Fun facts about the human body

All fun facts about the human body

• Babies are born with about 300 bones. Many fuse together, leaving adults with 206.Source: Cleveland Clinic
• The smallest bone in your body is the stapes, in your ear. It is about the size of a grain of rice.Source: Cleveland Clinic
• You can't hum while holding your nose closed. Try it.Source: Basic physiology: humming needs air out through the nose
• Fingernails grow faster than toenails.Source: American Academy of Dermatology
• Your heart beats about 100,000 times a day.Source: American Heart Association
• Your brain is about 2% of your body weight but uses about 20% of its energy.Source: Scientific American
• Stretched out, the DNA in one of your cells would be about 2 metres long.Source: National Human Genome Research Institute
• You are about 1 cm taller in the morning than at night. Your spine squashes a little during the day.Source: Cleveland Clinic
• Tooth enamel is the hardest substance in the human body, but it cannot grow back.Source: American Dental Association
• About 8% of human DNA comes from ancient viruses that infected our ancestors.Source: Nature, 2016
• Your small intestine is about 6 metres (20 ft) long.Source: Cleveland Clinic
• Goosebumps are a leftover from furry ancestors: they made fur stand up for warmth or to look bigger.Source: Harvard, 2020
• Humans glow faintly in the dark, but the light is about 1,000 times too weak for our eyes to see.Source: PLOS ONE, 2009
• The cells lining your stomach are replaced every few days, so the acid doesn't digest you.Source: Cell biology texts
• Your nose and sinuses make about a litre of mucus a day. Most of it you swallow.Source: Cleveland Clinic
• Your eyes blink about 15 to 20 times a minute, more than 10,000 times a day.Source: American Academy of Ophthalmology
• Your body has about as many bacteria as human cells.Source: Cell, 2016 (Sender, Fuchs and Milo)
• Your left and right lungs are different sizes. The left one is smaller to make room for your heart.Source: Cleveland Clinic
• Adult humans have around 600 muscles.Source: Cleveland Clinic