5 6 facts about the structure of the human body. Non-Scary Anatomy: Fun Biology Quizzes. When superpowers appear

Read the most interesting facts about the person! Find out what your body and your brain are capable of! How are we different from any other living beings?

1. Why don’t we notice anything unusual in ourselves?
2. When do superpowers appear?
3. Incredible facts about the person!

Why don't we notice anything unusual in ourselves?

The media regularly alerts us to people with extraordinary abilities that defy rational explanation. It has long been established that human mental abilities are enormous, and the strength of the body is amazing.

But why don't we see this in everyday life?

Apart from people who have amazing abilities from birth, and those who develop their potential throughout life (you will find methods for developing superpowers), then we can say that most people do not have any super qualities.

However, it is not!

When do superpowers appear?

Finding himself in extreme conditions, a person begins to show abilities that shock him. The phenomena of super strength, super speed, super reaction, etc. appear when a person’s life or the life of his loved ones is in danger.

There are cases where fragile women lifted the car after an accident to get their child.

Often in emergency situations, all of a person’s internal resources are unconsciously activated so that he can survive. Why not always? Because our body and consciousness are not prepared for such overloads.

And yet, even in ordinary life, some of the capabilities of our body are simply amazing. The most interesting thing is that you didn’t know about yourself until now!

Incredible facts about the person!

Below you will find 50 amazing facts about humans that are confirmed by science!

1. Human heart, is equipped with its own life support system, and therefore it can beat for some time if it is torn out of the chest.

2. Gastric juice has such a level of acidity that the mucous membrane in the stomach is renewed every four days.

3. Nasal receptors capable of recognizing almost 1 billion different aromas.

4. In sneeze time speed the outgoing air is 158-160 km/h.

5. If everything blood vessels laid out in one line, then you can wrap the equator 2.5 times, their length will be 96,560 km.

6. Daily human heart generates a huge amount of energy, enough for the truck to cover a distance of 32 km. And if we sum up the energy generated over the entire life period, then this truck could cover the path to the Moon twice.

7. Skin weight, renewed throughout life, reaches 47-48 kilograms.

8. Some people claim that Andromeda is visible in the cloudless daytime sky. This proves that the human eye is capable consider a tiny luminous point at a distance of two and a half million light. years.

9. Snore sometimes reaches 78-80 decibels, which is comparable to the sound of a working pneumatic drill. Moreover, if the noise level exceeds 82-85 dB, this is considered a critical threshold for hearing.

10. General volume of saliva, developed during life, can fill two sports swimming pools.

11. Man combines 7 octillions (27 zeros) of atoms and molecules. General age All these tiny particles are more than tens of billions of years old.

13. Neuron cells they create impulses in the brain that are transmitted at a speed of 240 km/h.

14. Few people know, but, in addition to the five basic senses, a person is endowed with proprioception to her¹. This ability allows the mind to control the work of various muscle groups, evaluate the relative position of body parts relative to each other, and also sense the volume and posture of the body. This explains why a person can accurately touch their nose without opening their eyes.

15. When a person listens to music, heart imitates her rhythm.

16. While awake, the brain produces amount of energy, which would be enough to light a light bulb.

17. Bones The human skeleton is stronger than steel. It has been established that a bone with a volume of 16 cm³ can theoretically withstand 8,600 kg.

18. Even though the bones are stronger than steel, 30% of their composition is water.

19. If compare the eye to a video camera, then the matrix resolution would be 575 megapixels.

20. Naked eye a person recognizes 10 million colors and shades.

21. If everything DNA strands in the human body, unwind in one line, it will be 16 billion km, which is equal to the path from Earth to Pluto and back.

22. If we sum up the long-term human memory throughout life, its volume will be 1 quadrillion units. inf.

23. Prefrontal cortex², responsible for social connections and communication skills, develops until the age of 40.

24. Average life expectancy reaches 68-75 years. During this time heart muscle pumps almost 180 million liters of blood, this is enough for 200 tank cars.

25. The human body produces blood cells at a speed of 178 million per hour.

26. Usually, gestational age is 9 months, but not always. The longest pregnancy lasted 12.5 months.

27. It has been established that if a pregnant woman suffers damage to internal organs, her baby in the womb shares stem cells with her to restore them.

