20 little-known facts about the human body

20 малоизвестных фактов об организме человека

The human body still continues to reveal its riddles.

Studying the work of his systems, scientists make hundreds of discoveries every year.

And often new facts are refuted by centuries-old ideas.

20. Silence of the heart

20 малоизвестных фактов об организме человека

The heart of an ordinary adult man beats 72 times a minute, 100,000 times a day, 36 million times a year and 2.5 billion times throughout life.

However, the heart beats rhythmically, then, apart from blows, there are pauses in the cycle. So, if you combine all the pauses between contractions of the heart for 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. Contrary to the laws of physics

It is known that fluid can flow from greater pressure to less, but in our body this law is constantly broken. At a single-stage measurement of pressure in the aorta and femoral artery, blood from the aorta, where less pressure, 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 ... rounds. During the experiment, NASA cardiologists studied the hearts of 12 cosmonauts working for the ISS.

Analysis of the images showed that under zero-gravity conditions the heart is rounded up to 9.4%. However, upon returning to Earth, the heart returns within six months its usual form and resumes its "terrestrial" activity. To imagine a decrease in the activity of the heart, it is enough to say that a month and a half lying on the bed is equivalent to a week's work in conditions of weightlessness.

17. New skin: from three days to a month

20 малоизвестных фактов об организме человека

Human skin is constantly renewed. This process is called regeneration. This is so: the new skin cells are formed in the embryonic layer of the epidermis, for about 28-30 days they move to the surface and lose the cell nucleus. On the surface, with the help of the keratin contained in them, they form a stratum corneum, which gradually peels off when washing, or in contact with clothing.

Thus, the skin that we consider to be our own, is constantly being updated. In a month, the composition of the human skin changes completely.

In newborns, the regeneration process, like many other processes (for example, metabolism) proceeds more quickly. "Change of skin" in infants takes place for three days - 72 hours.

16. Internal "brewery"

People with a "roaming gut" or the so-called "internal brewery syndrome" turn inside themselves any food and drinks into alcohol. Therefore, they are always a bit of a substitute. The cause of the disease is the inability of the stomach to split sugar into carbohydrates - instead, it is engaged in fermentation.

In addition, the human body with a fermenting intestine can not process ethanol, resulting from the consumption of starch products. Such people need one bottle of beer to gain 0.37 ppm. Fortunately, this is a very rare syndrome, there are only 11 cases registered worldwide today.

15. Without hair

Fracture of the spine can lead to such an unexpected consequence, as the disappearance of hair on the body. This is a unique phenomenon, in which the scientists themselves are not very well understood. Hair on the human body is actively growing when they make a request to the brain and receive feedback. If this connection is disrupted - and this is exactly what happens if the spinal cord gets seriously damaged, - the body hair gradually begins to disappear.

14. "Bird" genetics

The fact that the "lark" - "lark" - is not his merit. As in the fact that the "owl" - "owl" - there is no guilt. We are "imprisoned" by nature. And who in charge of the chronotypes was determined by the American researchers at the Medical Center of the Northwestern University of Chicago in cooperation with the scientists of the Korean Institute of Science and Technology. Studying the fruit flies of Drosophilia melanogaster, they discovered a gene that regulates the circadian rhythm. They called the "genome 24 hours" and in 2010 published data in the journal "Science", where they noted that the flies, in which he "did not work, for a long time did not show activity with the onset of dawn."

If we draw a parallel with man, these fruit flies are typical "owls", which also can not be torn off their heads from their "fly cushions". And the same gene is responsible for the easy awakening of those who are lucky to be born "larks".

13. Moving facial expressions

20 малоизвестных фактов об организме человека

In 2011, scientists managed to discover that the facial expression of a person occurs long before his birth. Even during the pre-natal period the child is already able to move facial muscles, smile, raise eyebrows or frown in surprise. The facial muscles account for 25% of the total number of muscles, 17 groups of muscles are involved in the smile, during anger or crying - 43.

One of the best ways to preserve smooth skin on your face is kissing. At them works from 29 to 34 muscle groups.

12. Blood group as a factor of career and personal life

In Japan, since the 1930s, the doctrine of "ketsu-eki-gata" has been practiced, in which everyone can be told about a person, knowing only his blood group. The Japanese are sure that the owners of the I blood group are sociable and energetic people, the owners of the II blood group are stress-resistant and patient, but they are stubborn. Creative and powerful people usually III blood type. People with a rare IV group are balanced and innate leaders.

"Ketsu-eki-gata" is incredibly popular. A Japanese girl can ask on the first date not about who you are by the sign of the Zodiac, but what kind of blood you have. The Japanese are guided by the blood group also when they marry even when they are employed. HR-departments try to form ideally co-ordinated "on blood" collectives.

11. Testosterone and Longevity

The effect of testosterone on life expectancy has more than once found its confirmation in various studies. One of them, conducted in 1969 among patients at the psychiatric hospital in Kansas, showed that castrated men live 14 years longer. Interesting data on this issue were recently published by the Korean scientist Kyun-Chin Ming. He studied the book "Yang-Se-ke-Bo", in which it is possible to trace the genealogical information about 385 families of court eunuchs.

