10 Facts About Your Body You Never Knew

The Story Behind Sneezing:

The space in your nose through which you breathe contains hairs which move as you take oxygen in or take out. If a foreign irritant enters your nose and reach those nasal hairs, it signals the brain to make it aware of an irritant. The brain then ‘orders’ the muscles involved in creating a sneeze. These muscles are chest, throat and nose muscles. These muscles work resonantly to create a powerful flow of air from inside to throw out the irritant and this powerful burst of air is what we call sneeze.
Some people always sneeze when they are exposed to bright light. They are called ‘photic sneezers’. You might have noticed that whenever you goes out in sun, you sneeze. This is because of the fact that 1 out 3 people sneezes when exposed to bright light. If this is the case with you, you don’t have to worry about it, it is passed through your parents and is in your genes!

Cracking Joints Of Your Fingers- Knuckle Cracking:

What makes the sound when you crack your knuckle, stretch or pull your fingers in backwards direction? The answer to this question is still not found evidently but there are some hypothesis that explain this phenomena upto some extent. The main reason for the sound is ‘Cavitation’. There is some empty space between our joints where exists cavity. When fingers are not moved for a certain period of time or their position is not changed, the gases inside the joints of a finger make a ‘bubble’ or we can say ‘encapsulate’ it. Hence, when the position is changed or the finger is pressed in the opposite direction, that bubble of gas explodes and produces the sound you hear. The gas is considered to be carbon dioxide. It may take few seconds or an hour to get those gases back in the position or make a ‘bubble’ again. Some people can crack the joints of shoulders, spinal cord or vertebrae, jaws, wrist and toes.

The Army Of White Blood Cells-Immune System:

You must be aware of the working of an anti-virus system installed in you computer. If your PC is infected, it finds the infected files, updates its database and execute the desired operation. Moreover it also remembers the name and version of virus and it would not let the same virus attack the computer again. Same thing goes with your body. Your body has an “anti-virus” or “Immune System”. Whenever a bacteria or a parasite or any sort of infection attacks the body, your immune system signals the white blood cells called “Leukocytes” to check the infected area. The white blood cells “scans” the infected area of our body, “updates its database or you may say remembers the version of virus” and signals the cells for executing the bacteria. Which explains that you can only be infected by “Chicken-pox” just one time in your life as your immune system now recognizes that particular bacteria and it would not let the same bacteria attack you again throughout your life. That’s got to be the best anti-virus system

You Can Eat While Standing Inverted/Upside Down:

Digestive system of our body is a miracle that is always happening inside our body. Digestive system starts when you look at the food, smell it or even think of it! Whenever you do either of the previously stated tasks, the Saliva or spit starts forming in you mouth. It then helps the eaten food to break into small pieces and make it easy for digestion. The pipe from the throat to the stomach is called ‘esophagus’. Inside the throat is esophagus through which food flows down to the stomach but also at the back of the throat is our windpipe through which we breathe…you must be thinking “Wait a minute man, why does food always fall in esophagus and not in the windpipe?” When you swallow a small ball of mushed-up food or a liquid, a small flap called ‘epiglottis’ flaps and blocks the way into the windpipe and hence food flows down through esophagus.
Another interesting fact about our digestive system is that its direction is “ALWAYS FROM MOUTH TO STOMACH”. Which means that even if you stand upside down and eat something it will be digested flowing in the opposite direction of gravity. Strange, isn’t it?

Color Of Hairs:

Ever wondered why there is a difference between the colors of hairs among people? Some have white hairs, some have black and some have strange mixed colors. To find out, you must first know the structure and composition of your hairs. The outer part of the hair that you see is dead, the actual living part of the hair is inside and is know as roots of hair. In the living part of hair, cells multiply and produce a protein called ‘keratin’. It is the same protein found inside the nail. Keratin is responsible for the hardness of hairs. If you hairs fall and are weak, it means that you lack keratin protein.
Hairs are composed of different elements with different percentages. The chemical composition for black hairs is:
Carbon : 50.56%
Oxygen: 20.85%
Nitrogen: 17.14%
Hydrogen: 6.38%
Sulphur: 5.00%
It is the difference in the composition of above mentioned elements that colors vary from person to person. This composition is different in different people. There are also small traces of ‘Titanium’ which give hairs the ginger color.

