26 Human Eyes Hide Magnetic Sensor
Humans actually possess the protein cryptochromes needed for the detection of magnetic fields, but our brains do not seem to have any way to decode the information. Researchers showed that human cryptochrome 2 can act as a magnetic sensor when they put it into fruit flies, yet in our own eyes that signal appears to go unused, leaving us with the hardware for magnetoreception but no conscious sense of it.
27. Babies born with extra digits are not that rare, and those with six fingers on one hand are able to play a complicated video game with a single hand, and their brains have no trouble controlling the more complex movements of their extra digits. In a 2019 study, scientists tested two people with fully functional sixth fingers and found that their extra digits had their own muscles and tendons and that their brains had dedicated control for them, giving them superior dexterity without any apparent cognitive cost.
28. In newborn babies, 87 percent of the energy they burn is used to operate their brains. A metabolic analysis of early development shows that this share of energy devoted to the brain is far higher than in adults and gradually falls as children grow, while overall energy use shifts toward the rest of the body.
29. Mustard or pickle juice is often used to get rid of Charley horses quickly, and research found that the remedy likely works because Charley horses are caused by misfiring nerves in the muscles. When people throw back a spoonful of mustard or a swig of pickle brine during a cramp, that intense taste appears to trigger a nerve reaction in the mouth that interrupts the misfiring and helps the muscle relax far faster than waiting for the spasm to pass on its own.
30. The calf muscles help pump blood, and the body is engineered so that when you walk, the calf muscles pump venous blood back toward your heart. The veins in your calf act like a reservoir for blood that your body does not need in circulation at any given time. Each step makes those muscles squeeze the deep leg veins, pushing pooled blood upward against gravity and through one-way valves so it cannot flow back down, which helps maintain healthy circulation and reduces the strain on your heart.
31 Video Games Reverse Depression Damage
Two regions of the brain, reward pathways and the hippocampus, physically shrink when we are clinically depressed, and gaming reverses that damage. Studies found that gameplay hyperstimulates brain areas tied to motivation, goals, learning, and memory, directly engaging circuits that depression tends to shut down. Because of this pattern, the researchers describe regular, targeted gaming as the neurological opposite of depression.
32. The pigment in your eye’s iris can rub off and break free in a condition called pigment dispersion syndrome, sending tiny pigment granules floating inside the eye. Those granules can clog the eye’s drainage pathways, block fluid flow, and raise internal pressure, and in about 10 to 35 percent of people with the condition, this process results in a form of glaucoma called pigmentary glaucoma.
33. The reason we experience a runny nose after crying is that the leftover fluid, which was not released through tears, drains into the nose through the lacrimal point, a small hole located on the lower eyelid.
34. Reattachment surgery is a modern invention, with the first successful limb replantation reported in 1962, and the procedure relies on microsurgery to reconnect nerves and blood vessels using an operating microscope and microsutures. Surgeons performing replantation must carefully repair arteries, veins, nerves, tendons, and sometimes bone in sequence so that blood flow and function can return to the severed part.
35. The way the sun gives people vitamin D is by converting cholesterol in the skin to vitamin D. When ultraviolet B radiation from sunlight hits your skin, it transforms a cholesterol-based precursor into vitamin D3, which your liver converts into 25-hydroxyvitamin D, and your kidneys then convert into the active form that helps your body absorb calcium and maintain healthy bones.
36 Brain Downplays Personal Death Threat
Our brains do their best to keep us from dwelling on our inevitable demise, and a study found that the brain shields us from existential fear by categorizing death as an unfortunate event that only befalls other people. In a study done in 2019, researchers used EEG to show that when volunteers saw their own faces linked with death-related words, their brains blocked the usual prediction response, suggesting a built-in mechanism that stops us from treating our own deaths as real future events.
37. Men and women have the same number of ribs, as both typically have 24 ribs arranged in 12 pairs, and despite the common misconception from the biblical story of Adam and Eve, there is no anatomical difference in rib count between the sexes.
38. The reason mint tastes cold is that menthol activates a protein called TRPM8 in your nerve cells that normally respond to cold, and it is the only food that does so. By comparison, capsaicin in chili peppers activates a different protein, VR1, that senses heat, so menthol tricks your nervous system into feeling icy coolness, while capsaicin makes your mouth feel burning.
