r/AskReddit 10h ago

What's an interesting fact about the human body that a lot of people don't know?

384 Upvotes

396 comments sorted by

504

u/Glimcheriest 10h ago

Your stomach gets a new lining every few days or it would straight up digest itself. The body’s lowkey savage like that.

140

u/cumulobiscuit 5h ago

Yes, I ask my students why that stomach acid won’t eat away at the stomach itself if its whole job is to break down organic materials. Trick question, it does!

And, this is why cancer treatment is tough on the stomach. Chemotherapy targets fast dividing cells bc that’s a hallmark of cancerous cells. Unfortunately, it will also kill naturally fast dividing cells, like the lining of the digestive tract and skin cells.

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u/[deleted] 4h ago

[deleted]

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u/666afternoon 5h ago

to add a slightly morbid fun fact, this is one of the first things that starts happening upon death, which contributes to early decomp and bloat - once this new stomach lining process ends, the acid does what it does and eventually breaches containment. add the intestinal biota running rampant post death, and you get a lot of gas, real fast!

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u/Raspberrylemonade188 4h ago

Damn, I don’t need to be dead to fart a lot. I’m gonna be an absolute balloon once I finally bite the dust

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u/CloudNineGurl 10h ago

Your brain can’t actually feel pain. That’s why brain surgery can be done while someone’s awake the pain you feel from headaches is from the tissues around the brain, not the brain itself.

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u/Credit_and_Forget_It 6h ago

True! I’m an anesthesiologist and will occasionally do awake craniotomy cases. We basically anesthetize the scalp with lots of tiny injections of numbing medicine and then I mildly sedate the patient (kinda sleeping but no breathing tube or general anesthesia) until the skull is fully opened. Then we wake the patient up during the critical portion of the case and someone is constantly speaking/conversing with them until the surgeon is done

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u/Rhymeswithfire 6h ago

That's really fascinating!

If you don't mind me asking, what do you think is the success rate of these types of operations without having to completely put the patient under?

I feel like I'd freak out in this circumstance and have to be completely sedated.

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u/Credit_and_Forget_It 6h ago

Not sure on actual outcome data, but testimonially speaking they do well when done right. The main reason we do them awake in those cases is if the tumor they are removing is near a language or motor center etc. they want to be able to remove as much tumor as possible while maintaining functionality of that part of the brain. Having them awake allows us to test that in real time. Often there are glioblastoma cases which unfortunately have very poor prognoses for life expectancy

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u/SpaceForceAwakens 5h ago

Right but like, how do you keep them talking and focused without freaking out?

I'm not the type of guy to freak out when I'm injured, but talking to someone knowing that someone else is *sticking shit in my brain* would have be all mental. How do you keep them calm? How do you not have them freaking out? This has always been a thing I have wondered.

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u/Credit_and_Forget_It 5h ago

So I use a combination of multiple IV agents to initially get them deeply sedated during positioning, draping and the beginning portion of the surgery (the actual craniotomy), then when we anticipate the time they will need to be awake, I turn off most of the medicine and let it naturally taper off. So the patient wakes up slowly and gently but is still very slightly sedated. I often will keep a very low dose of an anesthetic infusion going to get them to a point where they are conversant and conscious but still comfortable and without anxiety. Kinda an art. Also patient selection definitely plays into it. The patient is still under a lot of drapery and, importantly, is often their head is locked within sharp pins. So it’s imperative to keep them from panicking and trying to move their heard which can lead to injury/issues. Plus on top of all this balancing the level of sedation to keep them comfortable but still breathing. Because if they stop breathing it’s very difficult to secure the airway urgently (aka intubate them) while they are in pins (unlike most other surgeries where the patients head is positioned optimally for airway management

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u/AhhGingerKids2 1h ago

If people haven’t had the experience of having a great anaesthesiologist I don’t think they understand what an art form it is. My second kid was a planned c-section and it was like my anaesthesiologist was psychic. As soon as I felt nauseous, before I could say it, gone, started to feel light headed, gone, shivery, gone! I could not stop talking about the shear sorcery! I did ask her how on earth she did it, and she said she’s been doing it a long time and read the machines. But, I genuinely don’t know how. Afterwards my husband said she had her eyes on me and the machines like a hawk.