You had 300 Bones not 206:

Bones make our skeleton which protects our internal organs like lungs, liver, heart and brain. When a baby is born, his body has 300 bones which fuse together. Like, two or three bones fuse together to form a single and strong bone and when he becomes an adult, he has 206 total bones! Interesting facts about our bones:
A- The shortest bone of our body is stirrup bone. It is located behind our eardrum and is only 0.1 to 0.13 inches long.
B- The largest bone of human body is called femur bone. It is the thigh bone and average 19.9 inches long.
C- The only bone in our head which we can move is our Jaw! You cannot move any other bone or joint in you head.
D- From the age of 3-7 years, the baby have total of 20 teeth. When primary baby teeth are broken, permanent one’s come out which are 28 in total. From the age of 17-21 years, 4 wisdom teeth grow that completes the set of 32 teeth.
E- The femur bone being the largest bone is also the strongest bone of our body.
F- Lacrimal bone on your face is the weakest bone of your body.

Why Do You Blink Eye?:

You eye is a very sensitive part of your body. It produces a fluid inside itself. Blinking provides moisture to the eye by irrigating the tears and lubricant that eyes secrete. If you do not blink your eyes for some time, your eyes dry out and increase friction between eyelids and the eyeball which makes it harder for eyeball to move. Hence you naturally blink your eyes to moisturize it . While reading or when you focus something, the blink rate decreases by 3-4 per minute. This is the reason that eyes feel stressed after reading. The blinking rate varies from person to person. It is believed that women blink twice more than men. Some people blink for larger time than the average. It is because of certain medical conditions or irritation in their eyes or a particular infection. The average length of a blink is 300-400 milliseconds.

Diagnosis By Nails:

Number of diseases can be diagnosed by analysis of nails. Doctors can find number of diseases in patient’s body by analyzing patient’s nail color, its surface (if it is rough or plain), and horizontal or vertical ridges. Doctors can find out if the patient has liver,lungs or heart problem just by looking at the surface of nails. Here I’ve summarized some common symptoms you will notice in some people’s nails:
Koilonychia: (also known as spoon nails) is a disorder of the finger nails wherein the nails starts getting thinner and lose their normal convexity. It is a sign of iron deficiency in our body.
Apart from iron deficiency anemia, other causes of koilonychia are thyroid dysfunction, poor peripheral circulation, renal diseases. If you see certain changes in your nails, beware of the
above causes and protect your nails by avoiding their use to pick things, wear gloves while dish washing, avoid biting your nails and avoid using nail polish.
Clubbing: (also known as drumstick fingers) It is a condition in which the nail curves down, similar to the shape of an upside-down spoon. Clubbing occurs with a wide number of diseases. It is most often found in heart and lung diseases that cause a lower-than-normal amount of oxygen in the blood. It is very important to ask a patient with clubbing whether he has breathing difficulty or not. Important tests which can be advised to such a patient are 1) arterial blood gas 2) chest X ray 3) ECG. Once the cause of clubbing is known, treating it will relieve from the condition.
Beau’s lines: They are linear depressions on the nail which develop after stressful conditions that cease nail growth. Diseases accompanied by high fever e.g malaria, scarlet fever, measles, mumps, pneumonia etc. can cause Beau’s lines. Even high altitude climbing and deep sea diving can arrest nail growth. There is no specific treatment for Beau’s line. Applying anti-fungal cream would be helpful.
Terry’s nails: Base of the nail is white/pink, nail tip is red/brown. The base is white beacause of decreased blood vessels there. Causes of Terry’s nails are liver diseases and renal failure.

Brain- Wernicke’s Area:

All of you computer programmers will be aware of the working of a language processor. There is an interpreter which ‘translates’ the language into code that computer recognizes. Same is the case with our brain. There is a lobe in our brain which is called Wernicke’s area where our brain recognizes or comprehend the speech we hear. When a word is heard by our ear or is read by our mind, its signal goes into Wernicke’s area for processing and our brain translates that word and made it understandable by us. It is then forwarded to Broca’s area if you want to speak it. Both Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area are linked together which connects our hearing and speaking system.

Laugh for Your Heart!:

The human heart is a wonder of nature. It beats about 100,000 times to provide blood to the body. It has to the mighty task of supplying blood to 60,000 miles of blood vessels. It is like battery that provides energy to a certain electric appliance. The normal rate of pulse i.e the beating of the heart is 72 times per minute. Heart circulates 5.6 liters of blood throughout the body three times every minute. Blood travels a total of 19,000km in a day- that is four times the distance across the US from coast to coast.
Stress make it harder for the heart to pump and supply blood. It has been found with a proof that laughing makes it easy for heart to pump. While watching a funny movie, the pulse rate increases and heart can do its job easily. Laugh, and you heart will thank you!