Comparing the life expectancy of 81 eunuch with the confirmed dates of life, Kun-Chin Ming saw that the average life expectancy of the eunuchs was 71 years. That is, their contemporaries eunuchs experienced an average of 17 years.

10. Craving for a dream

Narcolepsy is a disease in which a person constantly wants to sleep. Also called paroxysms of insurmountable drowsiness and Jelino's disease. The disease is infrequent, approximately 20-40 of 100,000. Scientists associate narcolepsy with a disintegration syndrome, untimely beginning of the phases of sleep.

Patients suffering from narcolepsy, although they sleep a lot, but do not get enough sleep, because they miss the phase of slow sleep, immediately find themselves in a phase of fast sleep, the curve of the encephalogram of which resembles the curve of the wakeful person's encephalogram, it is almost impossible to sleep in this mode. We fall asleep in the stage of deep delta sleep, patients with narcolepsy do not get 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 phase of fast sleep and wakefulness. If the cells of this neurotransmitter are damaged, this leads to sleep disorders.

9. A natural alarm clock

20 малоизвестных фактов об организме человека

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

This is due to the so-called "natural alarm clock", namely, adrenocorticotropic hormone.

Scientists believe that it is somehow connected with minimizing stress for the body during awakening. But, what is most interesting, we can consciously control it. When studying the properties of adrenocorticotropic hormone, an experiment was conducted in which a number of subjects pre-programmed themselves to awaken at a certain time. More than 75% of the subjects really wake up themselves when they need it.

8. The wave of death

In 2009, in one of the US hospitals, encephologograms were taken from nine dying people, who at that time could no longer be saved. The results were sensational - after the death of all subjects, the brain, which was already supposed to be killed, literally exploded - it generated incredibly powerful bursts of electrical impulses that were never observed in a living person. They arose within two to three minutes after cardiac arrest and lasted about three minutes. Prior to this, similar experiments were conducted on rats, in which the same started a minute after death and lasted 10 seconds.

This phenomenon scientists dubbed "the wave of death." The scientific explanation for the "waves of death" has given rise to many ethical questions.

According to one of the experimenters, Dr. Lakhmira Chavla, such bursts of brain activity are explained by the fact that from lack of oxygen, neurons lose electrical potential and discharge, emitting pulses "avalanche". "Live" neurons are constantly under a small negative voltage - 70 minivolt, which is retained, by eliminating the positive ions that remain outside. After death, equilibrium is broken, and neurons quickly change polarity from "minus" to "plus."

7. How men and women hear

Women better distinguish high-frequency sounds. A week-old girl can already sing out the sound of a mother's voice and hear when another baby is crying. Boys do not need this.

Women are better than men who recognize the change in tone and therefore know perfectly well when men lie.

Men also specialize in sounds of wild nature (this skill is not so necessary in the city) and perfectly "hear" the direction. If the first meowing of a kitten is heard by a woman, it is the man who will indicate where to look for it.

6. Such a different sensitivity

The skin of a woman is 10 times more sensitive than the skin of a man. Studies of English scientists have shown that even the most sensitive man in this sense does not reach the most insensitive woman. But men's skin is thicker than women's, and therefore men have less wrinkles. On the back of an adult male skin is four times thicker than on the stomach. And if the man is busy with the case, then the sensitivity of the skin falls even more, and he almost does not feel pain.

5. Electricity in Us

People have great prospects as electricity generators, it can be developed practically from any of our actions. So, from one inspiration you can get 1 W, and a quiet step is enough to feed a light bulb in 60 W, and it will be enough to charge the phone.

4. Lungs - the "stove" of the body

20 малоизвестных фактов об организме человека

One of the leaders of Soviet systems of hardening was a Soviet scientist of Austrian descent, Carl Trincher. He spent five years in the Gulag, and knew about the colds not by hearsay. Tricher once noticed that in laboratory animals, with a lack of oxygen, the temperature in the lungs rises. 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, even physiologists do not deny that the lungs are a "stove", capable of warming the body in the cold. It is more accurate not to warm, but to keep warm, to resist the pathogenic dominant of the cold. Therefore, in the cold, you must first watch your breathing, breathe slowly, evenly and deeply.

3. Color perception of the sexes

On the retina of the human eye there are almost seven million receptors-cones, which are responsible for the perception of color. For their action corresponds to the X chromosome. Women have two, and the palette of flowers that they perceive is wider. In conversation they operate with shades: "color of the sea wave", "sandy", "light coffee". Men talk about the fundamental colors: red, white, blue.

2. Big skin

Skin is the largest organ of the human body. The average area of ​​its surface is from 1.5 to 2 square meters. In different parts of the body, the skin has a different thickness and sensitivity. The thickest skin on the soles of the feet and palms, the thinnest - on the eyelids. In this case, the sensitivity of the skin is not directly dependent on the thickness. So, on the fingers and palms of the skin, although rather thick, can feel the pressure of 20 milligrams, which corresponds to the average weight of the fly.

1. Heart-truant

In our body, extremely high-speed processes occur 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, sixteen seconds will take its road from the heart to the fingertips and back.

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