39. Commotio cordis is a heart failure that occurs if you get hit in the chest at just the right time, causing a disturbance in the electrical impulses that directly affects your heart rhythm and in most cases kills unless you are treated within about a 3-minute window. In reported cases, a small, fast-moving object such as a baseball or hockey puck strikes the chest over the heart during a vulnerable phase of the cardiac cycle, triggering ventricular fibrillation in otherwise healthy, often young people, and survival depends on immediate CPR and rapid defibrillation.
40. Part of the reason we sigh is because the alveoli in the lungs collapse with disuse, and a sigh pops them back open by taking in more air, so humans average about 12 sighs an hour, and without them our lungs would fail. In 2016, UCLA and Stanford researchers showed that tiny clusters of neurons in the brainstem trigger these deep breaths to reinflate the alveoli, and when they blocked the relevant neuropeptides in mice, the animals stopped sighing, confirming how essential this reflex is for keeping lungs working.
41 Psychic Tears Contain Natural Painkiller
We have three types of tears: basal, reflex, and psychic. Psychic tears, the ones we produce when we are sad, have a different chemical makeup than the other two and contain a natural painkiller, leucine enkephalin, which is perhaps why we feel better after we cry. Researchers who compared emotional tears with basic lubricating and reflex tears found higher levels of stress-related chemicals and leucine enkephalin in psychic tears, suggesting that when strong feelings trigger the lacrimal system, your body literally washes stress hormones out of your eyes while dosing your nervous system with its own pain relief.
42. Objects moving at speeds, durations, and distances similar to those of our rapid eye movements (saccades) can become invisible to us, even when our eyes are still, and people with faster saccadic eye movements can perceive faster-moving objects better than those with slower ones. In a 2025 study, researchers showed that motion matching the timing and path of saccades can slip past awareness, revealing that our visual system partly “subtracts out” saccade-like motion and that individual differences in saccade speed set a limit on how well we see very fast-moving targets.
43. When we sleep, our brain cells shrink, encouraging cerebrospinal fluid to flow more freely and flush out toxins that have built up in the brain. Without this nightly washout, those waste products linger, which helps explain why we cannot think clearly after a sleepless night.
44. A newborn is triggered into its first breath by contractions that reduce oxygen flow through the umbilical cord, which increases carbon dioxide. The rise in carbon dioxide causes acidosis that triggers the respiratory center of the brain and makes the baby start using its lungs. In this way, the stress of labor itself flips the switch from placental gas exchange to independent breathing, forcing the infant to take that crucial first breath.
45. In traditional societies that have no access to processed sugars and white flour, many indigenous people have no cavities and flash perfect pearly white teeth, even though tooth brushing is rare. When the next generation of natives begin eating processed food, they start to develop crooked teeth, showing how a rapid dietary shift can distort previously healthy, naturally aligned smiles.
15 Most Controversial & Costly Blunders in History
46 Aorta Needs Its Own Vessels
The aorta, the main artery in humans, is so thick that it requires its own network of smaller vessels to supply its walls with blood. Known as the vasa vasorum, these tiny arteries and veins run through the outer layers of the aortic wall to deliver oxygen and nutrients that the blood in the lumen cannot diffuse far enough to provide.
47. Glaucoma is almost always caused by too much pressure inside one or both eyes, and people typically do not experience symptoms until the optic nerve has already been damaged. It is a group of eye conditions that progressively damage the optic nerve and can lead to irreversible vision loss or blindness, which is why regular comprehensive eye exams are crucial for detecting the problem before symptoms appear.
48. Wounds itch because of our natural allergen, histamine, which causes blood vessels to expand while the sore is healing, and because new nerve cells are very sensitive and react to even the slightest movement with a sensation of an itch. Together, that histamine-driven vessel expansion and the hyperreactive new nerve cells make healing skin feel intensely itchy as it repairs.
49. Hearing loss increases the risk of getting Alzheimer’s disease, because damaged nerve cells in the brain’s “hearing” section cause adjacent brain areas to become inactive. As those regions sit underused, overall brain function can decline over time, making untreated hearing loss a significant and often overlooked risk factor for dementia.
50. Meralgia paresthetica is a medical condition that causes nerve pain in the leg, and a common treatment is to wear bigger pants, which is why it is also called tight pants syndrome or skinny jeans syndrome. In this disorder, pressure on the lateral femoral cutaneous nerve as it passes through the pelvis or groin causes burning, tingling, or numbness on the outer thigh, and loosening belts or clothing and losing weight often relieve the symptoms without surgery.
