Design Practice.

100 THINGS ... I FOUND INTERESTING.

1.    Humans are the only animals to produce emotional tears. In the animal world, humans are the biggest crybabies, being the only animals who cry because they’ve had a bad day, lost a loved one, or just don’t feel good.
2.   Your ears secrete more earwax when you are afraid than when you aren’t. The chemicals and hormones released when you are afraid could be having unseen effects on your body in the form of earwax. Studies have suggested that fear causes the ears to produce more of the sticky substance, though the reasons are not yet clear  
3. Humans shed about 600,000 particles of skin every hour. You may not think much about losing skin if yours isn’t dry or flaky or peeling from a sunburn, but your skin is constantly renewing itself and shedding dead cells.  
4.   Every tongue print is unique. If you’re planning on committing a crime, don’t think you’ll get away with leaving a tongue print behind. Each tongue is different and yours could be unique enough to finger you as the culprit.  
5.   The tooth is the only part of the human body that can’t repair itself. If you’ve ever chipped a tooth you know just how sadly true this one is. The outer layer of the tooth is enamel which is not a living tissue. Since it’s not alive, it can’t repair itself, leaving your dentist to do the work instead. 
6. We are about 1 cm taller in the morning than in the evening. The cartilage between our bones gets compressed by standing, sitting and other daily activities as the day goes on, making us just a little shorter at the end of the day than at the beginning. 
7. Babies are born with 300 bones, but by adulthood the number is reduced to 206. The reason for this is that many of the bones of children are composed of smaller component bones that are not yet fused like those in the skull. This makes it easier for the baby to pass through the birth canal. The bones harden and fuse as the children grow
8. It takes 17 muscles to smile and 43 to frown. Unless you’re trying to give your face a bit of a workout, smiling is a much easier option for most of us. Anyone who’s ever scowled, squinted or frowned for a long period of time knows how it tires out the face which doesn’t do a thing to improve your mood.  
9. A human head remains conscious for about 15 to 20 seconds after it is been decapitated. While it might be gross to think about, the blood in the head may be enough to keep someone alive and conscious for a few seconds after the head has been separated from the body, though reports as to the accuracy of this are widely varying.  
10. Monday is the day of the week when the risk of heart attack is greatest. Yet another reason to loathe Mondays! A ten year study in Scotland found that 20% more people die of heart attacks on Mondays than any other day of the week. Researchers theorize that it’s a combination of too much fun over the weekend with the stress of going back to work that causes the increase.  
11. Your eyes are always the same size from birth but your nose and ears never stop growing. When babies look up at you with those big eyes, they’re the same size that they’ll be carrying around in their bodies for the rest of their lives. Their ears and nose, however, will grow throughout their lives and research has shown that growth peaks in seven year cycles.
12. By the age of 60, most people will have lost about half their taste buds. Perhaps you shouldn’t trust your grandma’s cooking as much as you do. Older individuals tend to lose their ability to taste, and many find that they need much more intense flavoring in order to be able to fully appreciate a dish. 
13. Everyone has a unique smell, except for identical twins. Newborns are able to recognize the smell of their mothers and many of us can pinpoint the smell of our significant others and those we are close to. Part of that smell is determined by genetics, but it’s also largely do to environment, diet and personal hygiene products that create a unique chemistry for each person.  
14. Your nose can remember 50,000 different scents. While a bloodhound’s nose may be a million times more sensitive than a human’s, that doesn’t mean that the human sense of smell is useless. Humans can identify a wide variety of scents and many are strongly tied to memories. 
15. After eating too much, your hearing is less sharp. If you’re heading to a concert or a musical after a big meal you may be doing yourself a disservice. Try eating a smaller meal if you need to keep your hearing pitch perfect. 
16. People don’t sneeze when they are asleep because the nerves involved in nerve reflex are also resting.  
17. The three things pregnant women dream most of during their first trimester are frogs, worms and potted plants. Pregnancy hormones can cause mood swings, cravings and many other unexpected changes. Oddly enough, hormones can often affect the types of dreams women have and their vividness. The most common are these three types, but many women also dream of water, giving birth or even have violent or sexually charged dreams.  