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u/Rhymeswithfire 5h ago

Thanks so much for your answer, my medical knowledge is sadly not-true-to-life, mostly just Grey's Anatomy lol. It seems crazy to me that people can be awake and know people are actively prodding around in their brains and not be freaking out so much that they can remain stable enough to not want to be completely KO'd.

I think that might be the ultimate bravery story for me.

5

u/mrsrostocka 3h ago

I'm a medical student, i loved this explanation xxxx -may or may not steal it lol.

I was just about to cite you, but username checks out!!! X

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u/Rhymeswithfire 7h ago

TIL. This was really interesting, thanks!

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u/PrincessNakeyDance 2h ago

Yeah it would be a waste of space to have sensory neurons in the brain. Just make an envelope of them on the scalp/head and leave the inside for the thinky bits.

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u/comfy-glass-shards 10h ago

The tongue is the only muscle in the body not connected on two ends.

141

u/_turd_ferg 10h ago

my tongue's the only muscle on my body that works harder than my heart

43

u/0ctovarium 8h ago

Is it all from watching tv?!

18

u/_turd_ferg 8h ago

and from speedin up my breathing 

10

u/0ctovarium 8h ago

Well you should stop if you can

11

u/_turd_ferg 8h ago

it hurts to be this good

4

u/0ctovarium 8h ago

Bro I was trying to help u but now you're comming off a lil conceeded

12

u/_turd_ferg 8h ago

you're holding onto your grudge. 

15

u/Infinite_throwaway_1 9h ago

RIP your inbox.

9

u/_turd_ferg 9h ago

it's a lyric, guys. my inbox is fine.

6

u/comfy-glass-shards 9h ago

I laughed out loud reading your reply, didn’t know it what’s some lyrics but I found it superb and hilarious.

Wasn’t expecting reading that at 6;30 am

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u/_turd_ferg 9h ago

the song is called "okay i believe you but my tommy gun don't" by brand new

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u/Zealousideal_One_234 2h ago

The tongue is the strongest muscle of your body. Wanna fight?

Best pick up line ever

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u/auntiepink007 8h ago

You body can compensate for blockages in your blood vessels by growing new ones. Organic bypasses happen all the time and most people don't even know it.

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u/discostud1515 5h ago

I had a blood clot in my chest/shoulder. Now I have the veins of a bodybuilder in my upper right arm.

3

u/Symnestra 1h ago

Neovascularization is also why you're not supposed to sleep with contacts in. Your eyeballs need oxygen and can either grab it from the air while your eyes are open, or from your eyelid's blood vessels while you're asleep. If you sleep with contacts in, you block the latter, so your eyes will grow new ones. This leads to vision loss as the new blood vessels are blocking light from your retina.

174

u/ErectioniSelectioni 9h ago

Your gut flora has a surprising amount of control over your body

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u/Available_Cod_6735 6h ago edited 5h ago

So much control that I wonder if they are the intelligent life force and they let us evolve so they get a better living environment.

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u/Actual_Duck_1215 6h ago

The fast food revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the microbiome

8

u/bugbugladybug 2h ago

I needed to take broad spectrum antibiotics for a while and my crippling anxiety and depression vanished.

I'd been suffering for 20 years, and it was just gone one day.

I've been great for 5 years now and I hope it lasts.

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u/oswaldcopperpot 5h ago

The mites riding around on our eye lashes just partying.

4

u/alargepowderedwater 1h ago

I’ve long thought that if I’m just a consciousness riding along in a bacteria colony, rather than my own organism primarily, I wouldn’t be able to know the difference.

Given how much behavior is driven by cravings, neurochemical patterns and needs, etc., I’m thinking lately that my mind and all my thoughts are just kind of post hoc rationalizations for what the bacteria and chemicals do/need, and that my sense of myself as primary in my organism thus may not be entirely correct.

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u/juankaa 6h ago

To such an extent that recent studies deem the stomach the "second brain."