RE: Fact #14 (Teeth Only Communicate As Pain) – Thankfully, my teeth don’t get aroused.
What, you don’t want hard teeth?
What if your teeth went soft, unless you were hungry?
RE: Fact #40 (Sigh Reflex Keeps Alveoli Inflated) – Okay, now I’m gonna be panicking and sighing every five minutes just to make sure my lungs don’t collapse.
I’m really worried I’m not sighing enough now.
The autonomic nervous system works behind the scenes to keep you alive, so you don’t have to think about it. You can’t stop yourself from sighing any more than you can stop yawning, breathing, stretching, or having a heartbeat. No worries at all. Edit: autonomic, not autonomous, sorry.
RE: Fact #41 (Psychic Tears Contain Natural Painkiller) – I found out about this a long time ago when my eyes stopped making enough tear lubrication. I’m basically stuck on eye drops for the rest of my life. I’ve tried the prescription ones that claim to boost natural tear production, but they didn’t work and burned like acid. Stupid eyes. One more thing people don’t always know: Visine isn’t for dry eyes. They do make a dry eye formula, but regular Visine is for redness. It won’t help if your eyes are dry. If you’ve been crying, out in the wind, etc., grab something like Blink, GenTeal, or any brand that says “lubricating” or “dry eye relief.”
Whenever my eyes get dry, I feel like I gotta kill a family member.
That’s the irony — crying actually dehydrates your eyes.
RE: Fact #15 (Lab-Grown Vaginas Restore Function) – That’s actually pretty amazing.
Yep, there’s a short interview with one of the young ladies who got an implant. She’s from Mexico, but medical professionals at Wake Forest Baptist in North Carolina did the surgery. Since some factrepublic users asked, here’s more info. The big question was, do these patients have working ovaries? Can’t say for everyone, but the young woman mentioned in that interview said she has a kind of Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser syndrome. Apparently, with that, your vagina might be underdeveloped or missing, yet your ovaries can still work fine. For her specifically, getting pregnant is a possibility. Though two other patients didn’t have all their reproductive organs working as they should. I looked up Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser, and what I found was: This issue means the vagina and uterus are either not fully developed or just not there at all, even though everything on the outside looks normal. Typically, women with this don’t get their periods because there’s no uterus. Often, the first sign someone has MRKH syndrome is when they don’t start menstruating by sixteen. These women have a normal female chromosome pattern and ovaries that work correctly. Their breasts and pubic hair also develop normally. While most women with this condition can’t carry a pregnancy themselves, they might still be able to have children using assisted reproduction methods. If it’s just the reproductive organs, it’s called MRKH syndrome type 1. But some women with MRKH also have other body parts affected; that’s MRKH syndrome type 2. With this type, kidneys might be shaped or placed weirdly, or one might not form at all. People often have bone problems too, especially with their spine. Plus, females with MRKH type 2 could have trouble hearing or heart issues.
RE: Fact #12 (Earlobe Crease Predicts Heart Disease) – If you don’t have one initially, does it show up as the illness advances? Is it a sign the disease is there, or more of a predictor that you might get it later?
The fact suggested that the crease might simply come from getting older.
RE: Fact #8 (Happy And Sad Tears Confused) – Your hypothalamus, man, it’s just so clueless. It can’t tell a rapid testosterone drop from your body needing to sweat like mad because it’s super hot. What a dumb part of your brain.
Seriously! For something in your brain, it’s incredibly ignorant.
Even with minimal brain research, you’d quickly learn it’s a very lazy and stubborn organ.
RE: Fact #14 (Teeth Only Communicate As Pain) – You know that feeling when something’s stuck in your teeth, causing pressure? And the big relief when it finally comes out? Is that like anti-pain?
RE: Fact #33 (Tear Ducts Drain Into Nose) – If a marble gets stuck in a kid’s nose, it turns slimy and hard to pull out. Make them cry, the extra tears lubricate it, and then it comes out easy!
RE: Fact #10 (Three To Five Coffees Safest) – So, when they looked at folks who drink the least coffee, the risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) was 0.95 for the heaviest drinkers. Then it was 0.85 for the second heaviest group, and 0.89 for the third heaviest. Does this mean that drinking like 3.5 cups a day or even 1.5 cups daily actually carries less CVD risk than having 5 cups a day? If you compare it to having no coffee, 5 cups is 5% less risk, 3.5 cups is 15% less, and 1.5 cups is 11% less.