28. Scientists have calculated: to make one sha d, a person must use two hundred muscles.

29. In a person's navel Scientists have discovered about one and a half thousand species of unknown bacteria.

30. Amazing fact – growth of astronauts in zero gravity increases by 5 cm.

31. Each body cell contains up to six billion steps of human DNA.

32. Highest activity recorded during sexual intercourse. From 200 to 500 million sperm fight for the opportunity to fertilize one egg.

33. Man sleeps more than twenty years of my life.

34. Scientifically established! If you shine the light on your knee from behind, then you can change the circadian rhythm, that is, change the pattern of wakefulness and sleep.

35. Without food The human body can live for about two months.

36. Incredible, but taste buds is not only on the surface of the tongue! It turns out that they are on the walls of the stomach and intestines, in the brain and even in the anus.

37. Neural connections arise when long-term memories are formed.

38. It has been experimentally established that the most insignificant pressure put on a person another person, can change brain function and reduce the degree of empathy and compassion.

39. If oxygen stops flowing, then brain death will start only in 4-8 minutes.

40. 60% brain- this is fat.

41. In an attempt to prevent starvation, human brain will eat itself.

42. There is an assumption that fears and phobias- These are memories inherited from ancestors genetically.

43. Emotion- nothing more than a programmed human reaction to a specific stimulus.

44. Long-term memory has the ability to create continuous and lasting changes in the structure of the brain.

45. If a person tries to display any emotion, then in a few moments he will be able to feel it!

46. Eye is able to cover only a small area of the visual field in a certain time, therefore, to create the overall picture, he needs to make 3-4 movements in 1 second.

47. Memories are not based on facts, but on imagination, so inaccurate pictures may emerge or details may arise that were not there before.

48. Forgetfulness– a protective reaction of the brain from excessive amounts of information. This helps process information and speeds up the thought process.

49. The brain works better during REM sleep. It can analyze information and remember tasks.

50. Despite all the differences, many things are the same people see from the same angle. So scientists in countries around the world invited people to draw a cup of coffee on paper. All the resulting drawings were almost identical - the cup was drawn slightly from above and slightly shifted to the side. There was not a single drawing where the cup was depicted from above.

These amazing facts about humans confirm that not only can we demonstrate superpowers in extreme conditions, but we are also amazing in our structure.

But how little we still know about ourselves! Until now, man remains the most unexplored and most unpredictable creature in the Universe.

Notes and feature articles for deeper understanding of the material

¹ Proprioception, proprioception - muscle sense - a sense of the position of parts of one’s own body relative to each other and in space (Wikipedia).

² The prefrontal cortex is a section of the cerebral cortex, which is the anterior part of the frontal lobes (

A person consists of more than 100,000,000,000,000 cells (read "one hundred trillion").

For comparison: an elephant has approximately 6,500,000,000,000,000 (six and a half quadrillions).

Humans are 60% water.

It is unevenly distributed:
in fatty tissues there is only 20% water, in bones 25%, in the liver 70%,
in muscles 75%, in blood 80% and in the brain 85% of water of the total weight.
When looking at these figures, one is struck by the apparent paradox - there is less water in liquid blood than in the rather dense brain. But it’s not only about the quantity, but also about the “packaging” of water. It is known that jellyfish are 98-99% water, however, the jellyfish does not dissolve in the sea, it can be picked up.

The remaining 40% of the human body weight is distributed as follows:
proteins - 19%, fats and fat-like substances - 15% (I thought it was a little more)))))),
minerals - 5%), carbohydrates - 1%.

Of the elements that make up our body, the most important are oxygen, carbon, hydrogen and nitrogen. There are about 70 kilograms of them in the adult human body. There is also a lot of calcium and phosphorus - together there are almost 2 kilograms of them, they are part of the bone, ensuring its strength. Potassium, sulfur, sodium, chlorine are contained in quantities of several tens of grams. Iron in a person is only about 6 grams, but it plays an extremely important role, being part of hemoglobin.