18.    During your lifetime, you will produce enough saliva to fill two swimming pools. Saliva plays an important part in beginning the digestive process and keeping the mouth lubricated, and your mouth produces quite a bit of it on a daily basis.  
19.    Women blink twice as many times as men do. That’s a lot of blinking every day. The average person, man or woman, blinks about 13 times a minute.
20. The aorta is nearly the diameter of a garden hose. The average adult heart is about the size of two fists, making the size of the aorta quite impressive. The artery needs to be so large as it is the main supplier of rich, oxygenated blood to the rest of the body.  
21. You get a new stomach lining every three to four days. The mucus-like cells lining the walls of the stomach would soon dissolve due to the strong digestive acids in your stomach if they weren’t constantly replaced. Those with ulcers know how painful it can be when stomach acid takes its toll on the lining of your stomach.  
22. The acid in your stomach is strong enough to dissolve razorblades. While you certainly shouldn’t test the fortitude of your stomach by eating a razorblade or any other metal object for that matter, the acids that digest the food you eat aren’t to be taken lightly. Hydrochloric acid, the type found in your stomach, is not only good at dissolving the pizza you had for dinner but can also eat through many types of metal.  
23. The human heart creates enough pressure to squirt blood 30 feet. No wonder you can feel your heartbeat so easily. Pumping blood through your body quickly and efficiently takes quite a bit of pressure resulting in the strong contractions of the heart and the thick walls of the ventricles which push blood to the body. 
24. You must lose over 50% of your scalp hairs before it is apparent to anyone. You lose hundreds of hairs a day but you’ll have to lose a lot more before you or anyone else will notice. Half of the hairs on your pretty little head will have to disappear before your impending baldness will become obvious to all those around you. 
25. The lifespan of a human hair is 3 to 7 years on average. While you quite a few hairs each day, your hairs actually have a pretty long life providing they aren’t subject to any trauma. Your hairs will likely get to see several different haircuts, styles, and even possibly decades before they fall out on their own.  
26. There are as many hairs per square inch on your body as a chimpanzee. Humans are not quite the naked apes that we’re made out to be. We have lots of hair, but on most of us it’s not obvious as a majority of the hairs are too fine or light to be seen.  
27. The brain itself cannot feel pain. While the brain might be the pain center when you cut your finger or burn yourself, the brain itself does not have pain receptors and cannot feel pain. That doesn’t mean your head can’t hurt. The brain is surrounded by loads of tissues, nerves and blood vessels that are plenty receptive to pain and can give you a pounding headache.  
28. The brain is much more active at night than during the day. Logically, you would think that all the moving around, complicated calculations and tasks and general interaction we do on a daily basis during our working hours would take a lot more brain power than, say, lying in bed. Turns out, the opposite is true. When you turn off your brain turns on. Scientists don’t yet know why this is but you can thank the hard work of your brain while you sleep for all those pleasant dreams. 
29. Your brain uses 20% of the oxygen that enters your bloodstream. The brain only makes up about 2% of our body mass, yet consumes more oxygen than any other organ in the body, making it extremely susceeptible to damage related to oxygen deprivation. So breathe deep to kep your brain happy and swimming in oxygenated cells.   
30. Nerve impulses to and from the brain travel as fast as 170 miles per hour. Ever wonder how you can react so fast to things around you or why that stubbed toe hurts right away? It’s due to the super-speedy movement of nerve impulses from your brain to the rest of your body and vice versa, bringing reactions at the speed of a high powered luxury sports car.  
31. Water. The brain is made up of about 75% water.  
32.   Emotions. The capacity for such emotions as joy, happiness, fear, and shyness are already developed at birth. The specific type of nurturing a child receives shapes how these emotions are developed.    
33. Unconsciousness. If your brain loses blood for 8 to 10 seconds, you will lose consciousness.  
34. Brain death. The brain can live for 4 to 6 minutes without oxygen, and then it begins to die. No oxygen for 5 to 10 minutes will result in permanent brain damage.  
