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- quasipolymath, on 06/29/2008, -9/+235Slideshows be damned.
1. Your Skin Has Four Colors
All skin, without coloring, would appear creamy white. Near-surface blood vessels add a blush of red. A yellow pigment also tints the canvas. Lastly, sepia-toned melanin, created in response to ultraviolet rays, appears black in large amounts. These four hues mix in different proportions to create the skin colors of all the peoples of Earth.
2. The World Laughs with You
Just as watching someone yawn can induce the behavior in yourself, recent evidence suggests that laughter is a social cue for mimicry. Hearing a laugh actually stimulates the brain region associated with facial movements. Mimicry plays an important role in social interaction. Cues like sneezing, laughing, crying and yawning may be ways of creating strong social bonds within a group.
3. Big Brains Cause Cramped Mouths
Evolution isn't perfect. If it were, we might have wings instead of wisdom teeth. Sometimes useless features stick around in a species simply because they're not doing much harm. But wisdom teeth weren't always a cash crop for oral surgeons. Long ago, they served as a useful third set of meat-mashing molars. But as our brains grew our jawbone structure changed, leaving us with expensively overcrowded mouths.
4. Cell Hairs Move Mucus
Most cells in our bodies sport hair-like organelles called cilia that help out with a variety of functions, from digestion to hearing. In the nose, cilia help to drain mucus from the nasal cavity down to the throat. Cold weather slows down the draining process, causing a mucus backup that can leave you with snotty sleeves. Swollen nasal membranes or condensation can also cause a stuffed schnozzle.
5. Puberty Reshapes Brain Structure, Makes for Missed Curfews
We know that hormone-fueled changes in the body are necessary to encourage growth and ready the body for reproduction. But why is adolescence so emotionally unpleasant? Hormones like testosterone actually influence the development of neurons in the brain, and the changes made to brain structure have many behavioral consequences. Expect emotional awkwardness, apathy and poor decision-making skills as regions in the frontal cortex mature.
6. Thousands of Eggs Unused by Ovaries
When a woman reaches her late 40s or early 50s, the monthly menstrual cycle that controls her hormone levels and readies ova for insemination ceases. Her ovaries have been producing less and less estrogen, inciting physical and emotional changes across her body. Her underdeveloped egg follicles begin to fail to release ova as regularly as before. The average adolescent girl has 34,000 underdeveloped egg follicles, although only 350 or so mature during her life (at the rate of about one per month). The unused egg follicles then deteriorate. With no potential pregnancy on the horizon, the brain can stop managing the release of ova.
7. Much of a Meal is Food For Thought
Though it makes up only 2 percent of our total body weight, the brain demands 20 percent of the body's oxygen and calories. To keep our noggin well-stocked with resources, three major cerebral arteries are constantly pumping in oxygen. A blockage or break in one of them starves brain cells of the energy they require to function, impairing the functions controlled by that region. This is a stroke.
8. Bones Break (Down) to Balance Minerals
In addition to supporting the bag of organs and muscles that is our body, bones help regulate our calcium levels. Bones contain both phosphorus and calcium, the latter of which is needed by muscles and nerves. If the element is in short supply, certain hormones will cause bones to break down, upping calcium levels in the body until the appropriate extracellular concentration is reached.
9. Body Position Affects Your Memory
Can't remember your anniversary, hubby? Try getting down on one knee. Memories are highly embodied in our senses. A scent or sound may evoke a distant episode from one's childhood. The connections can be obvious (a bicycle bell makes you remember your old paper route) or inscrutable. A recent study helps decipher some of this embodiment. An article in the January 2007 issue of Cognition reports that episodes from your past are remembered faster and better while in a body position similar to the pose struck during the event.
10. Your Stomach Secretes Corrosive Acid
There's one dangerous liquid no airport security can confiscate from you: It's in your gut. Your stomach cells secrete hydrochloric acid, a corrosive compound used to treat metals in the industrial world. It can pickle steel, but mucous lining the stomach wall keeps this poisonous liquid safely in the digestive system, breaking down lunch. - kyle212, on 06/29/2008, -11/+213Im pretty sure I dont have ovaries
- Totz83, on 06/29/2008, -19/+201Stupid ***** slideshows, all on 1 page or gtfo!
- dha07030, on 06/28/2008, -3/+131The only thing this taught me is that I know too many useless facts.
- Thrilltone, on 06/29/2008, -5/+132I suspect that when this writer gets down on his knees, it is not an anniversary that he is reminiscing about.
- Zetsubou, on 06/29/2008, -16/+13310 Your Stomach Secretes Corrosive Acid
9 Body Position Affects Your Memory
8 Bones Break (Down) to Balance Minerals
7 Much of a Meal is Food For Thought
6 Thousands of Eggs Unused by Ovaries
5 Puberty Reshapes Brain Structure, Makes for Missed Curfews
4 Cell Hairs Move Mucus
3 Big Brains Cause Cramped Mouths
2 The World Laughs with You
1 Your Skin Has Four Colors - thirteenthcor, on 06/29/2008, -13/+112Wow, it sucks knowing too much, 'cuz then nothing surprises you anymore about interesting things.... I need to lay off the Internets and Educational TV.
I knew them all, and realized how much that sucked.
Goddamnit - Typhoon2009, on 06/29/2008, -0/+80Who the hell doesn't know about HCl in their stomachs?
- tvanwyk, on 06/29/2008, -0/+69Anybody notice anything funny about the URL of this story? Like that big 12 at the end?
http://digg.com/general_sciences/10_Things_You_Did ...
