The human body is an incredibly complex and intricate system. Some of our body parts and functions have surprising facts and explanations behind them. There are hundreds of weird and interesting facts about human body that most of us don't know. Here I'll explain some of the most amazing facts about our body. These are the five most interesting facts that, hopefully, are new to most of our readers.
1. Why Fingers Wrinkle in Water
Water washes away an oily substance that protects your skin. When that happens, a certain type of dead cell on your skin will absorb the water causing the cells to swell up, but the layer underneath does not. So the swelling, combined with the places the skin is connected underneath to the non-swelled layer, causes your finger tips to look all wrinkly.
2. Why Mosquito Bites Itch
When female mosquitoes poke their proboscis through your skin so they can suck some of your blood, they inject you with some of their saliva. This saliva helps them to drink your blood more quickly. When the mosquito flies away, she leaves some of her saliva behind. Your body then kicks your immune system in gear as a response to the presence of this saliva. It produces various antibodies which in turn bind to the antigens in the mosquito’s saliva. This then triggers the release of histamine. Histamine is a nitrogen compound and it ends up making the blood vessels near the bite swell up. This produces a pink, itchy bump where the mosquito poked you.
3. Why Paper Cuts Hurt So Much
The generally accepted reason paper cuts are so painful primarily lies in the fact that you usually get them on your fingers, particularly your fingertips. Fingertips and hands have significantly more nerve fibers per square millimeter than most of the rest of your body. This ends up making cuts on your fingertips feel significantly more painful than cuts elsewhere, even when they are produced by paper or similar objects.
But why do paper cuts seem to hurt more than other types of cuts on the hand? This is thought to be because the edges of paper are very dull and flexible, compared to knives and other such sharp objects. Because of this, when the paper cuts your flesh, it does a lot more microscopic damage as it rips through your skin.
4. What Causes Ice Cream Headaches
When you stick something extremely cold in your mouth and eat it quickly, it rapidly cools the palate of your mouth. Why this is significant is that there is a nerve center located just above the back of the roof of your mouth. This nerve center includes nerve clusters that send signals to the brain about changes in body temperature. When these nerve clusters are rapidly cooled by what you are consuming, they are over stimulated and send the message to the brain that the body just lost a severe amount of heat. This ends up resulting in the rapid contraction of blood vessels in your head.
Shortly thereafter, the temperature at the palate of your mouth goes back to normal and the nerve centers signal everything is fine and the blood vessels end up rapidly dilating. This all can happen in a matter of a few seconds, but the end result of this rapid contraction and dilation of blood vessels is an extreme, sharp pain, often in your temples, forehead, or sometimes even in your face itself.
5. Why Your Stomach Growls
When You Are HungryYour digestive system is one big long tube that goes from your mouth to your butt, with a lot of interesting biological machinery in-between. How the body gets food through this long tube is accomplished via waves of muscle contractions, that run a few inches at a time all down your digestive track. These waves of contractions are called the Basic Electrical Rhythm. This rhythm is about 3 times per minute in the stomach, and 12 times per minute in the small intestines. The sound you are hearing when your stomach and intestines make noise are the result of these muscular contractions.
When your stomach and intestines are empty, it triggers a reflexive generation of waves along your stomach and intestine muscles that trigger contractions, even though there isn’t really much of anything in your stomach that needs moved along. These are meant to clear out all of your stomach contents, including the mucus, any remaining food, bacteria, etc. It’s your bodies way of doing a little house cleaning, making sure no food or other matter is accumulating anywhere along your stomach or intestines. It’s typically this that you are hearing when you’re hungry.
1. Why Fingers Wrinkle in Water
Water washes away an oily substance that protects your skin. When that happens, a certain type of dead cell on your skin will absorb the water causing the cells to swell up, but the layer underneath does not. So the swelling, combined with the places the skin is connected underneath to the non-swelled layer, causes your finger tips to look all wrinkly.
2. Why Mosquito Bites Itch
When female mosquitoes poke their proboscis through your skin so they can suck some of your blood, they inject you with some of their saliva. This saliva helps them to drink your blood more quickly. When the mosquito flies away, she leaves some of her saliva behind. Your body then kicks your immune system in gear as a response to the presence of this saliva. It produces various antibodies which in turn bind to the antigens in the mosquito’s saliva. This then triggers the release of histamine. Histamine is a nitrogen compound and it ends up making the blood vessels near the bite swell up. This produces a pink, itchy bump where the mosquito poked you.
3. Why Paper Cuts Hurt So Much
The generally accepted reason paper cuts are so painful primarily lies in the fact that you usually get them on your fingers, particularly your fingertips. Fingertips and hands have significantly more nerve fibers per square millimeter than most of the rest of your body. This ends up making cuts on your fingertips feel significantly more painful than cuts elsewhere, even when they are produced by paper or similar objects.
But why do paper cuts seem to hurt more than other types of cuts on the hand? This is thought to be because the edges of paper are very dull and flexible, compared to knives and other such sharp objects. Because of this, when the paper cuts your flesh, it does a lot more microscopic damage as it rips through your skin.
4. What Causes Ice Cream Headaches
When you stick something extremely cold in your mouth and eat it quickly, it rapidly cools the palate of your mouth. Why this is significant is that there is a nerve center located just above the back of the roof of your mouth. This nerve center includes nerve clusters that send signals to the brain about changes in body temperature. When these nerve clusters are rapidly cooled by what you are consuming, they are over stimulated and send the message to the brain that the body just lost a severe amount of heat. This ends up resulting in the rapid contraction of blood vessels in your head.
Shortly thereafter, the temperature at the palate of your mouth goes back to normal and the nerve centers signal everything is fine and the blood vessels end up rapidly dilating. This all can happen in a matter of a few seconds, but the end result of this rapid contraction and dilation of blood vessels is an extreme, sharp pain, often in your temples, forehead, or sometimes even in your face itself.
5. Why Your Stomach Growls
When You Are HungryYour digestive system is one big long tube that goes from your mouth to your butt, with a lot of interesting biological machinery in-between. How the body gets food through this long tube is accomplished via waves of muscle contractions, that run a few inches at a time all down your digestive track. These waves of contractions are called the Basic Electrical Rhythm. This rhythm is about 3 times per minute in the stomach, and 12 times per minute in the small intestines. The sound you are hearing when your stomach and intestines make noise are the result of these muscular contractions.
When your stomach and intestines are empty, it triggers a reflexive generation of waves along your stomach and intestine muscles that trigger contractions, even though there isn’t really much of anything in your stomach that needs moved along. These are meant to clear out all of your stomach contents, including the mucus, any remaining food, bacteria, etc. It’s your bodies way of doing a little house cleaning, making sure no food or other matter is accumulating anywhere along your stomach or intestines. It’s typically this that you are hearing when you’re hungry.
