The tongue is the only muscle in one’s body that is attached from one end.
100 Mind-Blowing Body Facts
The highest body count in film history goes to “Lord of the Rings: Return of the King” with 836 on-screen deaths.
Your brain uses 20% of the total oxygen in your body.
A red blood cell takes only about 20 seconds to make a complete circuit through your body.
The average temperature of a beehive is the same as a human body. Bees flap their wings to regulate heat.
During the cremation process of a 500-pound body, the corpse was so obese that it set the crematorium on fire.
Anna Bagenhold fell through a frozen stream while she was skiing and was stuck for over an hour. She made a full recovery and became the person to survive the lowest body temperature ever recorded at 56.7 °F (13.7 °C), even though she was clinically dead.
The swan has over 25,000 feathers on its body.
A female’s heart is smaller than a male’s by about 25%. Because of this, the female heart has to beat around six times more than the male heart to pump the correct amount of blood around the body.
Bananas are radioactive. Due to being rich in potassium, every banana is slightly radioactive thanks to containing the natural isotope potassium-40. Interestingly, your body contains around 16mg of potassium-40, meaning you’re around 280 times more radioactive than a banana already. Any excess potassium-40 you gain from a banana is excreted out within a few hours.
There are more bacterial cells in your body than human cells. The average human is around 56 per cent bacteria. This was discovered in a 2016 study and is far less than the earlier estimates of 90 per cent. As bacteria are so light, however, by weight, each person is over 99.7 per cent human.
It’s almost impossible to get too much sugar from fresh fruit. While the sugar in fruit is mostly fructose and glucose (fructose is what’s converted into fat in your body), you can’t get too much sugar from fresh fruit. Fresh fruit contains a lot of fibre and water which slows down your digestion and makes you feel full.
It rains methane on Saturn’s largest moon. Titan is the only moon in our Solar System with a dense atmosphere and the only body except Earth with liquid rivers, lakes and seas fed by rainfall. This rainfall isn’t water, though; it’s liquid methane.
Our dead cells are eaten by other cells in our body. Don’t worry; it’s meant to happen. When cells inside your body die, they’re scavenged by phagocytes – white blood cells whose job it is to digest other cells.
Human teeth are the only part of the body that cannot heal themselves.
Skin is the body’s largest organ.
Approximately one-quarter of the bones in your body are in your feet.
The bumblebee bat is the world’s smallest mammal. Weighing in at 0.05 to 0.07 ounces, with a head-to-body length of 1.14 to 1.29 inches and a wingspan of 5.1 to 5.7 inches, the bumblebee bat—also known as Kitti’s hog-nosed bat—is the smallest mammal in the world, according to the Guinness Book of World Records. To see this tiny bat for yourself, you’d have to visit one of a select few limestone caves on the Khwae Noi River in Kanchanaburi Province of southwest Thailand.
The cornea is one of only two parts of the human body without blood vessels. The cornea is the clear part of the eye that covers the pupil and other parts of the eye. Cartilage and the cornea are the only types of tissue in the human body that do not contain blood vessels, according to scientists at the Harvard Department of Ophthalmology’s Schepens Eye Research Institute.
Some fungi create zombies and then control their minds. The tropical fungus Ophiocordyceps infects ants’ central nervous systems. Once it has been in an insect’s body for nine days, it has complete control over the host’s movements. According to National Geographic, it forces the ant to climb trees, then convulse and fall into the cool, moist soil below, where fungi thrive. Once there, the fungus waits until exactly solar noon to force the ant to bite a leaf and wait for death.
Human noses and ears get bigger as we age. It’s pretty common to see the claim that our nose and ears are the only parts of our body that keep growing as we age, but that’s not exactly true. Our nose and ears stop growing along with the rest of our body, but thanks to the weight of gravity, both parts continue to lengthen over time, according to the Discovery Channel.