RE: Fact #9 (EDAR Mutation Reshaped East Asians) – This just came back to me: mammary glands, get this, they’re actually just altered sweat glands.
Here’s a fun fact for you: platypuses manage this whole thing with a super primitive setup. They basically just excrete milk, and their babies simply lap it right off the mother for food. Honestly, how these fu*kers are still alive is beyond me.
RE: Fact #33 (Tear Ducts Drain Into Nose) – I saw a guy squirting milk through that thing.
Wow. You just reminded me of that Icarly episode where a guy sucked milk up through his nose and cried, squirts it out of his eyelids. I always thought it was fake, but now I get how they did it.
That’s how you get a nasty eye infection.
I can blow air through mine and hear a little whine come out.
RE: Fact #20 (Human Faces Shifted Slightly Left) – So, I’m curious, does this mean we could actually tell if a picture of someone we don’t know is mirrored, like, better than just guessing?
RE: Fact #7 (Drunken Sleep Causes Nerve Palsy) – “Saturday night palsy” gave me the creeps, so I figured I’d share my own story. On December 7, 2019, I woke up unable to lift my left wrist, with my hand and forearm feeling both numb and in total agony. I hadn’t partied or done anything weird the night before. I actually remember that night perfectly; I took a bath and went to sleep early because I was so cold. Around 3 AM, I woke up with extreme pain in my upper arm and spent hours putting an ice pack on it for some comfort. By morning, my left hand was just hanging there, totally useless. It was genuinely terrifying, but also a little funny. My doctor just called it Saturday Night Palsy, then completely disappeared on me when the pandemic hit and everything went crazy. Four months later, since nothing had changed, I found a different neurologist and a surgeon to examine me. They diagnosed me with Parsonage Turner Syndrome, which meant my radial nerve spontaneously tightened in three spots between my shoulder and elbow. The doctor explained Saturday night palsy would require me to have bent my upper arm in three places while I slept that initial night, which wasn’t even possible. This kind of constriction is usually seen in people after car accidents, but for me, it was just sh*tty genetics. I had multiple MRIs, ultrasounds, and some really painful nerve conduction tests done. Because my situation was so random, I was one of only 11 recorded cases, and my arm was actually shown at a conference about radial nerve issues. I was so excited to finally get a diagnosis and read about my specific symptoms in his medical books after months of wondering when it would all just stop. Somewhere in the neurology field, pictures of the inside of my arm are in medical texts. I had an operation that May to get rid of those hourglass-shaped constrictions. By then, my arm had withered down to just bone and tendon. I couldn’t lift anything and needed tons of medication to cope with the daily onslaught of various pains and strange feelings. As of April 2023, I’ve got about 80% use back in my left hand. I can lift my wrist, but I still can’t make a peace sign. Being an IT professional for 25 years, I don’t have enough function in my left hand to type normally, so I now just peck everything out with my index finger. Despite all that, I’m incredibly happy to have the movement I do now. I haven’t seen any more improvement in several months, so I think my three-year healing journey might be over. I’m truly thankful to my surgeon for the incredible job he did.
RE: Fact #17 (Laser-Made Color Olo Explained) – Octarine. Absolutely, they ought to be dealing with octarine; it just oozes magic.
RE: Fact #36 (Brain Downplays Personal Death Threat) – Well, I don’t know about you guys, but I’m totally planning on living forever. So far so good.
Scientists think the first person to live to 120 has already been born. I think that person is me.
I actually think I’m the one they’re talking about.
Everyone thinks they’ll live forever, until they don’t.
RE: Fact #7 (Drunken Sleep Causes Nerve Palsy) – A couple of years back, this totally happened to me. Waking up the next day was super scary; I seriously thought I’d had a stroke or something. The doctor explained what was up, saying it’d clear up in a few weeks. But my nerves stayed off, and I couldn’t fully use my hand or wrist for almost two months. I had this small plastic cast on that whole time. Turns out, nerves only grow back about as fast as a human hair’s width each day.
The exact same thing went down with me, and getting completely better took just as long, possibly even more time. Having to stress over it was definitely not fun.
I’m only just now getting over this, and it was in my shoulder and neck. It feels like the worst kind of neck crick, but the pain is actually in my back. I used to be so confused when folks talked about nerve damage hurting, since I always thought it was mainly about numbness. Now I totally get it, though; it can be incredibly painful. It’s almost like hitting your funny bone, but then your whole arm’s muscles seize up.