35.   Tickles. You can’t tickle yourself because your brain distinguished between unexpected external touch and your own touch.  
36. Physical illness. The connection between body and mind is a strong one. One estimate is that between 50-70% of visits to the doctor for physical ailments are attributed to psychological factors .
37. Jet lag. Frequent jet lag can impair your memory, probably due to the stress hormones released.  
38. New connections. Every time you recall a memory or have a new thought, you are creating a new connection in your brain.   
39. Lost dreams. Five minutes after a dream, half of the dream is forgotten. Ten minutes after a dream, over 90% is forgotten. Write down your dreams immediately if you want to remember them.  
40. Colour or B&W. Some people (about 12%) dream only in black and white while others dream in colour.  
41. Blinking. Each time we blink, our brain kicks in and keeps things illuminated so the whole world doesn’t go dark each time we blink (about 20,000 times a day).    
42. Cannibalism. Some research shows that humans carry genes that help protect the brain from prior diseases, or diseases contracted through eating human flesh, leading medical experts to believe that ancient humans may have eaten other humans.    
43.    Because the heart has its own electrical impulse, it can continue to beat even when separated from the body, as long as it has an adequate supply of oxygen.  
44.   The “thump-thump” of a heartbeat is the sound made by the four valves of the heart closing.   
45. Early Egyptians believed that the heart and other major organs had wills of their own and would move around inside the body.  
46.    Prolonged lack of sleep can cause irregular jumping heartbeats called premature ventricular contractions (PVCs).  
47. Blood is actually a tissue. When the body is at rest, it takes only six seconds for the blood to go from the heart to the lungs and back, only eight seconds for it to go the brain and back, and only 16 seconds for it to reach the toes and travel all the way back to the heart.  
48.   Laughing relaxes and expands blood vessels, which helps protect the heart. 
49. Approximately 30% of the people who die from heart disease each year are smokers.   
50. Research suggests that 25% of heart attacks go unrecognized and are discovered only later when a routine ECG is performed.  
51. People with poor oral health may be more likely to have atherosclerosis (clogged arteries) because the bacteria in the gums and teeth can enter the bloodstream and affect blood clotting.  
52. Three years after a person quits smoking, there chance of having a heart attack is the same as someone who has never smoked before.  
53. Scientists have discovered that the longer the ring finger is in boys the less chance they have of having a heart attack.  
54. 38 percent of women die within a year after having a heart attack, as compared to 25 percent of men.  
55. Humans have 46 chromosomes.  
56. One chromosome can have as little as 50 million base pairs or as much as 250 million base pairs.  
57. Our entire DNA sequence is called a genome.  
58. There’s an estimated 3 billion DNA bases in our genome.  
59. A complete 3 billion base genome would take 3 gigabytes of storage space.  
60. If you unwrap all the DNA you have in all your cells, you could reach the moon 6000 times!  
61. If all the DNA in your body was put end to end, it would reach to the sun and back over 600 times (100 trillion times six feet divided by 92 million miles).  
62. Changes in the DNA sequence are called mutations.    
63. Many thing can cause mutations, including UV irradiation from the sun, chemicals like drugs, etc.  
64. The odds that two individuals will have the same 13-loci DNA profile is about one in one billion.  
65. A DNA fingerprint is a set of DNA markers that is unique for each individual except identical twins.  
66. DNA testing is used to authenticate food like caviar and fine wine.  
67. The human body is made up of 100 trillion cells. Each cell has at least one nucleus, which houses the chromosomes.  
68. There are over 200 different types of cells in the human body (for example, muscle cells, liver cells, and nerve cells).  
69. Although autosomal DNA is inherited equally from each parent, a few genetic diseases seem to be worse when inherited from one's father (e.g. Huntingdon's disease), because mutations occur or repeat themselves at a higher rate in men, and increase with the father's age. This is also why older fathers (over 40 years old) have higher chances of having children suffering from schizophrenia, depression or autism.  
70. 14 bones are in your face.  