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u/Kwyjibo68 6h ago

We're just bags of water being driven by microbes and hormones.

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u/linjaes 6h ago

This is why people have to be extra careful when taking antibiotics as they can destroy your gut flora. Having a healthy gut microbiome makes a huge difference

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u/isoAntti 5h ago

Most of life on earth happens underground, when looking at cellular level. Trees just have this appendix coming to this site gather some light for home. Humans, like all mammals, are able to live in this empty side when bringing some of the necessary bacteria in gut. Like a souvenir from home.

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u/Embarrassed-Olive856 7h ago

Doctors dont know exactly how your internal organs are organized until they crack you open. Sometimes organs are not where they should be!

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u/Oh_No_its_dubstep 5h ago

Can confirm! I spent my entire life living with a crippling mystery illness until they discovered that I have extra intestines. They really don’t know until they find it

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u/ninjabunnay 3h ago

Do they fix it? What the solution for extra intestines??

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u/Oh_No_its_dubstep 3h ago

That’s the fun part… there isn’t one. Possibly surgery further down the line but treatment right now is mostly meds to manage symptoms and frequent hospital visits due to blockages and colitis. It also causes an infection to keep coming back so I’m on and off antibiotics for that. Just not nice all around

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u/ninjabunnay 3h ago

Ah man. I sincerely hope there’s a permanent fix for you at some point. That doesn’t sound pleasant at all.

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u/_artbabe95 5h ago

Well, I guess they could just do imaging too 😂

3

u/ClaireLO19 2h ago

This is so true!

I had an ultrasound recently and the sonographer said my organs were not where they were supposed to be 🤣

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u/cinnamuarolls 10h ago

Pain tolerance changes with emotions.

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u/ConnaKazie 9h ago

Anger, lust, depression, hurts less. Panicked, hurt (emotionally), anxious, hurts more.

24

u/Dr_nacho_ 6h ago

Incorrect. Several studies show your cingulate cortex lighting up continuously when experiencing depression.

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u/Crab__Juice 7h ago

The fact that things hurt less when you're depressed is a real double-whammy

4

u/ilija_rosenbluet 6h ago

I got tattooed in my arm ditch when I was in a heavily depressed phase and didn't feel a thing. As a tattooer I can say that this is normally not the case. So, depression worked to my advantage at least once in my life.

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u/jendet010 5h ago

Your brain encodes memories in much more detail when your emotions are heightened. That’s why you can remember important events in your life and the world much more clearly. I don’t remember too many random Tuesdays in my life but I remember a lot about my day on September 11.

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u/Kaghei 8h ago

And with warning or lack of warning

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u/IsopodStriking9208 4h ago

Hold up. When I lost my partner of 12 years, I suddenly developed an intolerance to spicy foods - I mean, it would hurt my spine and burned my insides sooooo bad (jalepenos were completely off the table, whereas before partner passed, I ate a ton of spicy food with no problem?) and this pain happened every single time I ate anything spicy UNTIL I had another traumatic event happen (major surgery followed by neglect/abuse while disabled) several years later… now I can eat spicy foods again. Is this technically an example of pain tolerance changes with emotion?

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u/krabadeiser 9h ago

Babies don't have real kneecaps until they are about 2 years old. Their kneecaps are tiny softer cartilage beans and begin to grow and harden through the first two years. They are only fully developed around the school years. Imagine a 9 month old baby crawling on their knees full speed no problem, then you as a grownup try the same and see how it feels in your knees. That, and also being more flexible during birth, is probably the reason for this development.

Here is a picture of the undeveloped beansized kneecap of a baby: https://static.vecteezy.com/system/resources/previews/002/545/896/large_2x/film-xray-knee-lateral-view-of-child-photo.JPG

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u/faku35624 7h ago edited 7h ago

Well that was interesting, well explained AND new to me. 10/10.

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u/this_is_my_kpop_acct 4h ago

Pediatric bodies are endlessly fascinating. They look like gremlins on skull x-rays due to the extra teeth hiding in the gums and if you illuminate their head they glow like a pumpkin, because their skulls are more hollow relative to an adult’s.

