Leaders Workshop: [LeadersWorkshop] 15 Facts You Didn't Know About Your Body.. Health Awareness Mail..

15 Facts You Didn't Know About Your Body..
Health Awareness Mail..

Our body is capable of producing aspirin:

Eating fruits and vegetables may help the human body
make its own aspirin. Findings from the Journal of Agriculture
and Food Chemistry indicate that study participants
who received benzoic acid, a natural substance in fruits
and vegetables, could make their own salicylic acid,
the key component that gives aspirin its anti-inflammatory
and pain-relieving properties.

Taking a nap at work is good for your boss

A 20-minute nap can improve your overall alertness,
boost your mood, and increase productivity William Anthony,
co-author of The Art of Napping at Work (Larson Publications,
1999), says the post-nap boost can last for several hours. In addition,
your heart may reap benefits from napping.
In a six-year study of Greek adults, researchers found that
that men who took naps at least three times a week had a
37 percent lower risk of heart-related death.

Ejaculation may cause men to sneeze:

Some men experience pain, headaches, or sneezing as a result
of ejaculation. The increased activity in the nervous system
during orgasm may be the culprit in triggering headaches.
A possible explanation for the sneezing is that in the brain,
the center for orgasms is close to the centers for yawning and
sneezing.

Every person has a unique tongue print:

Just like fingerprints. The tongue is a unique organ in that
it can be stuck out of mouth for inspection, and yet it is
otherwise well protected in the mouth and is difficult to forge.
The tongue also presents both geometric shape information and
physiological texture information which are potentially
useful in identity verification applications.

White skin has evolved over time

It seems we were all black ones (consistent with evolutionary
fact of first humans in Africa). White skin was a result of
humans moving away from the equator. Also 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.

The foot is home to the body's thickest area of skin:

The skin on the palms and the soles of the feet is 4 mm thick
and the thickest skin in the body, the heel portions of
the feet being the thickest portions. It's also got the
most sweat glands than in any other area.

The appendix isn't as useless as you think:

Long denigrated as vestigial or useless, the appendix actually
has a reason to be as a safe house for the beneficial bacteria
living in the human gut. The beneficial bacteria in the
appendix that aid digestion can ride out a bout of diarrhea
that completely evacuates the intestines and emerge afterward
to repopulate the gut.

The body is taller in the morning than in the evening:

The body is taller in the morning than in the evening.
You might want to schedule that basketball game for first thing
in the morning. That's because our bodies are on average about
half an inch taller in the morning, thanks to excess fluid
between our discs, which is replenished while we sleep. As the day goes on,
and our bodies undergo the strain of standing, the discs get
compressed and the fluid seeps out, so the body
loses that small bit of extra height.

Humans glow in the dark:

It was revealed by ultra-sensitive cameras that our bodies emit
tiny amounts of light that are too weak for the human
eye to detect. Amazing pictures of "glittering"
human bodies were released by Japanese scientists
who have captured the first ever images of human "bioluminescence".
Although it has been known for many years that all living creatures
produce a small amount of light as a result of chemical reactions
within their cells, this is the first time light produced
by humans has been captured on camera. Strangely,
the areas that produced the brightest light did not correspond with
the brightest areas on thermal images of the volunteers' bodies.

The stomach produces a new lining every 3 days
to avoid digesting itself with its own acids:

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 your lunch but
not your own stomach.

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.

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.

Blondes have more hair:

They're said to have more fun, and they definitely have more hair.
Hair color determines how dense the hair on your head is.
The average human has 100,000 hair follicles, each of which
is capable of producing 20 individual hairs during a person's lifetime.
Blondes average 146,000 follicles while people with black hair
tend to have about 110,000 follicles. Those with brown hair
fit the average with 100,000 follicles and redheads have the
least dense hair, with about 86,000 follicles.

The average person expels flatulence
14 times each day:

Even if you'd like to think you're too dignified to pass gas,
the reality is that almost everyone will at least
a few times a day.. Digestion causes the body to release gases
which can be painful if trapped in the abdomen and not released.

Having orgasms prevent men from prostate cancer