Oddly enough, it is not possible to indicate the exact number of bones in the human skeleton.
First, it varies somewhat from person to person. Approximately 20% of people have abnormalities in the number of vertebrae. One person out of every twenty has an extra rib, and men have an extra rib about 3 times more often than women (contrary to the biblical legend of the creation of Eve from Adam's rib).
Secondly, the number of bones changes with age: over time, some bones grow together, forming dense sutures.
Therefore, it is not always clear how to count bones. For example, the sacrum bone clearly consists of five fused vertebrae. Should we count it as one or five? Therefore, reputable manuals are careful to indicate that humans have “slightly more than 200 bones.”

The longest bone is the femur; its length is usually 27.5% of a person's height. The shortest is the stapes, one of the bones that transmit vibrations of the eardrum to the sensitive cells of the inner ear. It works like a lever, increasing the pressure of sound waves. Its length is only 3-4 millimeters.

The smallest muscle is the stapes muscle. When the sounds are too strong, she turns the stirrup so that the ratio of the lengths of the arms of the bone-lever changes, and the sound amplification factor drops.

It is impossible to accurately indicate the number of muscles (again?????). Experts count from 400 to 680 muscles in humans. For comparison: grasshoppers have about 900 muscles, some caterpillars have up to four thousand. The total weight of muscles in a man is about 40% of body weight, and in a woman it is about 30%.

In a calm state, lying down, a person consumes 400-500 liters of oxygen per day, making 12-20 inhalations and exhalations per minute. For comparison: the respiratory rate of a horse is 12 respiratory movements per minute, of a rat - 60, and of a canary - 108. In the spring, the respiratory rate is on average one third higher than in the fall.

In an adult, the heart pumps about 10,000 liters of blood per day. During one blow, approximately 130 milliliters are thrown into the aorta.

The normal heart rate at rest is 60-80 beats per minute, and in women the heart beats 6-8 beats per minute more often than in men. During heavy physical activity, the heart rate can accelerate to 200 or more beats per minute. For comparison: the pulse rate of an elephant is 20 beats per minute, that of a bull is 25, that of a frog (a cold-blooded animal) is 30, that of a rabbit is 200, and that of a mouse is 500 beats per minute.

An adult's bone marrow, the loose mass that fills the internal cavities of some bones, weighs on average 2,600 grams. Over 70 years of life, it produces 650 kilograms of red blood cells and a ton of white blood cells.

The human nervous system contains about 10 billion neurons and about seven times more service cells - supporting and feeding cells. Only one percent of nerve cells are engaged in “independent work” - they receive sensations from the external environment and command the muscles.

More than half of all neurons are concentrated in the cerebral hemispheres.

The total area of the cerebral cortex varies from 1468 to 1670 square centimeters.

In the cranial nerves, 2,600,000 nerve fibers enter the brain and 140,000 exit. About half of the outgoing fibers carry orders to the muscles of the eyeball, controlling fine, rapid and complex eye movements. The remaining nerves control facial expressions, chewing, swallowing and the activity of internal organs. Of the incoming nerve fibers, two million are visual.

In a minute, 740-750 milliliters of blood flows through the brain.

Starting from the thirtieth year of life, 30-50 thousand nerve cells die every day in a person. The main dimensions of the brain decrease... With age, the brain not only loses weight, but also changes shape - it becomes flattened.

In men, brain weight is maximum at 20-29 years old, in women - at 15-19.

The eye is capable of distinguishing 130-250 pure color tones and 5-10 million mixed shades.

Complete adaptation of the eye to darkness takes 60-80 minutes.

The average surface area of human skin is about 2 square meters. It is necessary to know this when prescribing certain medications and medical procedures. To calculate the skin surface in clinics, the following formula is usually used: body surface = (body weight X 4) + 7
The weight should be taken in kilograms, the surface is obtained in square meters. There are more accurate formulas that take growth into account, but the calculations using them are much more complicated and are used less frequently.

The skin contains 250 thousand cold receptors, 30 thousand heat receptors, a million pain endings, half a million touch receptors and three million sweat glands.

The average number of hairs on the head: for blondes - 140 thousand, for brunettes - 102 thousand, for brown-haired people - 109 thousand, for red-haired people - 88 thousand. The total number of hairs on the body, except the head, is about 20 thousand.
Hair grows at a rate of 0.35-0.40 millimeters per day. During the day, our hair lengthens, if we count the total increase in hair length, by thirty meters.