This happened to a bouncer at a bar where I used to work. Then suddenly, one day, he just didn’t show up for work anymore. Six months went by, and he eventually returned with a huge scar on his arm and serious nerve damage in his hand. He’d passed out drunk in his garage for around 16 hours. Now, his hand looks like a crab claw. Seriously, this is not something to mess with.
RE: Fact #18 (Gene-Repaired Skin Saves Child) – Yeah, this might sound a bit odd, but does anyone have pictures of what it looked like when the wound was open?
It’s not quite as awful as it sounds. If you’re looking for something way worse, like ten times more like a real open wound, you’d want to look up something called Harlequin ichthyosis baby. Just be warned, it’s really not safe for life viewing.
Those sound absolutely terrible, and I just don’t think I have the courage to even search. Fu*k.
Oh man, Harlequin ichthyosis baby. Yeah, that’s a fu*king pretty disturbing condition, for sure.
Same here, that’s exactly what I’m looking for.
RE: Fact #39 (Chest Blows Trigger Commotio Cordis) – It stops your heart, not just affects it. And when they say it kills within 3 minutes, they mean it’s way less likely you’ll get shocked back to life if there’s a delay.
A heart that’s stopped is called asystole. This condition can happen if something’s not treated, but the main reason is the blunt force hitting the chest, which messes up the heart’s rhythm because of weird electrical signals. That’s why you need defibrillation right away to fix that electrical issue. You can’t shock a heart that’s already stopped.
No, it’s not. Cardiac arrest, which means a stopped heart, is actually asystole, ventricular fibrillation, or pulseless ventricular tachycardia. V fib is a pulseless rhythm—basically cardiac arrest. It’s not like your heart is still working but just interrupted or messed up. It’s actually the heart tissue just quivering. There’s electrical activity happening, but it’s not making a proper heartbeat. I spent a lot of years as a nurse in the cardiac cath lab, and I’ve actually seen this happen way too many times. It’s also something we do in the lab—give a small shock at the right moment in the heartbeat—to test new ICDs and make sure they can shock the patient out of the dangerous arrhythmia we create. Spinchter-clenching stuff! lol
RE: Fact #11 (Different Arm Pressures Signal Danger) – Great. Like I really needed more to think about.
Oh, I’ll definitely pitch in! There are over a hundred kinds of cancer. Plus, in the US, about 42% of people will likely get it at some point in their lives.
RE: Fact #17 (Laser-Made Color Olo Explained) – You can actually get a visual like this without needing lasers at all. When this fact was shared previously, someone pointed out a straightforward method. It’s just a matter of staring at a super red square for a couple of minutes, then immediately shifting your gaze to a green one. That red color causes your eye’s sensors to adjust, making the green square afterwards look incredibly vibrant. I can totally vouch for it; that was the most intensely green shade I’ve ever come across.
RE: Fact #44 (Labor Stress Triggers First Breath) – Seeing my daughter being born was crazy. She came out looking almost lifeless and then suddenly started crying and breathing on her own.
You saw her boot up for the first time. Aww.
RE: Fact #29 (Mustard Shots Stop Muscle Cramps) – From my country, outside the US, we just say ‘cramp.’ Nobody says ‘Charley Horse.’ It’s kinda funny, though. Normally, Brits have all these quirky old-fashioned words. Americans often tease. But here, this time it’s totally flipped.
RE: Fact #23 (Sweat Powered Human Persistence Hunting) – Yeah, being hairless lets us get the most cooling from sweat. We’re totally made for endurance running. Humans are just so good at it.
Well, next time a lion chases me, I’ll just tell him that life’s more like a marathon than a sprint!
Given we’re like pack animals, a lion would probably only go after you if you were weak, or if your group pushed you out to the edges for some reason. So, as long as you’re in good shape, healthy, and everyone likes you, you’re probably fine.
Lions actually hunt by ambushing their prey. It’s leopards that chase people down.
Think about how we run marathons. How many animals can actually run for that long?
They have this human versus horse race in Wales every single year. On two different times, when it was a really hot day, the people actually won. Horses tend to do better on cooler days, though.
Seriously, none. Humans can outrun just about any other animal on Earth over long distances. Only dogs and horses can almost keep pace with us for a while.
