Pictorial Essay: “I am fearfully and wonderfully made”

“I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.” ——– Psalm 139:14

Despite thousands of years of medical science, the incredible and intricate complexity of the human body still baffles  scientists, researchers, doctors, and even common folk such as you and me.  Some say we humans arrived here by countless millions of “mistakes” (evolution) over millions of years.  Is that likely?  Not in my opinion … that belief requires too much faith. So, lets take a brief look at some random and interesting facts … some are well known, others not so much.

THE BRAIN:  Above is the Tianhe-2, the world’s most powerful super-computer, executing 33.8 QUADRILLION instructions per second.  Your brain is faster than that. It would take the computer about 30 minutes to simulate one second of brain activity. The storage capacity of the brain might be as high as 1,000 terabytes. To appreciate that number, consider this: over 900 years of history are stored in the National Archives of Britain …. taking up only 70 terabytes. Nerve impulses to and from the brain travel as fast as 170 miles per hour. While the brain only makes up about 2% of our body mass, it consumes 20% of the oxygen that enters your bloodstream. The brain is 80% water … so the next time you’re feeling dehydrated get a drink for your brain.

It’s scientifically proven that even a small dose of power changes how a person’s brain operates and diminishes empathy. Half of your genes describe the complex design of your brain, with the other half describing the organization of the other 98% of your body. A baby’s brain will use up to 50% of the body’s total glucose supply, which explains why babies need so much sleep. The brain releases so much dopamine during orgasms that a brain scan resembles that of someone on heroin. …… music also triggers the exact same “pleasure chemical” in the brain.

THE EYE:  Eyes start developing within two weeks of conception. Eyes are the second most complex organ after the brain. An eye is composed of more than two million working parts. An eye cannot be transplanted because doctors cannot reconstruct the one million nerve fibers connecting each eye to the brain. 80% of our memories are determined by what we see.. Corneas are the only tissues that don’t have blood. If you have blue eyes, you share an ancestor with all other blue-eyed people across the world. Humans and dogs are the only species known to seek visual cues from another individual’s eyes, and dogs only do this when interacting with humans

Your eye can distinguish 50,000 shades of grey, and about 10 million colors …. BUT, your retinas cannot detect the color red!! Retinas do have green, blue, and red color receptors, but, the “red” receptor only detects yellow-green, and the green receptor detects blue-green. Your brain combines these signals and turns them into “red”! Speaking of the brain (again); retinas actually perceive the outside world as upside-down, and images arrive at your retina split in half and distorted. The brain flips, scrambles and combines these images to compose the whole picture you “see”.

The above image is simply amazing. Eyes are constantly making tiny jerking movements called “microsaccades”. This stops objects from fading from your vision. A process called “Troxler’s phenomenon” causes static objects in your gaze to disappear if you stare at them for too long. Microsaccades stop this from happening. In the above image, keep your eyes focuses on the center cross … and watch what happens. Cool!

THE HEART:  In an average human lifetime the heart will beat 2.5 billion times, and pump one million barrels of blood. A kitchen faucet would need to be turned on full blast for 45 years to equal the amount of blood pumped in an average lifetime. Grab a tennis ball and squeeze it tightly: that’s how hard the beating heart works to pump blood. The power output of the heart ranges from 1-5 watts …. over 80 years that’s 2.5 gigajoules. While at rest it takes six seconds for blood to travel from the heart to the lungs and back, and about 16 seconds for it to reach the toes and travel back to the heart. Heart cancer is rare because heart cells stop dividing early in life. The “thump-thump” of a heartbeat is the sound made by the four valves opening and closing. The heart pumps oxygenated blood through the aorta at about 1 mile per hour … but, by the time blood reaches the capillaries, it is moving at around 43 inches per hour. Scientist have found that a horse’s heart rates often mirrors those of human subjects touching them.

Laughter IS good medicine! The heart will pump 20% more blood flowing through your body during a good belly laugh. A hard laugh causes the lining of blood vessel walls called endothelium to relax, increasing blood flow for up to 45 minutes after the laugh attack.