The Pope can’t be an organ donor. Pope Benedict XVI was issued an organ donor card in 1970. Once he ascended to the papacy in 2005, the card was invalid, reports the Telegraph. According to the Vatican, the Pope’s entire body must be buried intact because his body belongs to the universal Catholic Church.
Flamingos bend their legs at the ankle, not the knee. They essentially stand on tip-toe. Their knees are closer to the body and are covered by feathers.
The world’s smallest wasp is smaller than an amoeba. The Megaphragma mymaripenne wasp has the same body parts as any other bug (brain, wings, eyes, and more) but is a fifth of a millimetre long, making it smaller than most amoebas, which are made of just one cell.
Human teeth are the only part of the body that cannot heal themselves. Teeth are coated in enamel which is not a living tissue.
One part of Istanbul is in Europe and the other is in Asia. Part of it neighbours Greece and Bulgaria (therefore sitting in Europe) and the other part neighbours Syria, Iran, and Iraq beyond Turkey’s borders (therefore classing as Asia). The Bosphorus Strait runs between them – a narrow body of water that connects the Black Sea to the Mediterranean Sea via the Sea of Marmara.
Onions are a natural remedy for clearing a blocked nose. The sulfur content in the vegetable is thought to draw mucus out of the body.
The longest bone in the human body is called the femur. It’s your thigh bone.
The brain is the fattest organ. The stomach may be our body’s fattest part, but the fattest organ is our brain. The brain is composed of nearly 60% fat.
Your heart beats 100,000 times a day. A fun fact for when you feel dead inside: your body is working hard to keep you from being dead on the outside.
If you ate nothing but rabbit meat, you would die from protein poisoning. Rabbit meat is extremely lean. Using it as a sole food source will leave you with too much protein and no fat, which is toxic for the body.
The tongue is the only muscle in the body attached from one end. All other muscles are fully attached to bones and skin.
Humans can’t taste food without saliva. Another fun fact about the body: You wouldn’t taste your food without spit. Your saliva dissolves food, which allows the receptors in your taste buds to detect food molecules.
Manatees can get cold stress. These gentle giants may look like tough guys, but they can be pretty sensitive to cold. In waters below 20°C, manatees can get “Florida frostbite.” Manatee fat isn’t enough to insulate their body temperature in the cold – which is why manatee deaths spiked in the Florida cold snap of 2010.
Napoléon Bonaparte’s penis was stolen. Posthumously, if that makes it any better. The genitalia were removed from his body by his doctor during the autopsy. Allegedly, it was given to a priest in Corsica. However, his junk was not properly preserved, so now it has been compared to dried leather and beef jerky. It was first displayed in a museum in 1927. Currently, the daughter of a urologist (who bought it for US$3,000 to keep under his bed) keeps it. Bids for the shrivelled genitalia have reached US$100,000.
Crocodile poop was the first contraceptive. The Ancient Egyptians certainly had a unique way of doing things. One of the fun facts about Egypt is how they practised safe sex: Women would insert crocodile dung into their vaginas. (Uh, fun?!) The science was that it would soften when it reached body temperature, forming a barrier.
In Ancient Egypt, priests plucked their bodies bald. Ancient Egyptians believed that body hair was unhygienic and shameful. As such, it was a common practice for men, women, and children to remove their body hair.
Ancient Egyptians slept on pillows made of stone. The Ancient Egyptians used wooden or stone headrests as pillows. They believed it helped with body vigour, blood circulation, and warding away demons.
The design for the seatbelts we use now was given away by Volvo. Before 1966, seatbelts were not mandated. During this period, seatbelts just secured the lap but offered no upper-body protection. When Nils Bohlin of Volvo invented the three-point seatbelt design, he gave away the patent for free to keep drivers safe.
Your body replaces all its particles every seven years. You are not the same person that you were 7 years ago.
2 parts of the human body never stop growing. Our noses and ears never stop growing, even when the rest of the body has stopped.