We become aware of sound 35-175 milliseconds after it reaches the ear. It takes another 180-500 milliseconds for the ear to “tune in” to receive a given sound and achieve the best sensitivity.

There are about 9,000 taste buds on the tongue. The best temperature for their operation is 24 degrees Celsius. (Gourmets should take this into account!)

Fingernails grow at a rate of 0.086 millimeters per day, and toenails - 0.05 millimeters. Over the course of a year, about two grams of nails grow on the fingers.

When chewing food, the jaw muscles develop a force of up to 72 kilograms on the molars, and up to 20 kilograms on the incisors. Chewing bread requires an effort of 25 kilograms, chewing fried veal requires 15 kilograms.

A sip of water - is it a lot or a little? Numerous measurements have shown that a man swallows an average of 21 milliliters of liquid in one gulp, and a woman swallows 14 milliliters

Thirst occurs when water loss equals one percent of body weight. A loss of more than 5% can lead to fainting, and more than 10% can lead to death from desiccation.

A fresh fingerprint weighs about one millionth of a gram. It consists of water, fats, proteins and salts secreted by the skin.

Even stern men shed 1-3 milliliters of tears every day. Tears are constantly produced by the lacrimal glands and moisturize the cornea of the eye, protecting it from exposure to air and dust.

A person who smokes a pack of cigarettes a day drinks half a cup of tar a year.

The length of hair on the head grown by the average person over the course of a lifetime is 725 kilometers.

Each human finger bends approximately 25 million times during a lifetime.

The total weight of bacteria living in the human body is 2 kilograms.

From the moment of birth, there are already 14 billion cells in the human brain, and this number does not increase until death. On the contrary, after 25 years it decreases by 100 thousand per day. In the minute you spend reading a page, about 70 cells die. After 40 years, brain degradation accelerates sharply, and after 50, neurons (nerve cells) dry out and brain volume decreases.

Humans have approximately 2 million sweat glands. The average adult loses 540 calories with every liter of sweat. Men sweat about 40% more than women.

It is impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.

Women blink approximately 2 times more often than men.

The smallest cells in a man's body are sperm cells.

The strongest muscle in the human body is the tongue.

Nerve impulses in the human body travel at a speed of approximately 90 meters per second.

Human hair is approximately 5,000 times thicker than soap film.

Parthenophobia is the fear of virgins.

There are about 75 kilometers (!) of nerves in the adult human body.

You can lose 150 calories per hour by hitting your head against a wall.

There are more than 100 different viruses that cause a runny nose.

People with blue eyes are more sensitive to pain than others.

Man is a unique creation. All the capabilities of the human body are still unknown. And those that we learn about from scientific research are amazing and make us think. We have collected 103 facts about the human body that will delight and surprise you!

The only part of the body that does not have a blood supply is the cornea of the eye. It receives oxygen directly from the air.
The capacity of the human brain exceeds 4 terabytes.
Up to seven months, the baby can breathe and swallow at the same time.
Your skull is made up of 29 different bones.
When you sneeze, all body functions stop, even the heart.
A nerve impulse from the brain moves at a speed of 274 km/h.
One human brain generates more electrical impulses in one day than all the world's phones combined.
The average human body contains enough sulfur to kill all the fleas on an average dog, carbon to make 900 pencils, potassium to fire a toy cannon, fat to make 7 bars of soap, and enough water to fill a 50 liter barrel.
The human heart pumps 48 million gallons of blood in its lifetime.
50,000 cells in your body are dying and being replaced by new ones as you read this sentence.
The embryo acquires fingerprints at the age of 3 months.
Women's hearts beat faster than men's.
Humans are the only creatures that sleep on their backs.
Right-handed people live on average nine years longer than left-handed people.
About two-thirds of people tilt their heads to the right when kissing.