71. The smallest bone in the human body is the stapes bone, which is located in the ear.  
72. The only bone fully grown at birth is located in the ear.  
73. If an identical twin grows up without having a certain tooth, the other twin will most likely also grow up with that tooth missing.  
74. Humans are born with 300 bones in their body, however when a person reaches adulthood they only have 206 bones.  
75. Although the outsides of a bone are hard, they are generally light and soft inside. They are about 75% water.  
76. Your thighbone is stronger than concrete.  
77. Differences between males and females: Males and females have slightly different skeletons, including a different elbow angle. Males have slightly thicker and longer legs and arms; females have a wider pelvis and a larger space within the pelvis, through which babies travel when they are born.  
78. Humans and giraffes have the same number of bones in their necks.  
79. Human bone is as strong as granite in supporting weight. A block of bone the size of a matchbox can support 9 tonnes – that is four times as much as concrete can support.  
80. When you sleep, you grow by about 8mm (0.3in). The next day you shrink back to your former height. The reason is that your cartilage discs are squeezed like sponges by the force of gravity when you stand or sit.  
81. The human body possesses 12 pairs of ribs and if a rib is removed, within three months, a new rib is regenerated.  
82. The spine is made up of 20 small bones and there is a hole in each bone for the spinal cord to pass through it.  
83. The coccyx, or tailbone, is the remnant of a lost tail. All mammals have a tail at one point in their development; in humans, it is present for a period of 4 weeks, during stages 14 to 22 of human embryogenesis this tail is most prominent in human embryos 31–35 days old.  The tailbone, located at the end of the spine, has lost its original function in assisting balance and mobility, though it still serves some secondary functions, such as being an attachment point for muscles, which explains why it has not degraded further.  
84. Your lower jawbone is the only bone in your head you can move.  
85. All babies are born with spaces between the bones in their skulls. This allows the bones to move, close up, and even overlap as the baby goes through the birth canal. As the baby grows, the space between the bones slowly closes up and disappears, and special joints called sutures connect the bones.  
86. Your joints come with their own special fluid called synovial fluid that helps them move freely.  
87. Your funny bone isn't actually a bone at all. Running down the inside part of your elbow is a nerve called the ulnar nerve. The ulnar nerve lets your brain know about feelings in your fourth and fifth fingers. It's also one of the nerves that control some movement of your hand.  
88. If someone has osteoporosis, the person's bones are now weakened because of this loss of bone density. Weak bones can break easier and the person may have other problems such as a stooped-over posture. Maybe you've seen an older woman who's a little hunched over.  
89. Brushing your teeth regularly has been shown to prevent heart disease.  
90. When muscles push and tug against bones during physical activity, bones and muscles become stronger.  
91. You can identify if a long bone belongs to an adult or child by checking the epiphyseal plate, near where the shaft of the bone meets the head. This is cartilage in children and the site of bone growth. In adults, the cartilage fades and it becomes a faint line.  
92. Humans have two types of bone marrow, red and yellow.  
93. Yellow is for fat storage, and is found in the appendicular skeleton: the appendages and the pectoral girdle (shoulder blade and clavicle).  
94. Red marrow produces blood cells and is found in the axial skeleton: the head, trunk and pelvis, as well as the proximal heads of the femur and humerus.  
95. Our system of blood vessels - arteries, veins and capillaries - is over 60.000 (96.000 km) miles long. That's long enough to go around the world more than twice!  
96. Heart attacks cause scar tissue to form amongst normal heart tissue, this can lead to further heart problems or even heart failure.  
97. While heart failure can affect either side or both sides of the heart, it usually affects the left side of the heart first.  
98. Bones come in five shapes: flat bones (sternum, cranial bones), short bones (ankle and wrist bones), long bones (femur, radius, phalanges of fingers and toes), irregular bones (vertebrae, sphenoid) and sesamoid bones, which form in tendons, such as the patella (kneecap).  
99. The largest bone is the pelvis, or hipbone. In fact it is made of six bones joined firmly together.  
100. In many bones, the cancellous bone protects the innermost part of the bone, the bone marrow. Bone marrow is sort of like a thick jelly, and its job is to make blood cells