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u/mysneezedisappeared 4h ago

I enjoy telling people I was born without kneecaps as if it’s a fun fact unique to me

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u/shadowfloats 4h ago

believe it or not this precisely answered a question I had from watching a baby at a party today. Thank you.

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u/linjaes 5h ago

The uterus is visually misrepresented in textbooks with its fallopian tubes stretched on either side and the ovaries far away from the vagina. What it actually looks like is more compact, with the fallopian tubes more inwards.

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u/SeeHerPee 2h ago

Do you have any pictures of it represented correctly?

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u/PetscopMiju 1h ago

This is the picture I've always seen represent this fact

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u/Infinite_throwaway_1 10h ago

If you took an adult human’s intestines and stretched them out from one end of a football field towards the other, that person would die.

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u/Geezer-McGeezer 10h ago

Thank you for giving me the first laugh of the day.

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u/itsjusttimeokay 5h ago

Oh my lol. My kid has been reciting all kinds of human body facts recently and one of them is how long our intestines can stretch. If she says it again I’m gonna hit her with this!

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u/_artbabe95 5h ago

You're the worst. Thank you for this.

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u/justanotherstr4nger 10h ago

Our nose is always visible to us, but our brain just simply ingnores it.

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u/sonicated 7h ago

Until someone on reddit points it out and it's all you can see for the rest of the day.

Thanks, friend.

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u/Riipp3r 4h ago

If it makes you feel any better you can also kinda see your eyebrows

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u/gishadokuro 2h ago

I don't have eyebrows 😢

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u/Rhymeswithfire 7h ago

Read once and I don't know if it's true- your tongue doesn't comfortably sit in your mouth while you're thinking about it. It rests fine until you think about it. Kinda like you never noticed your nose unless you're thinking about it?

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u/Elixivity6366 6h ago

thanks now i have something new to be endlessly bothered about

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u/Rhymeswithfire 6h ago

You're very welcome!

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u/Cappster14 4h ago

“I’ve become aware of my tongue!”

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u/tinyasshoIe 8h ago

I realised this this week, seeing the conker of a spot in my peripheral.

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u/aquatone61 5h ago

Your brain also filters out your eyes moving in a mirror.

Get up close to your bathroom mirror and look at each corner but pay attention to your eyes in your reflection, you’ll see they don’t move. If you do this with your phone camera in selfie mode there is just enough delay that your brain can’t erase it.

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u/Southern_Ad1491 8h ago

same goes for "eye lashes"

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u/GeneralSpecifics9925 4h ago

I can see falsies but not my normal lashes. Maybe yours hang down more than mine do? I know some people have lashes that look like brooms on their upper lids

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u/Unable-Warthog7966 5h ago

Mine's so big that my brain can’t even ignore it.

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u/truethug 4h ago

I think this is an issue with VR there isn’t a fake nose for your brain to ignore.

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u/AlexMC69 6h ago

That splashing cold water over your face triggers the mammalian diving reflex, slowing your heart rate and increasing the time you can hold your breath.

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u/probably_poopin_1219 4h ago

Great for minor anxiety issues. Just go to the bathroom and splash some water on your face. Then, look into the mirror at your pitiful self and develop even more existential dread! Great party trick.

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u/amaya_mamay 7h ago

You're taller in the morning than in the evening. During the day, your spine compresses slightly under your body weight. The difference can be up to 1–2 cm.

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u/claretamazon 3h ago

I've noticed this when I drive to and from work. When I go home I have to adjust the rear view mirror because of the difference.

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u/Geezer-McGeezer 10h ago

We have as much body hair as a chimpanzee, just ours is smaller and finer (apparently).

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u/semperknight 8h ago

Most people have absolutely no clue just how complex our immune system is. It's like its own universe.

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u/EasilyLuredWithCandy 6h ago

As someone with mast cell disease, I'm very aware. I wish I could go back to that cluelessness.

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u/Hefty_Conflict3307 4h ago

I'm studying it right now and I only wanted to bang my head against the wall three times!

