12 Weird Facts About the Human Body

There’s no denying that the human body is an incredibly complex, marvelous thing. Like a car we drive every day without grasping all of the parts, there’s very little we understand about our own bodies. Need proof? Here is a list of some of the coolest, grossest, most unbelievable stuff our body does on the daily. Proceed at your own risk: You might never look at yourself (or others) the same way again.

Human sneezes regularly exceed 100 mph. And a single sneeze can expel more than 100,000 germs into the air.

The average human sheds 600,000 particles of skin every hour. This equates to about 1.5 pounds in a year (the weight of an iPad). 

Wondering where all that dead skin goes? Dust particles are essentially sloughed-off dead skin particles that have collected on your windowsill, picture frames and floor.

Every wonder why your shoes get so stinky? Your feet contain upwards of 500,000 sweat glands and are capable of producing as much as a pint of sweat a day.

If unraveled, your small intestine would stretch to 20 feet, about the length of a killer whale.

Although it is the tool we use to detect pain, the brain itself has no pain receptors.

The body produces enough saliva in a lifetime to fill up two swimming pools. Can you say ew? 

Every wonder why your pedicures last so long? Fingernails grow at a rate nearly 4 times faster than toenails.

Stomach acid is strong enough to dissolve metal. So why doesn’t the stomach dissolve itself, you ask? Thank mucus for that. A protective layer of mucus coats the stomach lining, impeding stomach acids from burning through the stomach and eventually the entire body.

 Just like fingerprints, every person’s tongue print is unique.

You can’t see them with the naked eye, but there’s a good chance that a colony of microscopic mites is infesting your eyelashes. These microscopic eyelash mites—or Demodex mites, as they are called—inhabit the eyelashes of up to 80 percent of people over age 60, the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology estimates. These sneaky little buggers are relatively harmless, but they can cause chronic eyelid inflammation.