A person forgets 90% of his dreams.
The total length of blood vessels in the human body is approximately 100,000 kilometers.
In spring, the respiratory rate is on average one third higher than in autumn.
By the end of life, a person remembers on average 150 trillion bits of information.
80% of the human body's heat leaves the head.
When you blush, your stomach turns red too.
Thirst occurs when water loss equals one percent of body weight. A loss of more than 5% can lead to fainting, and more than 10% can lead to death from desiccation.
There are at least 700 enzymes working in the human body.
On average, a 4-year-old child asks 450 questions a day.
In addition to humans, koalas also have unique fingerprints.
Only 1% of bacteria cause illness in humans.
All the people on the planet can be comfortably placed in a cube with a side of 1,000 meters.
The scientific name for the navel is umbilicus.
The tooth is the only part of the human body that is incapable of self-healing.
The average time it takes a person to fall asleep is 7 minutes.

A right-handed person chews most of the food on the right side of the jaw, and vice versa, a left-handed person chews on the left.
Only 7% of people in the world are left-handed.
The aroma of apples and bananas helps the body lose weight.
The length of hair on the head grown by the average person over the course of a lifetime is 725 kilometers.
Among people who can move their ears, only one third can move one ear.
The average person swallows 8 small spiders in their lifetime.
The total weight of bacteria living in the human body is 2 kilograms.
99% of all calcium in the body is found in the teeth.
Human lips are hundreds of times more sensitive than fingertips. A real kiss increases your heart rate to 100 beats per minute or more.
The absolute strength of the masticatory muscles on one side is 195 kilograms.
During a kiss, 278 different cultures of bacteria are transmitted from one person to another. Fortunately, 95% of them are harmless.
Parthenophobia is the fear of virgins.
Tooth enamel is the hardest tissue produced by the human body.
If you collect all the iron contained in the human body, you will only get a small screw for a watch.
There are more than 100 different viruses that cause a runny nose.
A kiss of sufficient length is much better than chewing gum at normalizing acidity in the oral cavity.
You can lose 150 calories per hour by hitting your head against a wall.

Man is the only representative of the animal world capable of drawing straight lines.
During a lifetime, a person's skin changes approximately 1000 times.
A person who smokes a pack of cigarettes a day drinks half a cup of tar a year.
Women blink approximately 2 times less often than men.
The human body contains only 4 minerals: apatite, aragonite, calcite and cristobalite.
A real, passionate kiss produces the same chemical reactions in the brain that skydiving and shooting with a pistol.
Men are considered dwarfs if their height is below 130 cm, women - below 120 cm.
Fingernails grow about 4 times faster than toenails.
People with blue eyes are more sensitive to pain than others.
Nerve impulses in the human body travel at a speed of approximately 90 meters per second.
In the human brain, 100,000 chemical reactions occur in one second.
Children are born without kneecaps. They appear only at the age of 2-6 years.
If one of the identical twins is missing a particular tooth, as a rule, the other twin will also be missing the same tooth.
The surface area of human lungs is approximately equal to the area of a tennis court.
On average, a person spends 2 weeks kissing in his entire life.

Blondes grow a beard faster than brunettes.
Leukocytes in the human body live 2-4 days, and erythrocytes - 3-4 months.
The strongest muscle in the human body is the tongue.
The size of a person's heart is approximately equal to the size of his fist. The weight of an adult human heart is 220-260 grams.
From the moment of birth, there are already 14 billion cells in the human brain, and this number does not increase until death. On the contrary, after 25 years it decreases by 100 thousand per day. In the minute you spend reading a page, about 70 cells die. After 40 years, brain degradation accelerates sharply, and after 50, neurons (nerve cells) dry out and brain volume decreases.
At birth, a child’s body contains about 300 bones; in adulthood, there are only 206.
The human small intestine during life is about 2.5 meters long. After his death, when the muscles of the intestinal wall relax, its length reaches 6 meters.
The right lung of a person holds more air than the left.
An adult takes approximately 23,000 breaths (and exhalations) per day.
The smallest cells in a man's body are sperm cells.
There are about 40,000 bacteria in the human mouth.
There are about 2,000 taste buds in the human body.
The human eye is capable of distinguishing 10,000,000 shades of color.
The chemical compound responsible for the ecstasy of love (phenylethylamine) is present in chocolate.
The human heart creates pressure that is enough to raise the blood to the level of the 4th floor.
A person burns more calories while sleeping than while watching TV.
Children grow fastest in the spring.
Every year, more than two thousand left-handers die due to errors in the operation of mechanisms designed for right-handers.
It turns out that every three hundred men have the opportunity to satisfy themselves orally.
A person uses 17 muscles when he smiles and 43 when he frowns.
By age 60, most people have lost half of their taste buds.
As you know, people are animals too. However, we are the only ones among them who can copulate face to face.
When a person flies on an airplane, the rate of hair growth doubles.
One percent of people can see infrared and one percent can see ultraviolet light.

