Getting To Know You...

The following is an interesting collection of facts about the human body as featured in the Utah Statesman on 2/12/03.

Sleep -- 70 percent of people sleep talk

Dreams -- The five most common kinds of dreams involve the following activities:

1. Falling
2. Being pursued or attacked
3. Trying to perform a task
4. Work and school activities
5. Sex (though some would argue this is a bit more common)

Napping -- Those of you who like to nap will be happy to know you will have a 30 percent less chance to suffer coronary artery disease. Just try not to do it in class too much.

Eyelashes -- They are replaced every three months, and the average person goes through about 600 of them in a lifetime.

Nostrils -- One goes off duty every three to four hours so that one is always smelling and breathing.

Nose -- Women have more sensitive noses than men. A woman may detect musk, a scent associated with male bodies, 100 to 100,000 times more keenly during menstration, when estrogen levels peak.

Eyes -- As much exercise as the eyes get, your legs need to walk 50 miles a day to equate.
-- About 40 people in the 17,000 on campus have one blue eye and one brown eye.
-- When one looks at a blue sky, he can see specks, which are outlines of blood vessels in the eye and also floating blood cells and seams in the lens membrane itself.

Skin -- One square inch of skin houses about 19 million cells, 625 sweat glands, 90 oil glands. By age 70, we shed 40 lbs. of dead skin.
-- Every human's skin is infested with mites, even on the facial area. They are impossible to wash off and are thought to benefit the skin by cleansing follicles.

• 61.8 percent water
• 16.6 percent protein
• 14.9 percent fat
• 3.3 percent nitrogen
• 1.81 percent calcium
• 1.19 percent phosphorous
• .24 percent potassium
• .17 percent sodium
• .041 percent magnesium
• .0075 percent iron
• .0028 percent zinc
• .00014 percent copper
• .2 percent other stuff

Temperature -- If surrounding air is completely dry, humans can survive a temperature of 266 F for up to 20 minutes.

Hairy thumb -- During World War II, a wounded soldier got a skin graft to his thumb from a part of his scalp. Yes, it grew hair just like on his head. Later, however, the thumb began to bald at about the same time as the man's scalp.

Bones -- About every seven years the body grows the equivilent of an entirely new skeleton.

Spare rib -- One out of every 20 people has an extra rib.

Red blood cells -- When stacked upon each other, they make a stack 31,000 miles high.

Digestion -- If food enters at noon, it leaves at 8 a.m.
-- The body uses more calories in chewing and swallowing a celery stalk than it gets back.

Intestinal gas -- Each human expels about a pint of gas per day in the form of flatulence.
-- The all-time worst gas producers are gum, carbonated drinks, apple juice, beans, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, brussels sprouts and turnips.

Babies -- Babies are always born with blue eyes, regardless of race. Pigment changes sometimes within hours of birth and as the baby develops. Most humans end up with brown eyes.

Sun -- 80 percent of a person's lifetime sun exposure comes before age 20.

Hours spent -- How do you spend your time? On average, a human spends...

• 24.5 years sleeping
• 13.5 years at school and work
• 12 years watching TV
• 4.5 years socializing
• 3 years reading
• 3 years eating
• 9.5 months on the toilet
• 5 months having sex

• Quarts of urine expelled -- 40,515
• Heartbeats -- 2,700,000,000
• Breaths taken -- 740,000,000
• Eye blinks -- 333,000,000
• Sperm produced -- 400,000,000,000
• Eggs produced -- 400
• Laughs -- 540,000
• Cries -- 3,000
• Dreams and nightmares -- 127,500

Photo illustration by Scott Davis