While it’s always a great thing to (gently) improve our health and fitness, your body is pretty amazing as it is.
In fact, by the time you finish reading this sentence more than 500,000 chemical reactions will have occurred in your cells. Really!
Want to get more in touch with your anatomy? We’ve rounded up 10 amazing (and kind of bizarre) facts about your body.
The liver can regenerate 75 per cent of its original mass.
The liver is the only organ that can regenerate – and it only needs around 25 per cent to fully grow back to its original size. But weirdly, it doesn’t grow back the same shape!
The brain works 30 times faster than the world’s best supercomputer.
Looks like we’re still a long way from robots taking over! Scientists are still debating how much info our brains can hold, but some estimate that it’s around five times more than the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
Stomach acid can dissolve a razor blade.
Stomach acid is so strong that the stomach’s protective mucus lining is totally replaced every two weeks, or the acid will start corroding the stomach’s walls. Stomach acid can even corrode a razor blade, but that’s not an experiment you should ever try at home!
The skin sheds 50,000 cells a minute.
In fact, dead skin cells account for about a billion tons of dust in the atmosphere. Excuse me, I’m going to find the Hoover…
The naked eye can spot a candlelight from two kilometres away.
How far can we really see? One study showed that the naked eye could spot a single flickering candlelight from 2.5 kilometres away. (But those of us with less-than-perfect vision might dispute this fact!)
Your eyes can also distinguish up to 10 MILLION colours.
Remember that scene in The Devil Wears Prada where they’re trying to choose between two seemingly identical blue belts? Well, Miranda Priestly may have had a point. Experts reckon the human eye can distinguish up to 10 million colours (and women actually see more colours than men).
The heart pumps around five litres of blood a minute.
Your body contains around five litres of blood, all of which passes through your heart every minute. And, when you’re exercising, your heart can pump FOUR times that amount!
Walking uses up to 200 muscles.
You don’t need to do a half-marathon to give your body some exercise – a simple stroll can stimulate up to 200 muscles! And we reckon that if you strutted like Beyoncé you could “werk” even more.
90 per cent of the cells in your body are bacteria.
Or put it this way – only 10 per cent of the cells in your body actually belong to you. The rest are microbes, from dental plaque to the microscopic mites that live on our eyelashes (yep, everyone has them). And, of course, the good bacteria keeping our guts happy and healthy!
The body kills mutant cells every day.
Our body is basically a super assassin, adept at hunting down and killing mutant cells that could turn into cancer. A prime example is sunburn. When skin cells’ DNA is damaged, it triggers the body to kill them off. Slip, slop, slap, people!
Were you surprised by these? What other weird facts have you discovered about your body?
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