Jack Goldstein - 101 Amazing Facts About The Human Body

Title Page

101 AMAZING FACTS ABOUT THE HUMAN BODY

Jack Goldstein

Publisher Information

Published in 2013 by

Andrews UK Limited

www.andrewsuk.com

The right of Jack Goldstein to be identified as the Author of this Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998

Copyright 2013 Jack Goldstein

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Any person who does so may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

Disclaimer: All facts presented in this title were gained from common and reputable sources in print and on the internet. If any detail within this title is found to be incorrect, the author will be happy to publish a corrected version.

Introduction

In this amazing eBook you can find more than one hundred facts about the human body. Separated into sections such as the brain, vision, bones and many more you will find some fascinating information inside! Whether you are working on a human biology project or you just want to know more about how your body works, this is an excellent addition to your bookshelf.

General - Part 1

1. Your body is around 70% water.
2. In your lifetime you will produce - and shed - around forty gallons of skin!
3. When youre born, your head is around a quarter of the length of your entire body. But by the time youre fully grown it is just one eighth.
4. You have about the same number of hairs on your body as a chimpanzee does - the only difference is that yours are so short and fine they are almost invisible!
5. Around half the population of the world have eyelash mites - tiny creatures that live on your eyelashes and eat dead skin cells. If you put your eyelash under a microscope, you might just see one!
6. Mens hair is about twice as thick as womens.
7. Another difference between the sexes is that women blink twice as often as men.
8. A final difference is that women are better at smelling than men.
9. You can only taste something if your saliva can dissolve it - you can test this if you dry your tongue before putting something on it!
10. You breathe in approximately ten thousand litres of air every single day.

The Brain

1. Although it only accounts for around 2% of the bodys mass, the human brain uses 20% of the entire bodys oxygen.
2. Your brain stops growing when you reach the age of eighteen. After that it actually loses brain cells every day.
3. Nerve impulses travel to and from the brain at around one hundred and seventy miles per hour.
4. Your brain uses about the same amount of power as a ten watt bulb.
5. Although the exact amount has not been agreed upon, scientists generally believe that your brain can hold more than five times the amount of information contained in the Encyclopedia Britannica.
6. Scientists dont know why, but your brain is actually more active when you are asleep than it is when you are awake.
7. Although it processes sensations from all other parts of the body, your brain cannot actually feel any pain from itself. A headache comes from the tissues, nerves and blood vessels that surround it.
8. The aorta (the artery that supplies blood to your brain) is about the diameter of a garden hose.
9. Some people say that you only use around 10% of the power of your brain. This is not true in the slightest - we know that every single part of the brain has a function.
10. Sleep is so important to the brain that scientists believe you can only go eleven days without sleeping before you would die!

The Most Amazing Facts - Part 1

1. Your fingernails grow quickest on the hand that you write with.
2. On average, if a man didnt shave for his entire life, his beard would reach a length of ten metres - thats as long as a killer whale!
3. Your feet can produce over a pint of sweat every day.
4. If you eat too much, your hearing gets worse.
5. If your head was chopped off it would still remain conscious for around fifteen seconds!
6. There is enough iron in your body to make a nail 8cm long!
7. The colder the room you are sleeping in, the higher your chance of having a nightmare! As with most facts about dreams, no-one knows why.
8. Your skin accounts for an amazing twelve percent of your body weight.
9. A strange condition known as alien hand syndrome can affect people who have suffered brain trauma. This is where someone can feel sensation in their hand as normal, but cannot control it - it moves around seemingly with a life of its own!
10. When you were born, you were so powerful for your size that pound-for-pound you were stronger than an ox!

The Digestive System

1. Although we have traditionally thought that the appendix is useless (it has always been suggested that it lost its function millions of years ago) scientists have recently discovered that it is very useful in helping the bacteria that keep your digestive system healthy - it gives them somewhere quiet to breed!
2. Your poo is brown because of something called stercobilin, which is produced by bile from your gall bladder being metabolized in your intestines. Without this it would be white and grey like bird mess!
3. On average, your gut contains around 100 trillion microbes which help break down food.
4. When you are eating food, your jaw muscles automatically adjust their force - this stops you from smashing your teeth when (for instance) you break apart a boiled sweet.
5. When you swallow, your food travels down your oesophagus to your stomach at around the same speed as a tortoise can walk - this means it takes around seven seconds for food to travel from your mouth to your stomach!
6. Because your digestive system is so powerful, your stomach actually eats itself! Because of this, you get a new stomach lining every three or four days.
7. By the time you are sixty, youll have lost around half of your taste buds.
8. In your lifetime you will produce around 10,000 gallons of saliva.
9. Your stomach acid is strong enough to dissolve razor blades. But DO NOT test this.
10. Despite what you might think, your poo is made up of about 75% water.

Dem Bones

1. Human bones are more than twice the strength of concrete.
2. Your teeth started growing six months before you were even born.
3. You are about 1cm taller first thing in the morning than you are last thing at night - your bones are compressed during the day but stretch back out when you are laying down.
4. A quarter of the bones in your body are in your feet.
5. A baby has more bones than an adult. When you were born you had 350 bones - but some fuse together and you end up with just 206!
6. Only one of a babys bones is already fully-grown - it is the smallest bone in the human body and is in your ear - the Stapes bone (also known as the stirrup bone).
7. At the other end of the scale, the femur (or thigh) bone is the largest and strongest bone in your body.
8. Despite what you might think, you have the same number of bones in your neck as a giraffe does.
9. When you were born, your kneecaps were made of soft cartilage - it was only as the weeks went by that they turned into hard bone.
10. Your bones actually consist of 50% water.

The Reproductive System

1. Men produce approximately ten million sperm every single day.
2. The largest cell in the human body is the female egg...
3. ...And the smallest is the male sperm.