If you are locked in a completely enclosed room, you will die from carbon dioxide poisoning, not from lack of air.
On average, a person spends two weeks of his life standing at a traffic light.
According to statistics, only one person in 2 billion crosses the threshold of 116 years.
A normal person laughs five times a day.
The average person speaks 4,800 words in 24 hours.
The retina inside the eye covers about 650 square mm and contains 137 million light-sensitive cells: 130 million rods for black-and-white vision and seven million cones for color vision.
Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing.
In the morning a person is about 8 millimeters taller than in the evening.
The focusing muscles of the eye move 100,000 times a day. In order for the leg muscles to make the same number of contractions, you need to walk 80 kilometers (50 miles) a day.
The average person produces almost a liter of sweat per day.
A cough is an explosive charge of air that moves at speeds of up to 60 mph.
According to German researchers, the risk of a heart attack is higher on Monday than on any other day of the week.
Bone is five times stronger than steel.
It is impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.
Ingrown toenails are a hereditary trait.
A normal person will die from complete lack of sleep faster than from starvation. Death will occur after about 10 days without sleep, while from starvation - after a few weeks.
The average lifespan is 2475576000 seconds, we speak an average of 123205750 words, have sex 4239 times, produce 60 liters of tears

Ecology of cognition: The human body still continues to reveal its mysteries. By studying the operation of its systems, scientists make hundreds of discoveries every year. And often new facts refute centuries-old ideas.

The human body still continues to reveal its mysteries. By studying the operation of its systems, scientists make hundreds of discoveries every year. And often new facts refute centuries-old ideas.

20. Silence of the heart

The average adult's heart beats 72 times a minute, 100 thousand times a day, 36 million times a year, and 2.5 billion times throughout a lifetime.

However, the heart beats rhythmically, which means that in addition to beats, there are also pauses in the cycle. So, if you add up all the pauses between heartbeats in one average human life, it turns out that our heart is “silent” for about 20 years. It is also interesting that the heart stops when you sneeze.

19. Defying the laws of physics

It is known that liquid can flow from higher to lower pressure, but in our body this law is constantly violated. When measuring pressure in the aorta and femoral artery simultaneously, blood from the aorta, where the pressure is lower, flows into the femoral artery, where the pressure is higher.

18. Round heart

NASA recently conducted a study that yielded very interesting results. It turned out that in a state of weightlessness the heart not only weakens and decreases in volume, but also... becomes rounder. During the experiment, NASA cardiologists studied the hearts of 12 astronauts working on the ISS.

Analysis of the images showed that in conditions of weightlessness the heart is rounded by 9.4%. However, upon returning to Earth, the heart returns to its normal shape within six months and resumes “earthly” activity. To imagine the decrease in heart activity, it is enough to say that lying on a bed for a month and a half is equivalent to working in zero gravity for a week.

17. New skin: from three days to a month

Human skin is constantly renewed. This process is called regeneration. It happens like this: new skin cells are formed in the germinal layer of the epidermis, over the course of about 28-30 days they move to the surface and lose their cell nucleus. On the surface, with the help of the keratin they contain, they form the stratum corneum of the skin, which gradually peels off when washed or in contact with clothing.

Thus, the skin that we consider ours is constantly renewed. After a month, the composition of a person’s skin completely changes.

In newborns, the regeneration process, like many other processes (for example, metabolism), proceeds faster. “Skin change” in infants takes three days - 72 hours.

16. Internal "brewery"

People with “fermenting gut” or the so-called “inner brewery syndrome” turn any food and drink into alcohol within themselves. That's why they're always a little tipsy. The cause of the disease is the inability of the stomach to break down sugar into carbohydrates - instead it engages in fermentation.