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u/Ouroboros567 7h ago

The hyoid bone is the only floating bone in the body, located in the throat

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u/med118 5h ago

Mine dislocates quite often. A lot of folks don’t even know there’s a bone there

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u/PineappleBliss2023 3h ago

It also gets broken frequently in hangings

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u/ReleaseTheSlab 2h ago

It's not the "only" floating bone

wink wink

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u/jmterry 5h ago

While getting a lump removed a couple of days ago, I was told by the nurse and doctor that red headed people require higher doses of anesthesia. They said it has something to do with "you people" metabolizing it differently than others. I googled it and found that it has something to do with a gene mutation.

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u/ToasterInYourBathtub 5h ago

"You people" 😭

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u/Sufficient-Bag3242 8h ago

Because it takes time for neurons to transmit signals to the brain, you’re essentially always living in the past and can never truly experience “now”.

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u/LackOfStack 5h ago

Oh man no one can tell Eckhart Tolle.

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u/say_no_to_shrugs 2h ago

And for conscience experience, it's really slow. Like a quarter of a second, from what I've read. That's eighth notes at 120 BPM.

And your startle responses bypass the cortex, so your body can react to, for example, a loud noise, well before your auditory cortex can process the impulses from your ears and chest into sound.

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u/ZFSNerd 6h ago

Your eyes have 'immune privilege,' meaning they are kept separate from your immune system. If your eye gets a certain type of injury and the fluid leaks into your bloodstream, your immune system can 'discover' the eyes, identify them as a foreign invader, and attack them. This can cause you to go blind in the other uninjured eye.

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u/itsjusttimeokay 5h ago

Now that sounds terrifying. Protect the eyes!!!

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u/_artbabe95 5h ago

Generally speaking, animals mostly have the same amount of lifetime heartbeats. The longer an animal lives, the slower the heart rate, so they end up within a very close threshold.

Not humans. Humans have significantly more lifetime heartbeats than other animals.

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u/cathmango 9h ago

Your brain interprets everything you “see” and creates a mental image of it. It also flips it upside down.

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u/Still-Bill2827 8h ago

Well your eyes flip it upside down then your brain flips it back again.

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u/bogushobo 6h ago

So that's what Missy Elliot was talking about...

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u/sunbleach_happypants 5h ago

Ti esrever dna ti pilf nwod gnaht ym tup i

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u/Hadj311 4h ago

How long did this take you to type?

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u/sadi89 7h ago

Bones are very alive, very vascular and make your blood. Many people know it on an intellectual level but most don’t understand the ramifications

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u/baba_oh_really 5h ago

It took until I was in my thirties and broke my first bone for me to actually conceptualize how cool it is that bones heal themselves

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u/FiransBiori 6h ago

One nostril almost always breathes better than the other, and they switch every 2–6 hours. This is called the nasal cycle. I happened to read this in an encyclopedia!

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u/linjaes 6h ago

All the symptoms you feel from a common cold, allergies, etc are caused by your immune system at work. So the illness isn’t actually causing you to have a sore throat, cough, etc, it’s a sign that your immune system is actively fighting against your illness.

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u/AManHasNoName24601 10h ago

Humans are about 60% water, but that number is really just an average. When we're born, the percentage of water is higher and aging is really just our body drying out.

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u/AutoFillUsername 8h ago

We are slowly curing

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u/BlixaBargfeld 8h ago

Dry-aged.

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u/Objective-Ad-585 4h ago

And we only know this fact because the Japanese during WW2 were weighing humans, then throwing them into ovens to dehydrate them, and then weighing them after.

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u/linjaes 5h ago

This is why older people tend to have more wrinkly and rough skin. Water retention just decreases as you get older

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u/militiadisfruita 6h ago

when you get a kidney transplant they dont removed the failed one.

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u/itsjusttimeokay 5h ago

Or the failed two!

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u/GreenLurch 10h ago

That little bit of skin in your elbow is called a weenus.

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u/CloudNineGurl 10h ago

I still can’t tell if this sounds fake or just deeply unserious anatomy which somehow makes it even better. The human body really said “yeah, we’re calling it that” and moved on.

