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Human Physiology Trivia – 26 Fun Facts

John P.

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HumanAs a follow up to my previous trivia topics, I now present some unusual trivia related to the human body.

True, most of this information is completely useless… but then again so was much of the stuff you learned in high school. :-)

  1. Human thigh bones are stronger than concrete.
  2. The average human body contains enough: iron to make a 3 inch nail, sulfur to kill all fleas on an average dog, carbon to make 900 pencils, potassium to fire a toy cannon, fat to make 7 bars of soap, phosphorous to make 2,200 match heads, and water to fill a ten-gallon tank.
  3. You can’t kill yourself by holding your breath.
  4. More people are allergic to cow’s milk than any other food.
  5. Your heart beats over 100,000 times a day!
  6. In the late 19th century, millions of human mummies were used as fuel for locomotives in Egypt where wood and coal was scarce, but mummies were plentiful.

  7. You’re born with 300 bones, but by the time you become an adult, you only have 206.
  8. It is impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.
  9. Right handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people.
  10. Beards are the fastest growing hairs on the human body. If the average man never trimmed his beard, it would grow to nearly 30 feet long in his lifetime.
  11. Your ribs move about 5 million times a year, everytime you breathe!
  12. One quarter of the bones in your body, are in your feet!
  13. Like fingerprints, everyone’s tongue print is different!
  14. The first known transfusion of blood was performed as early as 1667, when Jean-Baptiste, transfused two pints of blood from a sheep to a young man.
  15. Fingernails grow nearly 4 times faster than toenails!
  16. Most dust particles in your house are made from dead skin!
  17. The present population of 6 billion plus people of the world is predicted to become 15 billion by 2080.
  18. Women blink nearly twice as much as men.
  19. The average person laughs 10 times a day!
  20. The only time the human population declined was in the years following 1347, the start of the epidemic of the plague ‘Black Death’ in Europe.
  21. A man named Charles Osborne had the hiccups for 69 years!

  22. The human brain is 78% water.
  23. A person will die from total lack of sleep sooner than from starvation. Death will occur about 10 days without sleep, while starvation takes a few weeks.
  24. An average person uses the bathroom 6 times per day.
  25. An individual blood cell takes about 60 seconds to make a complete circuit of the body.
  26. Laughing lowers levels of stress hormones and strengthens the immune system. Six-year-olds laugh an average of 300 times a day. Adults only laugh 15 to 100 times a day.

Some sources for these facts:

  • http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/facts.html
  • http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Human_Physiology/The_Nervous_System
  • http://www.corsinet.com/trivia/h-triv.html

Comments

  2. #19 contradicts #26. Laugh only 10 times a day or 15-100 times? Which one is correct? But still awesome things to know.

    • Have you tried it? I don’t think so and guess what I have. Im a GHOST! I did die from holding my breath. OMG seriously? Everyone knws tht and u don’t need to repeat!!!

  5. its impossible to sneeze with your eyes open, and u cant die from holding your breath…..end of story!!!

  6. Some folks (children especially due to youth respiratory and still growing nervous system physiology specifics) can develop “syncope” (fainting event), most commonly caused by a vaso-vagal reaction. This physiological reaction can trigger serious chain of pathological events which could lead to vascular collapse, cardiac arrest and brain damage as a result of hypoxia (severe oxygen depletion). If you are a swimmer /diver you have to gradually exercise for appropriate safe breath-holding techniques.

  10. it is pysically impossible to die from simply holding your breath.
    there is scientific proof. there must be a different explanation for
    that young boys death.

  11. You cant kill yourself by holding your breath. He might of been holding his breath and had a heart attack in the process?

    Theres some awesome facts in there. Laughing makes the immune system stronger!! Who would have ever beleived.

    • actually it is impposible. cause you can hold your breath untill you pass out, then when you pass out, your body atomaticly breaths by its self. but you can die if you somehow keep your mouth and nose closed and there is no way air can enter it, such as if you use duct tape or gule or something to keep it close, then yes, you can die.