In addition, the human body with a fermenting intestine is not able to process ethanol resulting from the consumption of starchy foods. For such people, one bottle of beer is enough to gain 0.37 ppm. Fortunately, this is a very rare syndrome, with only 11 cases reported worldwide today.

15. No hair

A spinal fracture can also lead to such an unexpected consequence as the disappearance of body hair. This is a unique phenomenon that scientists themselves have not yet understood very well. Hair on the human body actively grows when they make a request to the brain and receive feedback. If this connection is disrupted - and this is exactly what will happen if the spinal cord suffers serious damage - body hair gradually begins to disappear.

14. Avian genetics

The fact that the “lark” is a “lark” is not his merit. As in the fact that “owl” is “owl” - there is no guilt. Nature has “imprisoned” us this way. And who is responsible for chronotypes was determined by American researchers at the Northwestern University of Chicago Medical Center in collaboration with scientists from the Korean Institute of Science and Technology. While studying the fruit fly Drosophilia melanogaster, they discovered a gene that regulates circadian rhythm. They called it the “24-hour genome” and in 2010 they published the data in the journal Science, where they noted that the flies for which it “did not work did not show activity for a long time at dawn.”

If we draw a parallel with humans, then these fruit flies are typical “owls”, who also cannot tear their heads away from their “fly pillows”. And the same gene is responsible for the easy awakening of those who are lucky enough to be born “larks”.

13. Moving facial expressions

In 2011, scientists were able to discover that human facial expressions arise long before his birth. Even during the prenatal period, the child is already able to move his facial muscles, smile, raise his eyebrows in surprise or frown.

The facial muscles make up 25% of the total number of muscles; 17 muscle groups are involved during a smile, and 43 during anger or crying.

One of the best ways to maintain smooth skin on your face is by kissing. They work from 29 to 34 muscle groups.

12. Blood type as a factor in career and personal life

In Japan, since the 1930s, the doctrine of “ketsu-eki-gata” has been practiced, in which you can tell everything about a person by knowing only his blood type. The Japanese are confident that those with blood type I are sociable and energetic people, while those with blood type II are stress-resistant and patient, but stubborn. Creative and powerful people are usually blood type III. People with the rare IV group are balanced and natural leaders.

“Ketsu-eki-gata” is incredibly popular. A Japanese girl may ask on the first date not what your zodiac sign is, but what your blood type is. The Japanese rely on their blood type both when they get married and when they get a job. HR departments try to form teams that are perfectly matched by blood.

11. Testosterone and longevity

The effect of testosterone on life expectancy has been repeatedly confirmed in various studies. One of them, conducted in 1969 among patients at a psychiatric hospital in Kansas, showed that castrated men lived 14 years longer. Interesting data on this issue were recently published by the Korean scientist Kyun-Chin Min. He studied the book "Yang-Se-Ke-Bo", in which the genealogical information of 385 families of court eunuchs can be traced.

Comparing the life expectancy of 81 eunuchs with confirmed life dates, Kyung-Chin Min saw that the average life expectancy of eunuchs was 71 years. That is, eunuchs outlived their contemporaries by an average of 17 years.

10. Craving for sleep

Narcolepsy is a disease in which a person constantly wants to sleep. Also called paroxysms of irresistible sleepiness and Gelineau's disease. The disease occurs infrequently, in approximately 20-40 people out of 100,000. Scientists associate narcolepsy with disintegration syndrome, an untimely onset of sleep phases.

Patients suffering from narcolepsy, although they sleep a lot, do not get enough sleep, because by skipping the slow-wave sleep phase, they immediately find themselves in the REM sleep phase, the encephalogram curve of which resembles the encephalogram curve of a awake person; it is almost impossible to get enough sleep in this mode. We get enough sleep in the deep delta sleep stage; patients with narcolepsy do not fall into this phase.

The causes of narcolepsy are still unclear. Some doctors believe that the culprit of the disease is the brain neurotransmitter hypocretin. It is he who regulates the REM sleep phase and wakefulness. If the cells of this neurotransmitter are damaged, it leads to sleep disorders.

9. Natural alarm clock

Probably, each of us at least once woke up a few minutes before the alarm clock, especially when we knew in advance that it was simply necessary to wake up.