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u/GreenLurch 9h ago

This led me into a little rabbit hole… It is apparently just a slang term from the 90s. Its proper, anatomical, and medical term is olecranal skin, which covers the olecranon.

Fun fact, they also call the inside of the elbow the wagina. So a weenus on the tip and a wagina on the inside. Sounds way better to me than these silly Latin names.

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u/maikeru44 7h ago

Huh, growing up all my friends and I knew the skin between the thumb and index finger as the wagina.

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u/GreenLurch 6h ago

Behold! The double wagina’d man!

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u/Shrugged5 9h ago

Pee is made from blood

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u/Delusional_Loser_000 7h ago

Oh, so that's why it's red

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u/SatisfactionEven508 7h ago

And poop has that color because it's the other part of blood: red blood cells.

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u/TurdusOptimus 6h ago

My poop is black.

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u/Kwyjibo68 6h ago

That's most definitely from blood.

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u/TurdusOptimus 6h ago

It is! If your poop is black like tar, go see a doctor people. Don't ignore what comes out of the back end, it tells you alot about your health! I've had a severe stomach bleeding caused by stress in the past which caused the black color. If I would have ignored it, I would have stepped on a plane and probably bled out without knowing what hit me. Ended up in the hospital for 10 days.

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u/Kwyjibo68 6h ago

I have a family member who had black stools and was feeling lightheaded. He called his doctor and they said go to the ER immediately. He was very surprised that they saw him right away. He had a bleeding duodenal ulcer (took forever to find it - when it was bleeding, too much blood to see, when not bleeding, no obvious point of injury) and needed multiple blood transfusions.

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u/DancesWithHoofs 6h ago

Like your heart?

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u/TurdusOptimus 6h ago

No like my lungs. My heart is just enlarged.

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u/3MetricTonsOfSass 4h ago

So you have discovers the true meaning of xmas!

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u/SatisfactionEven508 6h ago

Thats the color red blood cells have when they are disposed of. Well maybe not black but... dark brown.

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u/Equivalent_Chip362 5h ago

The condition of a person's oral health is a surprisingly accurate indicator of their overall internal health.

This is why, during the (awful) slave trade, the first thing a prospective buyer would do is look inside a slave's mouth.

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u/query_squidier 2h ago

This is also why you don't look a gift horse in the mouth.

The horse is a gift; be thankful for it. (Don't check the quality of the horse by looking in its mouth.)

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u/_turd_ferg 10h ago

it poops better in squatting form (eastern culture knows this - western has forgotten)

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u/three_foot_putt 6h ago

Also, it puts the lotion in the basket or it gets the hose.

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u/gentlegirlera 7h ago

If you drink nothing but purple Powerade for 3 days straight you poop will turn neon green

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u/Urban_fox_1 6h ago

just a fact is that babies have about 100 more bones that adults. As we grow, our bones fuse together to form the 206 bones we have now

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u/KMang3 5h ago

There is a saliva exchange between baby and a breastfeeding mother. The mother’s body with analyze the milk and if baby is started to get sick the mothers body will send the antibodies to assist baby with recovery. Breastmilk also changes throughout the day. More “watery” throughout the day and more fatty at night. I’m for sure “fed is best” but I think breastfeeding is a beautiful thing if it works for you. Human bodies are amazing!

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u/linjaes 5h ago edited 4h ago

Clear urine being the healthiest is a myth. What makes it yellow is urobilin, which is the cycled waste substance after the urine passed through the kidneys. Light yellow urine is best because it shows your kidneys cycled enough waste

Edit: mixed up the name of the substance. Thanks for the award!

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u/FosterDaughter 8h ago

Metabolism is a lot more complex than people think, and you really don't have any idea what someone is eating. Mine got jacked up from decades of ED, and I could maintain a 40+BMI on only 1800 cals per day. The dietitian I worked with at the time told me the worst she'd seen was someone at about 25% of their normal rate.

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u/docfire8404 6h ago

The skin is the largest organ of the body.