The Pope can’t donate organs. In 1970, Pope Benedict XVI was issued an organ donor card. However, once he ascended to the papacy in 2005, the card was deemed invalid. The Pope had to be buried with his whole body intact because it was the property of the Catholic Church.
You are more likely to have a weird or scary dream when sleeping on your stomach. This is because different sleeping positions give different pressures on your body. Sleeping on your stomach restricts other movements compared to sleeping on your side or back. Research believes that this may be why the intensity of your dreams differs depending on your sleeping position.
Pubic hair lives for about 3 weeks long. Pubic hair also indicates if the human body is ready for reproduction. It also protects the genital area during reproduction.
The bones of the human body can multiply in density. This occurs in very extreme cases. People who have been discovered to have this rare gene mutation have cases of walking away from car accidents and other impact injuries without fractures.
Losing weight alters brain activity. Some records show that when women lose weight, their memory improves. Research has also linked obesity to poor memory, most especially those with pear-shaped body types.
If a body is too obese, it can cause complications when being cremated. A crematorium in Cincinnati was once set on fire during the cremation process of a 500-pound body. The body caused the fire to enlarge and spread to nearby containers which eventually set the entire place ablaze.
Russians believe that eating ice cream will keep you warm. This is a method used to trick your body into thinking that its body temperature is crashing. This will then automatically force your body heat to readjust to survive.
The human brain uses 20% of the oxygen in your body. This is continuous and it does not rest even when we sleep. This is why when people yawn it is believed to be the brain’s way of cooling down.
Red blood cells circulate in your body at an amazing speed. Within 20 seconds, one RBC would have already completed one lap around your circulatory system. These blood cells help deliver oxygen to all the organs and cells in the body.
25% of bones in human adults are located on their feet. The feet also contain about 20-25% of joints found in the human body. Each foot contains 33 joints. The whole body contains a total of 250-300 joints in total.
Eating too many onions can cause sleepiness. The onion is full of beneficial minerals that are good for the human body. However, it is also a natural sedative because they are rich in L-tryptophan.
The femur is the largest bone located in the human body. The head of the femur fits into your hip socket and the bottom ends of it connect to your knee. More commonly, this bone is referred to as the thigh bone.
Your eyelids have the thinnest amount of skin on your body. The levator palpebrae superioris muscles retract the eyelid which exposes the cornea and gives you vision. The eyelids can be moved both involuntarily and voluntarily. On the other hand, the feet have the thickest amount of skin on the body.
Apart from their fur, tigers also have striped skin. A tiger’s stripes are an advantage because it helps break up the outline of its body which makes it hard to spot. They also help camouflage a tiger in the grass while it stalks its prey.
The largest lymphatic organ in the body is the spleen. This is located on your left side under the ribs. This organ contains white blood cells that fight against infections or diseases.
Most of the air you breathe goes out of your nostrils. This is good because this is how our bodies were designed to naturally breathe. Breathing through our nose allows us to take fuller and deeper breaths which provides the lungs greater amounts of oxygen to distribute through the body.
Greeks once believed that the mother’s milk originated from the uterus. During the Middle Ages, there was a vague understanding of the concept of breast milk. Many believed that this was produced in the uterus and travelled to the breast organ via a special vessel in the woman’s body.
Human lips are very sensitive. They are sensitive because they have the thinnest layer of skin on the body. The lips have over 1 million nerve endings.
Your brain is active even if you are asleep. As an adult passes into deeper stages of sleep, brain waves begin to slow down and become bigger. As your sleep deepens, the brain activity moves into REM sleep. The muscles then relax and breathing is regulated to help the body recover from the long day.
The smallest cell in a man’s body is the sperm cell. It is also the overall smallest cell in human biology. However, this is also one of the most complex cells in the male body as well.
A baby will laugh over 300 times a day. Babies typically start laughing between the age of 3-4 months. Laughing is a good way to lower blood pressure and boost the number of T-cells in your body.