RE: Fact #49 (Hearing Loss Raises Dementia Risk) – I knew there was a reason my dad told me not to play music so loud through my headphones, but I just can’t remember what it was.
RE: Fact #21 (Empty Nose Syndrome Suffocation Feeling) – Just found out something new today, but honestly, I wish I hadn’t learned it. Sounds absolutely awful.
RE: Fact #21 (Empty Nose Syndrome Suffocation Feeling) – One time I got super high and literally couldn’t feel anything in my whole body, even my nose. To make sure I was still breathing, I had to hum with every inhale and exhale. That night I was just a consciousness floating around, making odd sounds. Hey kids, stay in school, and if that first edible doesn’t seem to hit, definitely don’t take more. I still had a blast, though, watching The Buckaroo Banzai Across The 8th Dimension. Awesome film. No clue what it’s even about.
RE: Fact #18 (Gene-Repaired Skin Saves Child) – This really shows how amazing genetic therapy can be. I’m so looking forward to when this tech can actually cultivate entire organs, maybe even a new pancreas.
Being a smoker myself, getting a new lung sounds appealing, but also kinda pointless. I wonder if gene therapy might help with addiction, like maybe resetting brain cells, or whatever part of the brain reacts to addictive stuff.
RE: Fact #39 (Chest Blows Trigger Commotio Cordis) – My teammate died that way playing hockey. He went down to block a shot and the puck went straight into his chest. Doctors said it hit right between heartbeats and messed with his rhythm so bad that his heart just stopped. His mom was a nurse and tried to revive him on the ice, but it was too late. The only way he might’ve survived was if a defibrillator had shocked him right after the puck hit him. I still think about him sometimes, 25 years later.
My dad played hockey in high school and took a puck to the chin — it knocked out his middle tooth. Once everyone realized he lost a tooth, his mom rushed down from the stands and started yelling for everyone to stop the game so they could find it. They found it on the ice, somehow. A few hours later, he was at the dentist getting it put back in. The tooth was dead by then, but it didn’t matter — he kept it in his mouth for about 40 years. You could tell it was dead because of a black ring around the gumline. He only got it replaced with a dental implant and crown a few years ago.
It launched his middle tooth right out of his mouth… does… does your dad have teeth like your hands have fingers? I don’t have a “middle tooth”? They’re symmetrical.
I chipped my two front teeth at age 7 and my twin sister did the same at 10. It’s funny how strong the instinct is to find the tooth, even though you can’t really do anything with it once you’ve got it.
RE: Fact #12 (Earlobe Crease Predicts Heart Disease) – Wonder how many FactRepublic users are snapping pics of their earlobes right now?
RE: Fact #2 (Most Nutritious Human Body Parts) – chewing on someone elses teeth is way more horrifying than anything else listed cant even handle a tiny shell in my eggs
had no idea this would freak me out so much
same here my whole body tensed up when i read it
RE: Fact #44 (Labor Stress Triggers First Breath) – Being an animal baby is a nightmare. You’ve got like thirty seconds to figure out how to breathe, stand up, and see the lion coming.
RE: Fact #10 (Three To Five Coffees Safest) – For a long time, people thought that consuming some alcohol, especially red wine, was actually good for you. They saw study results that made it seem that way. Sure, they did try to control for other things. But it turns out, you just can’t account for absolutely everything. Think about it: folks who drink a moderate amount of red wine often have more money. On the other hand, many who avoid alcohol completely are recovering from addiction and have years of heavy drinking in their past. It’s a similar story with coffee. People who drink a decent amount might have specific jobs, like office roles with free coffee machines. Those who don’t drink any coffee could have chosen that because caffeine makes them feel bad due to various existing health conditions. Someone who gets up at 4:30 AM to exercise might drink a lot of coffee, but that coffee probably isn’t what makes them so healthy.
Plus, individuals dealing with health issues might react poorly to coffee. They could decide not to drink it simply because of how it affects them, even if they’re unaware of the true medical problem causing it.
Yeah, that’s exactly right. I usually have two double espressos daily, loaded with cold milk and sugar. My heart health is actually pretty good too. How come? Well, the work that lets me enjoy those drinks free of charge every day is in electronics retail. We have a demo coffee machine there that we can use ourselves. And that kind of work keeps me moving constantly; I easily hit 10,000 steps or more most days. Plus, there’s always some light lifting and a lot of different movements involved. So, it doesn’t mean my daily intake of fat, sugar, and caffeine is beneficial for me at all.
