THE HUMAN BODY


You really ought to know this. The human body is a machine that is full of wonder.


This collection of human body facts will leave you wondering why in the heck we were designed the way we were.

-Scientists say the higher your I.Q. The more you dream.


-The largest cell in the human body is the female egg and the smallest is the male sperm.


-You use 200 muscles to take one step.


-The average woman is 5 inches shorter than the average man.


-Your big toes have two bones each while the rest have three.


-A pair of human feet contains 250,000 sweat glands.


-A full bladder is roughly the size of a soft ball.


-The acid in your stomach is strong enough to dissolve razor blades.


-The human brain cell can hold 5 times as much information as the Encyclopedia Britannica.


-It takes the food seven seconds to get from your mouth to your stomach.


-The average human dream lasts 2-3 seconds.


-Men without hair on their chests are more likely to get cirrhosis of the liver than men with hair.


-At the moment of conception, you spent about half an hour as a single cell.


-There is about one trillion bacteria on each of your feet.


-Your body gives off enough heat in 30 minutes to bring half a gallon ofwater to a boil.


-The enamel in your teeth is the hardest substance in your body.


-Your teeth start growing 6 months before you are born.


-When you are looking at someone you love, your pupils dilate, and they do the same when you are looking at someone you hate.


-Your thumb is the same length of your nose.

At this very moment I know full well you are putting this last fact to the test...now remove your thumb from your nose and pass this on to the friends you think might be interested in comparing their thumbs to their noses as well.

Classical music as antidepressant

This study comes out of Alzahra University, in Tehran, where a group of researchers, noting that music therapy has already been shown to reduce pain, improve sleep quality, and improve mood in cancer patients underoing therapy and multiple sclerosis patients, wondered if music might alleviate depression as well. It does. They took 56 depressed subjects, had them listen to Beethoven's 3d and 5th piano sonatas for 15 minutes twice a week in a clean, otherwise quiet room -- and saw their depression scores on the standard Beck Depression Scale go up signficantly. No side effects! And music is cheap -- a lifetime of Beethoven for the price of a couple weeks of Prozac.

This obviously needs further work, but as a music lover I find it darn encouraging. The resesarchers plan on doing another study using EEGs instruments to monitor brain changes, and I'd love to see some imaging work on this. Methinks that if classical music publishers could match the drug industry's marketing budgets, we'd be listening to a lot of Beethoven sonatas. Which you can do, briefly, by (going here for a mood-improving listen.

edited for language...cih

Mother's Milk May Pump Up Baby's IQ:
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleid=1C202A77-E7F2-99DF-3F3E1A7E477DC638

Potential New Weapon against Lou Gehrig's Disease:
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=potential-new-weapon-against-als

UAB Researchers Say New Stem Cell Technique Cures Sickle Cell in Mice