Remember seeing television footage of raging hurricane winds that up-root trees, tear-off roof tops and send cars and trailers into flight?

For one of mother nature’s storms to be classified as a “hurricane”, wind speeds must reach a minimum of 119km/hr (so, when you tell someone to “go fly a kite”… this is the day you mean)

Here’s the astonishing part : the human sneeze has the potential of travelling up to around 150km/hr. That’s a license-suspending 50k’s over the highway 401 speed-limit.

When you think about the human body producing so much power – it makes ‘politely’ holding in a sneeze seem like sticking your finger in the barrel of a gun.

Think twice on both accounts.

Written by Nicholas Klassen

Sources: About.com

Do not read further until you have watched the video below.

Whether you think you’ve seen this video or not … this version is guaranteed to blow your mind

As you’ve realized from the video…

We often don’t “see” what we’re looking at, rather we usually only see what we know and what we’re looking for.

So busy counting passes, many people miss the gorilla walking across the screen on their first view.  Being familiar with the experiment, I saw the gorilla, but was apparently blind to everything else – colour changes and missing players.

This is sometimes referred to as ‘perceptual blindness’ or ‘inattentional blindness’.

Missing things that are in “plain sight” may seem like a severe weakness…

However…

Hidden within this phenomenon lies a secret human power that very few people understand or leverage.

This ”hidden power” has been credited with changing many lives for the better; almost providing an ‘unfair advantage’ when used properly.

Want to discover your hidden power?  . . . click here . . .

Resources: wikipedia | ca.news.yahoo.com | i-perception.perceptionweb.com

Blind people do in fact dream!

The interesting question is, ‘how’ do they dream?

Do they “see” images while dreaming?

Research has shown that if a person is blind from birth, they do not see images in their dreams – this seems to make sense.  How would we even explain the concept of an “image” or “colour” to someone who has never seen anything?

Those who have been blind from birth experience dreams in the same way they experience day to day life – through their other senses of touch, smell, hearing…

The blind person’s ability to see images in dreams (and I suppose in their waking imagination) is very much dependent on when they went blind.  Those who went blind before the age of 5 rarely will see imagery in dreams, while those who went blind later in life are likely to see images.

Resources: psych.ucsc.edu 

With up to 78% of our body’s weight being water, it’s a bit startling that with just a 1-2% water loss in the body, dehydration symptoms would begin to kick-in.

What starts out as thirst, discomfort and loss of appetite and energy, turns into headache, dizziness and delirium – eventually leading to unconsciousness and death.

We lose a lot of our water through

• Sweating (significantly more with exercise)
• Urination
• Bowel movements (significantly more with diarrhea)
• Breathing

Needless to say we need to replenish ourselves.

But do we really need 8 glasses of water per day?

It’s a good rule of thumb, but there are a few arguments about this.

Some might adjust this to say “drink eight, 8-ounce glasses of fluid per day”.

Contrary to what many of us have heard, all fluids can count towards the “8 glasses” – juices, coffee, tea, milk, even soft-drinks.

Foods count as well – contributing about 20% of our daily fluid intake.

But before we get too reckless…beer and pretzels are probably not the best option to rehydrate ourselves. In fact, alohol, soft-drinks, coffee, etc. should be taken in moderation.

Water is the wisest choice, as are foods with high water content – like fruits and vegetables.

“We never know the worth of water till the well is dry.” (Thomas Fuller)

Resources: Mayoclinic.com | Rehydrate.org | Wikipedia

We’ll never know all the answers… but advances in medical technologies have increased the number of “Near Death Experiences” (NDE’s) – people who have been ‘clinically dead’ or very close to death and then were ‘brought back’ to life.

Those who have experienced a NDE often recall sensations of detachment from the body, a ‘tunnel experience’, a ‘life review’ and above all, warmth and absolute serenity!

A general description I’ve heard is that it is like “slipping out of a tight shoe”.  

That feeling of total ‘relief’ explains why some who were ‘brought back’ were temporarily upset that they were not able to stay where they were.

Despite the commonalities in many NDE experiences there is much debate about what is actually going on.

In other words, is it truly a stage between life and death…or is it simply a hallucination, the product of hysteria or the brain’s reaction to traumatic stress?

Regardless, most people who experience this say it had a profound impact on their lives – relieving anxiety (about death and other things), heightening their sense of purpose and their sensitivity to others.

Resources: The Odd Body (Dr. Stephen Juan) | Wikipedia

On average we have about 2.6 million sweat glands in our skin. 