Some things we barely think about can really matter. For instance, if you use a paper filter for your coffee, it’s way better for your LDL cholesterol compared to those reusable permanent ones.
RE: Fact #2 (Most Nutritious Human Body Parts) – now they tell me not to eat the teeth first
how do you even chew teeth theyre literally made of teeth
RE: Fact #28 (Newborn Brains Devour Most Energy) – Five for lava pooping. Five for projectile barfing, spontaneously. Three for everything else.
And the nipple radar? Always running. Like some background app.
It’s just normal brain activity.
RE: Fact #40 (Sigh Reflex Keeps Alveoli Inflated) – This is useful stuff. Next time I sigh and someone asks, “What’s wrong? Are you sad? Bored?” I can just say, “I’m fine, I’m just trying to stop my lungs from collapsing, OK?”
RE: Fact #2 (Most Nutritious Human Body Parts) – isnt that what we eat from most animals dont think anyone eats cow teeth
RE: Fact #4 (Leg Vein Repurposed For Bypass) – Calling it ‘not needed’ for regular circulation isn’t quite right. It actually is important for that, but your body manages to cope even if it’s gone.
Well, if the body can get by without it, then by its very definition, it sounds like it’s not really essential.
RE: Fact #37 (Men And Women Share Ribcount) – I didn’t know it was a common myth that men and women have different numbers of ribs. I’ve never actually heard that before.
Yeah that was the bigger surprise to me.
I used to think that too, all the way through high school. A bunch of my classmates were just as shocked when the teacher said no, everyone has the same number of ribs. I always thought it was just a weird biological thing, and then I remembered that Bible story about how males and females had different numbers of ribs — I figured that was just a religious explanation for the difference.
But the Bible doesn’t actually say that, just that Adam gave a rib.
I always thought this was true back in the day. I was born in ’85. Before the Internet, you had to just go with what older folks said was real. Edit: in rural Texas.
RE: Fact #4 (Leg Vein Repurposed For Bypass) – Wow, this has to be one of the most interesting facts I’ve come across on factrepublic. Thanks so much for sharing it.
It’s wild that someone or a whole team even figured this out. The human body is already so intricate, so I wouldn’t instantly think, ‘Alright, what can we actually remove or change here?’ That’s just a funny way to put it.
RE: Fact #33 (Tear Ducts Drain Into Nose) – I once had an eyelash get stuck in my tear duct. For a whole day, it was super annoying. I finally saw the tip poking out and managed to pull it out with tweezers. So much better right away!
RE: Fact #42 (Saccade-Like Motion Disappears From Awareness) – This effect shows up in Blindsight by Peter Watts, where it gives the aliens a kind of invisibility cloak. It’s an excellent read, with ideas rooted in real biological processes, and it’s written by a marine biologist. One of the best first contact stories I’ve seen, it really makes you rethink what we assume aliens might be like and what could drive them.
RE: Fact #7 (Drunken Sleep Causes Nerve Palsy) – One time, I passed out with my arm draped right over the side of the bed, my elbow sitting perfectly on the mattress edge. When I woke up, I couldn’t bend my arm at all for more than an hour. I started heading toward the hospital, but thankfully it just went away right before I arrived.
Haha, the exact same thing happened to me, but I woke up with sleep paralysis too and couldn’t move anything at all.
If you get sleep paralysis, try licking the roof of your mouth; that trick always works for me.
Stephen King wrote a short story about this retired Vietnam veteran who’s golfing, gets bitten by a rare poisonous snake, and then slowly becomes paralyzed as his heart rate drops super low. At the hospital, they’re about to say he’s dead, but then he gets an erection while a nurse is checking his private parts, and that’s how they figure out he’s still alive. So, if you ever end up in a situation like that, just pop a boner… it might just save your life.
RE: Fact #34 (Microsurgery Made Limb Replantation Possible) – I’ll be honest, I was watching Vinland Saga with some friends and guys get cut up in that show. So I say, “they better get their limbs and try to get them reattached by a doctor.” My friend says, “that’s not possible for like a thousand years.” I say, “nah, we’ve been attaching limbs for a long time.” Well, I was completely wrong—this is way more complicated than I thought. Seriously, sewing in individual blood vessels is an impressive feat. Kudos to all the doctors around the world who figured out those techniques.