The cornea does not receive a blood supply. This is the only part of the human body that does not have a blood vessel. The cornea receives its oxygen directly from the air.
The human skull remains conscious after decapitation. It remains conscious for a few seconds to a minute after being separated from the body. A full brain shutdown occurs after 48-96 hours.
Bananas can naturally make people happy. This particular fruit contains an amino acid that the body converts into serotonin. Serotonin is more commonly known as the happy hormone that keeps us in a positive mood.
The human body is the cause of metallic smells found in coins and other metals. Upon contact with some metals, 1 Octen 3 One is formed as the result of the decomposition of oil present on the skin. This is what causes the metallic smell from metal.
Spiders are not insects. All insects are classified as six-legged creatures with a head thorax and wings. Spiders are arachnids and only have two body parts: the cephalothorax its eight legs, and its abdomen.
The human brain is 78% water. Up to 60% of the adult human body is made up of water. Research has indicated that both the human brain and heart are around 73-78% water.
The human tongue heals the fastest compared to all body parts. This is due to the rich supply of blood that circulates the tongue. It may also be because the mouth is constantly replenishing your taste buds.
Pigs can’t look upwards. Their necks physically cannot bend to look up. This is because the body of the pig is designed mainly to prioritise finding food.
The thigh bones of humans are stronger than concrete. The thigh bones support the weight of the entire body and are approximately eight times stronger than concrete. However, they are still prone to break when serious injury is inflicted on the bone.
The human liver has 500 functions. This is also the only vital organ inside the human body that is capable of regenerating. One of the more well-known functions of the liver is producing bile which helps in the process of digestion.
25% of the oxygen we breathe is used by the brain. This oxygen is used to help blood cells circulate in the brain and allow it to function normally. The brain also uses three times as much oxygen as the muscles in the body do.
A caterpillar has more muscles than a human being. A caterpillar has over 4,000 muscles in its body. The head of the caterpillar alone holds over 248 individual muscles, and over 70 muscles control each body segment.
The most commonly bitten body part by insects is your feet. Here’s the last of our did you know facts. The most common places to be bitten by insects are by the ankles. This is because this area is rarely noticed by us when insects land on our skin.
Talking uses 100 muscles. Introverts, you’re all valid. Talking is a chore – not just mentally, but physically. To form a few phrases, the body must use 100 different muscles from the chest, neck, jaw, tongue, and lips. Imagine how buff and chatty people would be if these muscles bulked up too?
There’s a fish that can survive out of water for 2 years. The African lungfish can survive out of water by covering its body with a secretion that dries into a cocoon.
The small intestine is bigger than the large intestine. The human body is pretty weird. The small intestine measures 20 ft long and 1” in diameter. Meanwhile, the large intestine is 5 ft long and 3” in diameter. Essentially, the small intestine is larger than the large intestine.
There are more than 300 dead bodies on Mount Everest. Since 1922, 305 people have died on Mt. Everest. Some even died while attempting to retrieve another dead body. Since few brave the perilous climb and come out alive, the casualties on Everest now serve as markers for other hikers.
Ants can’t die from falling. Because of their body proportions and tough exoskeleton, an ant’s terminal velocity isn’t enough to kill or hurt it on impact. They can survive being dropped from the Empire State Building and walk away unharmed.
¼ of all your bones are in your feet. There are 26 bones and 33 joints in each foot. That makes 52 bones in both feet out of the 206 bones in our whole body – which makes foot bones more than 25% of the body’s total bone structure.
There are 60,000 miles of blood vessels in the human body. If you took out all of your blood vessels and laid them end to end, they would stretch over 2 times around the entire world.
The tongue isn’t the strongest muscle in the body. The tongue is the only muscle not attached to skin or bone, but it’s not the strongest muscle.
At the equator, you would weigh less than if standing at one of the poles. You would weigh less on the equator than at the North or South Pole, but the difference is subtle. Your body itself won’t change, but the force of gravity will, thus reducing your weight.