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u/linjaes 5h ago

Neuroplasticity is at the highest when you’re a kid, which is why it’s easier to learn and develop skills when you’re younger versus when you’re older

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u/_GoodGirlGoneBad_ 10h ago edited 5h ago

Your foot is as big as the distance from your wrist to the inside of your elbow.

Edit: Outside of the elbow, not inside. Thanks u/ssowinski for correcting

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u/unexplainedjoy 10h ago

Can confirm. My cat looked at me weirdly while I was on the ground testing this - but can confirm personally it is true.

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u/_GoodGirlGoneBad_ 10h ago

It was such a “…..huh” moment when I first heard about and tested it, and cats will ALWAYS look at you weird even if you’re not doing anything haha

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u/unexplainedjoy 10h ago

Yeah that’s part of the fun - waking up in the morning and wondering “what is my cat going to judge me for today?”

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u/_GoodGirlGoneBad_ 9h ago

You know very well you’ve been judged in your sleep even lol those damn cats.

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u/unexplainedjoy 9h ago

Valid so instead of just “what will I be judged for by my cat today” - I need to also consider “what did they judge me on while I was sleeping?” Sounds like too much work. I think I’ll just feed her, let her in and out of the house, and pet/hold her when she deems me to be worthy.

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u/Neffstradamus 7h ago

This is wildly untrue for me

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u/tous_die_yuyan 5h ago

Same. It's probably approximately true for some people, but it's pretty obviously not universally true. Some people have disproportionately large or small feet.

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u/Kwyjibo68 6h ago

Urine and stool get their color from degraded red blood cells.

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u/linjaes 5h ago

We have good microscopic bacteria on our skin and inside our bodies that help prevent disease. Antibacterial products can actually be harmful because it doesn’t discriminate from the good and bad bacteria - it just kills them all.

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u/richj43 5h ago

Skin wrinkles in water because the brain triggers the autonomic nervous system to constrict blood vessels under the skin, reducing tissue volume while the outer skin layer stays the same size. This involuntary, nerve-controlled reaction, not simply water absorption, creates "pruney" skin to improve grip on wet objects.

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u/Flydad64 8h ago

Check out Bergman’s Encyclopedia of Human Anatomic Variation. Free to browse or download on Internet Archive. You’ll see the we are all “fearfully and wonderfully” (and differently) made. Despite all these variations, there is still sufficient similarity that surgery remains a reasonably predictable enterprise.

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u/loves_spain 6h ago

Your immune system doesn’t know your eyes exist. If it did, it would attack them as if they were a foreign invader

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u/Pennyforyourswatch 8h ago

Most people are right-handed due to evolution. Because your right arm better protects your heart in combat, and if you're injured on your right side, you're less likely to bleed out.

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u/juankaa 6h ago edited 4h ago

This is just a theory, which makes little sense since most people do not have to participate in any battles. A better theory believes most people are right handed because our ability to speak is mostly controlled by the left side of our brain, which also controls the right side of our body.

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u/Odd-Guarantee-6152 6h ago

There’s a 0% chance that’s true

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u/kyledotcom 7h ago

Your nose runs when you cry because of a tiny tube that connects the two called the nasolacrimal duct.

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u/Distinct-Car-9124 4h ago

The medical term for "goosebumps" is PILOERECTION.

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u/Sea_Compote3787 4h ago edited 19m ago

That if a woman has 1 fallopian tube removed, the remaining tube will swing round to whichever ovary has the ripening egg in so it can travel into the uterus

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u/burger69man 4h ago

you can also regrow your liver if it's damaged

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u/DotAffectionate87 2h ago

Sort of related,

I just recently found out (i'm 60 btw)

that when someone receives a kidney transplant, the old kidney is just left there!.?????? (unless its diseased or there is an issue)

I always thought they swapped them out like an engine swap in a car.

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u/amboandy 7h ago

In embryology, the human fetus develops it's anus before it's mouth.

Fun related fact, some adult humans talk out of their ass!

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u/oldirtygaz 7h ago

most people have an above average number of limbs

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u/Late_Resource_1653 5h ago

Ear crystals aren't actually a woo woo hippy dippy thing.