This is thanks to the so-called “natural alarm clock,” namely adrenocorticotropic hormone.

Scientists believe it has something to do with minimizing stress on the body when waking up. But the most interesting thing is that we can consciously control it. When studying the properties of adrenocorticotropic hormone, an experiment was conducted in which a number of subjects programmed themselves in advance to wake up at a certain time. More than 75% of the subjects actually woke up on their own when they needed to.

8. Wave of Death

In 2009, in one of the American hospitals, encephalograms were taken from nine dying people who at that time could no longer be saved. The results were sensational - after death, the brain of all subjects, which should have already been killed, literally exploded - incredibly powerful bursts of electrical impulses arose in it, which had never been observed in a living person. They occurred two to three minutes after cardiac arrest and lasted approximately three minutes. Previously, similar experiments were carried out on rats, in which the same thing began a minute after death and lasted 10 seconds.

Scientists have dubbed this phenomenon a “wave of death.” The scientific explanation for “waves of death” has raised many ethical questions.

According to one of the experimenters, Dr. Lakhmir Chawla, such bursts of brain activity are explained by the fact that, from a lack of oxygen, neurons lose electrical potential and discharge, emitting impulses “avalanche-like.” “Living” neurons are constantly under a small negative voltage - 70 minivolts, which is maintained by getting rid of positive ions that remain outside. After death, the balance is disrupted, and neurons quickly change polarity from “minus” to “plus.”

7. How men and women hear

Women are better at distinguishing high-frequency sounds. A one-week-old girl can already identify the sound of her mother's voice and hears when another baby cries. Boys don't need that.

Women are better than men at recognizing changes in tone and therefore know very well when men are lying.

Men, on the other hand, specialize in the sounds of wild nature (this skill is not so necessary in the city) and “hear” directions perfectly. If a woman hears the kitten’s meow first, then it is the man who will indicate where to look for it.

6. Such different sensitivities

A woman's skin is 10 times more sensitive than a man's skin. Research by English scientists has shown that even the most sensitive man in this sense does not live up to the most insensitive woman. But men's skin is thicker than women's and therefore men have fewer wrinkles. On the back of an adult man, the skin is four times thicker than on the stomach. And if a man is busy with work, then the sensitivity of the skin drops even more, and he almost does not feel pain.

5. Electricity is in us

Humans have great prospects as generators of electricity; it can be generated from almost any of our actions. So, from one breath you can get 1 W, and a calm step is enough to power a 60 W light bulb, and it will be enough to charge your phone.

4. Lungs - the “stove” of the body

One of the luminaries of Soviet hardening systems was the Soviet scientist of Austrian origin Karl Trincher. He spent five years in the Gulag and knew firsthand about the cold. Treacher once noticed that in laboratory animals, when there is a lack of oxygen, the temperature in the lungs increases. From here he made a brilliant conclusion: “The lungs are the only organ where fats, reacting with oxygen, are burned directly. Without any enzymes."

Today, physiologists no longer deny that the lungs are a “stove” that can warm the body in cold weather. Or rather, not to warm, but to keep warm, to resist the pathogenic dominance of the cold. Therefore, in the cold, you first need to monitor your breathing, breathe slowly, evenly and deeply.

3. Color perception of floors

The retina of the human eye contains almost seven million “cone” receptors, which are responsible for the perception of color. The X chromosome is responsible for their action. Women have two of them, and the palette of colors they perceive is wider. In conversation they use shades: “sea green”, “sand”, “light coffee”. Men talk about fundamental colors: red, white, blue.

2. Big skin

Skin is the largest organ of the human body. Its average surface area is from 1.5 to 2 square meters. In different parts of the body, the skin has different thickness and sensitivity. The thickest skin is on the feet and palms, the thinnest is on the eyelids. At the same time, skin sensitivity is not directly dependent on thickness. Thus, the skin on the fingers and palms, although quite thick, can feel a pressure of 20 milligrams, which corresponds to the average weight of a fly.

1. A hard worker's heart

Extremely high-speed processes occur in our body every second. When the body is at rest, the path of blood from the heart to the lungs and back takes only six seconds, from the heart to the brain and back - eight seconds, and sixteen seconds from the heart to the fingertips and back. published