Repost, anybody?
http://digg.com/general_sciences/10_Things_You_Did ...
http://digg.com/general_sciences/10_Things_You_Did ...
http://digg.com/general_sciences/10_Things_You_Did ...
http://digg.com/general_sciences/10_Things_You_Did ...
http://digg.com/general_sciences/10_Things_You_Did ...
Just sayin'. - MasterThief117, on 06/29/2008, -0/+63I like how for the "Your Stomach Secretes Corrosive Acid" they show a picture of a pregnant woman.
- Zetsubou, on 06/29/2008, -4/+67Damn it. 10 clicks for 10 things. It's a little better than 10 whole pages, but still, what's the point of this? Put them all on one page.
- XternalHD, on 06/29/2008, -5/+65So Im black?
- fishpen0, on 06/29/2008, -1/+56I hate it when people use the numbers from the article... I shouldn't have to keep referring back to the article to know what the hell you are talking about.
- aserer511, on 06/29/2008, -13/+65brains aren't the only large things that cause cramped mouths
ba-bum-ch! - fas2, on 06/29/2008, -0/+51I have ovaries? What the..?
- scooterbaga, on 06/29/2008, -5/+52You have to consider the possibility that God does not like you. Never wanted you. In all probability He hates you.
- themurph2099, on 06/28/2008, -13/+53Good article. I knew a few of them, but its all facinating stuff.
- Vikaas, on 06/29/2008, -0/+40Wow, how did you manage to fit those in such a simple format?!
- markp88, on 06/29/2008, -1/+37Try "except"
- Alreadyinuse99, on 06/29/2008, -0/+33I agree with reply #1
- MasterThief117, on 06/29/2008, -0/+31wait, what?
- ADHD, on 06/29/2008, -0/+28yep brother
- thirteenthcor, on 06/29/2008, -4/+31And btw, the hydrochloric acid in our stomachs is just for breaking down the cell walls/membranes so the symbiotic bacteria living in our stomachs can get past the defenses to do their job. It actually does little to help you digest the food, which is done by bacteria that we somehow made a symbiotic pact with way long ago, in a creepy, mutually beneficial way.... We are actually even more complex than multi-cellular organisms... we are actually "multi-organism" entities. Mites live on our skin and eat dead flesh, the lack of would cause horrible skin infections and possibly death... certain viruses live without prosecution in our bloodstream, and actually prefer to prey on specific type of bacteria that enter out bodies occasionally.... the bacteria in our guts... Certain types of fungal-eating bacteria living in our reproductive tracts, especially in women, that help infestations of certain types of fungus... the list goes on.
See? it sucks!!! - Siesna, on 06/29/2008, -0/+26I've seen this article on Digg once already, and it was just as disappointing then, too. I want stuff like "You may have been a siamese twin, but in the womb you ate your sibling!!" Stuff like that. Not "WOW! There's acid in my stomach?! I DIDN'T KNOW THAT!"
- eigenweasel, on 06/29/2008, -0/+23Because the Digg algorithm was developed by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission.
- ExRe, on 06/29/2008, -2/+25Can't even pass 4th grade spelling and you expect us to believe you?
- arjie, on 06/29/2008, -2/+24He doesn't even know about me and I have to accept him? No way!
- spence798, on 06/29/2008, -0/+21sepia-toned melanin...that will go over well with the black people at work
- shivasprogeny, on 06/29/2008, -1/+21I don't mind slideshows like this one, because it uses ajax to load the next one instantly.
- Corte, on 06/29/2008, -0/+20Hold shift.
- S7aind, on 06/29/2008, -0/+19What?
- inactive, on 06/29/2008, -2/+21It's probable that no one liked you because you were an *****.
- LameTacomeat, on 06/29/2008, -1/+19buddy friend
- IG64, on 06/29/2008, -2/+20You refuse to depress a button 10 times, yet you use up the time and effort needed to compose a complaint about it.
- duffy89, on 06/29/2008, -4/+22How many more "10 things" are we gonna see on digg, they are getting old
- inactive, on 06/29/2008, -3/+2111. Your anus can be stretched to accommodate one, even two, fists!
- Picer, on 06/29/2008, -0/+17The idiots who did not listen at science lessons
- ADHD, on 06/29/2008, -1/+17a pregnant goldfish...
- ModernChem, on 06/29/2008, -1/+16here we observe the decline in intelligence of the average digg comment
- zspade, on 06/29/2008, -4/+19You sir, are an idiot who did not listen at science lessons.
- JDoms, on 06/29/2008, -1/+15finally, you can be cool
- coopcooper, on 06/29/2008, -0/+14thankyou for telling everyone you knew a few of them, i will attach this to my resume
- Daniel591992, on 06/29/2008, -2/+16I'm not your....
- inactive, on 06/29/2008, -1/+15Good for you?
- Hollic, on 06/29/2008, -0/+14Wow, good catch. Thanks OP, hope you choke on every digg.
- blinktude, on 06/29/2008, -6/+19i didn't know I existed
- homescrubb, on 06/29/2008, -0/+13serioulsly... how does this one get 900 diggs and the others get single-digits?
- manfatallyslain, on 06/29/2008, -2/+15I think he's trolling
- gavintlgold, on 06/29/2008, -0/+12Timing, and shouts.
- Daniel591992, on 06/29/2008, -0/+12So what? It's not like the Forbes slideshows where the whole page refreshes...
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