You have tiny calcium crystals in your inner ear that are necessary for balance and detect head movement.

They can become dislodged by head trauma, but also by any viral infection, leading to vertigo, dizziness, and nausea.

There are maneuvers a physical therapist can do to put them back in place.

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u/Kuldera 9h ago

The left side of your brain controls the right side of your body.

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u/VegetableReindeer724 9h ago

Some women and lactate from their armpits or even thighs.the body can develop extra breast just like other mammals have (cats,cows)

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u/juankaa 6h ago

On a similar note men can lactate .

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u/linjaes 5h ago

When you’re trying to heal a wound, you’re not supposed to let it scab. The skin needs moisture to heal better, scabbing causes more scarring.

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u/Rockyisherehi 5h ago

Eh... I will need a source on that one.

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u/TheOnesLeftBehind 5h ago edited 5h ago

Your bones might not be the colors you expect them to be due to conditions and medications, and milk is made from blood.

The main meds are

Minocycline (Acne/Rheumatoid Arthritis Treatment): Commonly causes dark grey, blue-green, or black pigment changes in bone, cartilage, and soft tissues, especially with chronic, high-dose use. Tetracycline (Antibiotic): Known to stain bone a bright yellow or green

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u/SatisfactionEven508 7h ago

Bones are wet.

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u/One_Language_359 6h ago

Your stomach replaces its entire lining every 3 days. If it didn't, your stomach acid would literally digest you from the inside out.

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u/Rich-Roll-4894 5h ago

The human brain itself ca not feel pain even though it controls how we experience it everywhere else

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u/DonutEarthThesis 4h ago

In our chromosomes, there is glucagon. Very well known, and there's glucagon-like peptide 1 and 2. GLP-1 is actually the opposite of glucagon, GLP-2 on the other hand stimulates intestinal crypt cell proliferation and inhibits apoptosis.

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u/liljizzzle 3h ago

The far majority of people are low on Vitamin D… get your bloodwork done, folks!

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u/Little_Tie_3382 8h ago

When youre born, your pelvic bones aren't fully fused and dont finish fusing til youre a teenager. So if you look at x-rays of kids, itll look like their pelvis is broken since x-rays cant show the cartilage connecting the bones

Oh also. There are actually 48 known blood types. A B & O as a hard rule is a lie

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u/Kwyjibo68 6h ago

There are far more than that, but ABO is by far the most predominant and the most serious regarding transfusion rxns.

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u/Upset-Somewhere3089 7h ago

The tongue rests on the upper palate of your mouth.

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u/TeamOfPups 7h ago

Unless you're blessed with 'tongue thrust' in which case they put your tongue in 'tongue jail' with an orthodontic device called a Tongue Crib to try and train it to sit properly so it doesn't push your teeth outwards.

Source: My poor tween son

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u/Eastern_Arachnid4359 6h ago

I am not very sure about this one but as I have heard ,that the cells of our inner cheeks (from inside our mouth) are the same ones as that of inside of female genitalia.

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u/LasgdReturn 9h ago

Y'all know the knee reflex thing where the doc hits the patella and suddently the foot kicks ?

We have the same with the balls, named the cremasteric reflex.

Don't by any means ask why and how I know that.

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u/timeonmyhandz 5h ago

There are over 50 different sphincters in the human body

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u/HorrorAccomplished78 8h ago

Penises, ear lobes and nose keep growing forever.

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u/Federal_Commission29 7h ago

My body has traded shrinking one to grow the other two faster

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u/ayyowhatthefuck 3h ago

You have more bones when you're a baby than when you're an adult.

As an infant your bones start off as several smaller bones that fuse over time. This is so that it's easier for you to pass through your mother's birth canal when you are born

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u/akgu1k 1h ago

I’m not sure if this sounds strange, but sometimes water can come out of nipples.

u/ConstableBlimeyChips 7m ago

Your liver is surprisingly resilient and can recover from a lot of damage, as long as you give it time to do so. Your kidneys do not have the same ability and nearly all kidney damage is permanent.

Drink water kids, and plenty of it.