The “knees” you see on a flamingo are their ankle joints. Their actual knee joint is further up their body and hidden by its feathers.
A cockroach can live for weeks after its head has been cut off. If you’ve ever been assaulted by a cockroach, your instincts would be fight or flight – and the brave few who would fight can probably agree that cockroaches can be ridiculously hard to squish and kill. Even with its head cut off, a roach would survive because of its open circulatory system or using tiny holes in its body called spiracles to breathe. Additionally, cockroaches don’t need food like we do, so they’d be able to go for weeks without it.
Starfish eat with their stomachs outside their body. Starfish may not have brains, but they’ve got a hell of a stomach. Mostly feeding on clams and mussels, the starfish wraps its arms around its prey’s shell and squeezes it open. The starfish then pushes its stomach out of its mouth and into the prey’s shell. Once it digests the animal inside the shell, the starfish will retract its stomach back into its body. Who knew these innocent-looking sea creatures were so hardcore?
No one knows why flamingos stand on one foot. Flamingos usually pose with one foot tucked under their bodies. A theory suggests that they do it to conserve body heat in the cold water of their feeding areas, but it has not been confirmed. Astonishingly, a study showed that this behaviour does not cause muscle strain in their legs, meaning they can do it without physical effort.
You can’t breathe and swallow at the same time. Speaking of the physically impossible, one thing the human body can’t do is to breathe and swallow at the same time. The food and fluid that we swallow travels down the same part of our throat as the air we breathe in. It can only do one thing at a time.
Vampire bats drink half their body weight in blood. For each meal, bats consume an ounce of blood. By the end of the 20-30-minute process, a bat will have consumed almost its entire weight in blood. However, bats can still fly after a meal because their stomach lining absorbs the liquid as quickly as possible.
Mr. Potato Head used to be made of actual potatoes. When Mr. Potato Head was first released in 1952, the toy only included eyes, noses, and mouths. For the potato body, kids were expected to provide their own. However, due to the possible safety hazards of the sharp pieces, the plastic body was provided in 1964.
Ice cream warms the body. It might make perfect sense to eat ice cream when you’re feeling hot, but it does the opposite to our bodies. The high-fat content in ice cream warms us up rather than cooling down the body as it metabolizes.
A quarter of the bones in your body are in your feet.
10 human body parts are only 3 letters long (eye hip arm leg ear toe jaw rib lip gum).
Every year about 98% of the atoms in your body are replaced.
The strongest muscle in the body is the tongue. We have to break it to you that the tongue is not the strongest muscle in the body. The tongue itself is a muscle and it contains at least eight different muscles which are intertwined by creating a very flexible matrix. The strongest muscle in the body is the Masseter which is responsible for lifting the jaw.
The bumblebee bat is the world’s tiniest mammal The bumblebee bat, also known as a kitty’s hog-nosed bat, has a wingspan of 5.1 to 5.7 inches, weighs 0.05 to 0.07 ounces, and is 1.14 to 1.29 inches from head to the body. It is the smallest mammal in the world, according to the Guinness Book of World Records.
The length of the circulatory system is almost 60,000 miles According to the Franklin Institute, if all the veins, arteries, and capillaries in a child’s body were stretched out flat, they would span more than 60,000 miles. Our bodies house around 100,000 miles of blood vessels by the time we reach maturity. That is only one of the astounding facts that seem fabricated but it’s true.
To travel the entire Mississippi River a drop of water takes 90 days. The Mississippi River is the third-largest watershed in the world, spanning 2,340 miles. That body of water is very long. It is so lengthy that it takes a single drop of water about 90 days to cross the full distance.
Fungi can control the mind and make them a zombie. Ophiocordyceps is a kind of tropical fungus that affects the ant’s central nervous system. After nine days, when it’s been inside the ant’s body, it has complete control over the host’s movements. It can influence the ant’s behaviour too by making them climb the tree and then fall.