You are more amazing than you know!
Nature has produced many wondrous things but few are more amazing than the human body. From your hard-working heart to your incredible brain, here are 15 facts to surprise you.
Hard-working heart
The heart is the hardest working muscle in the body. Every day, it creates enough energy to drive a lorry over 30 kilometres. Over a lifetime, that’s equivalent to driving to the moon and back.
Amazing brain
The brain is 60 percent fat but it still works hard. At any given time your brain can generate up to 25 watts of power – that’s enough to power a light bulb.
Growing skin
Skin is the human body’s largest organ and is constantly renewing itself. Your skin sheds 50,000 cells every minute. Over a lifetime, that piles up to 18.1kg of skin.
Thought power
Your brain is always working. Scientists say the average person has roughly 70,000 thoughts each day – and is actually more active while you’re sleeping.
Shrinking bones
You’re born with more than 300 bones but by the time you’re an adult you have just 206. This is because some of the bones fuse together
Womb with a view
Babies in the womb grow 8,000 new brain cells every second. Newborn babies can recognise their mother’s face after just a few hours.
Incredible sense
Scientists have discovered that the visual cortex of blind people can rewire itself to respond to stimuli received through touch and hearing, helping them to “see” by touch and sound.
Unfeeling brain
The brain itself doesn’t have any pain receptors, so doesn’t feel anything – which is why surgeons can perform open brain procedures on patients while they are awake.
Pump power
During an average lifetime, the heart will pump nearly 1.5 million barrels of blood. A pumping human heart can squirt blood 9.1 metres.
Fast sneeze
The typical human sneeze travels at just under 64 km/h. That’s the same speed as a running tiger!
Long arteries
If your arteries, veins and capillaries were laid out end to end they would measure 100,000 km. That’s nearly enough to stretch two and a half times around the planet!
Growing hair
Your hair grows about 6mm every four weeks and keeps on growing for up to six years. The hair then falls out and another grows in its place.
Tasty truth
Your mouth contains around 10,000 taste buds, most of which are located on and around the tiny bumps on your tongue. But you need the sense of smell to taste too.
Amazing memory
Smell is the oldest of all the senses – before sight, hearing or touch, creatures evolved to respond to chemicals around them. Your brain can remember over 50,000 different scents.
Ageing brain
The human brain is the most sophisticated thing in the known universe. Humans have more brain cells at the age of two than at any other point in their lives – but it will take nearly 20 years for the brain to mature.
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