our tongue helps us to be selective in the choice of food, rejecting what is expired and unfit for consumption, protecting us from poisoning.

The tongue is involved in digestion

As soon as solid food reaches our tongue, the glands of the papillae begin to dissolve it.

Tongue is an indicator of health

The color of the tongue can say a lot about a person's health. A pink, coat-free tongue indicates well-being in the digestive system.

Aristotle defined the traditional classification of sense organs back in 300 BC, and Kant later developed his idea of ​​modes of perception. Much has changed since then, and modern scientists have discovered a whole arsenal of new organs in animals and discovered unknown functions of systems in humans.

Let's take a closer look sense organs: interesting facts and entertaining oddities about the sense organs of humans and animals.

Sense organs: interesting facts

As adaptations to various forms of life, animals not only developed new sense organs, but also the systems we are familiar with changed greatly.

Smell

Among interesting facts about the sense organs, the most famous legend is amazing sensitivity sharks. Contrary to stories, a small cut will not cause sharks to respond to the “call of blood.” However, these predators have a very acute sense of smell. Their secret is that, unlike people, sharks have specialized organs that are responsible for this feeling. They do not participate in breathing, and therefore are more sensitive: a predator will recognize a drop of blood in 100 liters of water and will be able to find its way to it within half a kilometer. And this is not so much on the scale of the entire ocean.

Touching a white shark

But if the predator was an albatross, people might not even have a chance. This bird is so sensitive to odors that, while in the air, it can change course, sensing a school of fish 20 km away.

But the snake’s frightening protruding tongue does not pose any danger; the reptile does not even want to tease you. By inserting it into a special hole between its teeth, the snake recognizes odors at close range. The tongue catches molecules chemical substances. On the upper surface of the mouth there are special dimples, shaped to match the forked tip. This is how molecules transmit information to the sensory center - the Jacobson organ - which humans also have.

Incredible facts

Taste is not only one of the most pleasant, but also a rather complex sensation that science is only beginning to understand.

Here are a few amazing facts about your ability to taste.

Sensations of taste

1. Each of us has a different number of taste buds

We have several thousand taste buds in our mouths, but this number varies from person to person. different people from 2000 to 10,000. Taste buds are located not only on the tongue, but also on the palate and walls of the mouth, throat and esophagus. As you age, your taste buds become less sensitive, which likely explains why foods you disliked as a child become palatable as an adult.

2. You taste with your brain.

When you bite into a piece of pie, your mouth feels like it's filled with flavor sensations. But most of these sensations originate in your brain.

Cranial nerves and taste buds send food molecules to the olfactory nerve endings in the nose. These molecules send signals to an area of ​​the brain known as the primary taste cortex.

These messages, combined with odor messages, produce the sensation of taste.

Why do people taste the same taste differently?

Why

Loss of taste

3. You can't taste well if you can't smell.

Most of the sensations of taste are smells transmitted to the smell receptors in your brain. Inability to smell due to colds, smoking, some side effects medications can affect the smell receptors in the brain, making it difficult for you to taste.

4. Sweet foods make meals memorable.

A new study has found that centers associated with episodic memory in the brain are activated when we eat sweets. Episodic memory is a type of memory that helps you remember what you experienced at a certain time in a certain place. Episodic memory may help control eating behavior, for example, making decisions based on memories of what and when we eat.

5. Taste can be turned off

Scientists have learned to stimulate and silence neurons in the brain responsible for the basic taste sensations: sweet, sour, salty, bitter and umami. For example, in an experiment on mice, when they stimulated bitter taste, the mice winced.

6. You can change your taste sensations yourself

Taste buds are sensitive to certain compounds in foods and medications, which can alter your ability to perceive basic taste sensations.

For example, sodium lauryl sulfate in most toothpastes, it temporarily suppresses sweetness receptors, which is why orange juice, drunk immediately after brushing your teeth, will taste unsweetened lemon juice. Also, the compound cynarin in artichokes can temporarily block sweet receptors.