Though not always noticeable, all humans do sweat.  Some more than others…but sweating is the body’s way of cooling itself off and decreasing its core temperature. 

The amount we sweat is highly variable and very much dependent on our activities, environment and even our genes.

Through sweating we could lose anywhere between 100 to 8,000 mL per day.

Horses are one of the few mammals that, like humans produce larger amounts of body sweat in order to cool the body.

The expression: “I’m sweating like a dog” is not usually accurate coming from humans.

Dogs don’t actually regulate their temperature through sweating, but through panting.

It’s the increased air flow over the moist surfaces in their respiratory tract that cause an increase in evaporation.  This is what cools them off and often the reason why they continue breathing heavy long after playing an intense game of ‘go fetch’.

Resources: Wikipedia | health.howstuffworks

Did you know that it takes only 60 seconds for blood to make one complete circuit of the body and reach every cell?

That’s pretty speedy considering the combined length of all the body’s blood vessels is equal to 4 times the earth’s circumference.  The blood has plenty of ground to cover!

The importance of blood is not up for debate. We’re dependent on our blood.  As it circulates the body it provides the body with the oxygen and nutrients it needs to survive and function, while also carrying away waste.

We could say that our blood gets ‘recycled’.  After zooming through our body, other organs (Eg. our kidneys) filter and clean the blood for another ‘lap around the track’!

It’s interesting to know that at any given time our body is holding between 10-12 pints of blood – that’s just over 1 gallon.

When we ‘donate’ blood, the nurses will typically take 1 pint of that.  Most people are said not to feel much difference having one less pint in them.  Those who do experience any degree of dizziness will have fully recovered within 24 hours, as much of the fluid in the blood will have been replaced.

Resources: Givelife2.org | Kidshealth.org | “The Odd Body” (Dr. Stephen Juan)

It might not be true that blondes ‘have more fun’, but…

They do tend to have more hair!

On average, blondes (aham…the natural ones…) are said to have the most hair on their head: about 140,000 hair follicles.  This is the average for both men and women.

Here’s how other hair colours measured up:

Black hair: 110,000
Brunettes: 105,000
Redheads: 90,000

If you don’t believe it, I encourage you to count strand-by-strand.

The reason for the differing hair count is relatively unknown.  Some say it has to do with how many ‘melanin molecules’ are present. Melanin is the same molecule that determines the colour of our eyes. 

Blonde hair has less of this pigment, making individual strands slimmer – The head then requires more strands of blond hair to cover and protect the head.

Resources: Encyclopedia.com | Hairfinder.com

People have said that our nails continue growing after we die. 

It’s a MYTH and a bit of an illusion!

After we pass on, our skin dehydrates and tightens, creating the illusion that the nails (as well as hair) have continued growing.

While alive, our fingernails grow almost twice as fast as toenails with the nails on our tallest fingers growing faster than the others.

Who has the longest fingernails in the world?

Male Record Holder = Melvin Booth:  with a combined length of 9.05m. That’s a 90.5cm average per finger.

Female Record Holder = Lee Redmond:  with a combined length of 8.65m – The longest one being the thumb at 90cm.

This record has ‘literally’ been broken, as her nails broke in a car accident. 

Not sure about you, but pictures of these nails send an uncomfortable chill down my spine.

They also spark many questions. Eg. “How on earth do they (insert any verb)…?” 

Unless the inserted verb is, “scratch their own back”, it is all pretty hard to imagine.

Resources: Dailymail.co.uk | Wikipedia | Guinessworldrecords.com

Did you know that for 6 or 7 months after birth, an infant can breathe and swallow at the SAME TIME?

This is impossible for older children and adults.

Never thought about it?

Give it a try…

Take a deep breath through the nose while trying to swallow.

The reason it can’t be done is one of the body’s amazing security measures. 

Imagine this…

You have 2 pipes sharing 1 opening at the back of your throat:

• The Esophagus (for food and drink)
• The Trachea or “wind-pipe”  (for air to get to your lungs)

How does the food know which pipe to slide down?

Well, the food knows nothing…but the body somehow gets the picture!

A little cartilage-flap (called the “epiglottis”) sits close to your wind-pipe and acts as a doorway.  As soon as you begin to swallow something, that door slams shut – keeping the food from entering.

 On rare occasion, this ‘door’ doesn’t shut in time and a chunk of food can slip ‘down the wrong pipe’.   This would normally happen if you are laughing and eating at the same time.  The body will usually come to the rescue by coughing.

Better to do one thing at a time though…See multi-tasking myths.

Resources: The Odd Body (Dr. Stephen Juan) | Lung.ca |KidsHealth.org