Taste perception

7. It gives food the smell of ham. salty taste

There is an entire industry dedicated to making the food you buy in the store taste like. The phenomenon of “phantom aroma” causes us to associate foods with a certain taste. So, for example, adding the smell of ham to food will make your brain perceive it as saltier than it actually is, since we associate ham with salt. And by adding vanilla to food, you will perceive the product as sweeter.

8. We prefer spicy food while flying.

A noisy environment, such as when you're on an airplane, can change your sense of taste. The study showed that on an airplane, people's sweet receptors are suppressed and the receptors for the "fifth taste" - umami - are enhanced. For this reason, it is more common to order food with strong flavors on an airplane. German airline Lufthansa has confirmed that passengers are ordering tomato juice as often as beer.

9. If you're a picky eater, you might be a "supertaster."

If you can't stand the taste of eggplant or are sensitive to even the slightest presence of onions in your food, you may be one of the 25 percent of people called "supertasters," who have more taste buds on their tongues, resulting in increased taste sensitivity.

The tongue is one of the most complex organs in nature, since it is a real chemical laboratory. A full-fledged language first appeared in reptiles, namely lizards and snakes. The snake, having touched the object lying in front of it and thus taking a “sample”, then retracts its tongue and applies its tips to the sensitive pits located on the inner surface of the mouth. The smallest amount of a substance from the outside is enough for the reptile to do a “microchemical analysis” and take the trace of the victim, find a partner during the mating season, or find its way to a source of water.

The snapping turtle hardly needs to work for food. It burrows into the mud at the bottom of the reservoir and, with its mouth wide open, sticks out a thin worm-like tip of its tongue, painted bright pink. This serves as an excellent bait for fish that try to grab the “worm” and immediately fall into the turtle’s mouth.

The tongue of frogs and chameleons is a skillful catching device with a sticky trap at the end. They simply spit it out onto the victim.

Some ducks, which obtain food by filtering water and bottom silt, have a fringe along the edges of their tongues, which helps trap crustaceans, insect larvae and small fish. The hummingbird's tongue curls into a tube and helps pump out flower nectar.

The tongue of parrots, with a hard horny coating, is an ideal tool for crushing small nuts: taking a seed into its mouth, the bird presses on it with its tongue, pressing it firmly against the inside beak until the shell cracks. Lorikeet parrots have a tongue at the end with a brush, with which they collect the juice of fruits crushed by their beak.

The cat's tongue is a real grater that allows them to rip meat from the bones of the victim.

Ruminants use their tongues just as we use our hands. Cows and giraffes tightly wrap their tongues around tufts of grass, leaves or branches in the same way as a person would do with their hands, and then, tearing them off, send the food into their mouths for chewing.

The anteater's tongue has turned into a sticky rod up to 60 cm long, which it either launches into the anthill or pulls into its mouth with a frequency of 160 times per minute.

The tongue can be used as a spoon. Most mammals drink by lapping, that is, scooping up small portions of water with the tip of their tongue. Analysis of frames of accelerated filming showed that the dog at the same time turns its end up, and the cat, on the contrary, bends it down.

In humans, the tongue is the main taster. Each tongue has up to 5,000 taste buds. They are short-lived, living only 10 days: new ones grow to replace the old ones. The root part of the tongue is responsible for the perception of bitter, the front edges of the tongue react to salty taste, the deep edges react to sour, and only its end reacts to sweet. Therefore, you should not stuff sweets deeply or stuff your mouth full with them: the pleasure from this will not be greater. The human tongue is the only muscle that is not attached on both sides and is considered the most flexible and mobile part of the body.

Chanel Tapper is a Guinness Book record holder for the world's longest tongue among women. Chanel's tongue measures 9.75 cm in length (these measurements are usually taken from the tip of the tongue to the upper lip).

Most amazing language- from woodpeckers. Looking for insects in the bark and trunks of trees, the woodpecker hollows out a hole with its beak, but the beak is not long enough to reach the larvae hidden in the wood. Here a flexible tongue with horny hooks at the tip comes to the rescue: the woodpecker launches it into a tree passage and, having groped for prey, deftly picks it up. The tongue, which is already long, can also extend out of oral cavity using a long ribbon that