There IS such a thing as a “broken heart”; trauma triggers the release of stress hormones into the bloodstream that “stun” the heart, usually temporarily but, sometimes permanently. 

Lastly, and perhaps best of all, the heart remembers! The heart contains about 40,000 neurons. Some scientists believe the heart can “speak” to and influence the brain. Others feel such ideas are nonsense – here; http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/brain-cells-in-the-heart/ Personally, I like the idea of the heart remembering and feeling … if only for romantic reasons.

CIRCULATORY SYSTEM:  The arteries, capillaries and veins in an average adult, if laid end-to-end, stretch about about 60,000 miles. Capillaries, the smallest of the blood vessels, would make up about 80% of this length. (The Earth’s circumference is 25k miles. So an average person’s blood vessels could wrap around the planet approximately 2.5 times!). Some capillaries are so tiny (1/3000 inch) in diameter, that red blood cells must pass through them one cell at a time, and even then their shape is distorted in order to pass through

Unlike most other cells in the body, red blood cells have no nuclei … which allows more room to carry the oxygen the body needs. Without a nucleus, the cells cannot divide or synthesize new cellular components. So, a red blood cell will die from aging or damage after circulating for about 120 days … your body’s bone marrow comes to the rescue by constantly manufacturing new red blood cells to replace those that perish.

You do NOT have blue blood. After giving up its oxygen to your bodily tissues, your blood becomes dark red as it races back to your heart through your veins. The deceptive “blue” color results from the way different wavelengths of light penetrate your skin, are absorbed and reflect back to your eyes.

HAIR: In terms of tensile strength (how strong material is when being stretched) hair is stronger than steel. Hair is made out of protein which are great at tension and awful at compression (how well the substance resists being squished). Aside from fire, human hair is virtually indestructible. It decays at such a slow rate to be practically non-disintegrative. It won’t be destroyed by cold, change of climate, water, and other natural forces, and is resistant to many acids and corrosive chemicals. Our eyelashes contain tiny worm-like mites living in the follicles of eyelashes, and they feed on waste like sebum (an oily secretion of microscopic glands in the skin).

We have as much hair in our body as a chimpanzee, but in most parts of the body they are too fine to be seen. Scientific data proves that blondes have more hair than others. On an average the total amount of hairs is around 100,000, while blondes have an average number of 146,000. Redheads often are more prone to pain.  Before you can see yourself getting bald, you have already lost at least 50% of your total hair. Hair is the fastest growing tissue in the human body next to bone marrow.

Hair does NOT continue to grow after death. After death, dehydration causes the skin and other soft tissues to shrink, while hair and nails remain the same length …. thus creating the optical illusion of growth.

THE LIVER: Well, you do the above every day of your life, even if you don’t eat at McShits.  Smoke, pesticides, mold and mildew, parasites, paint fumes, air fresheners, cleaning supplies, bacteria, fungus, vaccines, aluminum, cookware, deodorant, cosmetics, toothpaste, dental fillings, alcohol ….. we are literally exposed on a daily basis to thousands of toxins – crap that is damaging to the body. Your liver takes care of all that. Even the medicines we take are toxic to the body, and are useless to the body in their n”as is” form.  The liver breaks them down into a form the body can use. 

In addition to detoxification, the liver extracts vitamins and nutrients from the food we eat, stocks them up and keeps supplying these nutrients to the body when we need them … such as storing iron and maintaining a constant supply of it to the body. In fact, the liver performs at least FIVE HUNDRED functions. You’ll be dead in less than a day if your liver stops functioning as it should.

It’s the second largest organ (skin is first), and the only organ that can regenerate …. making it possible for living people to donate half their liver. Our liver produces bile which is responsible for giving our stool its characteristic brown color. Soooo, if your poop ain’t brown, go see a doctor cuz something is wrong.

An interesting fact about liver is that it never uses sugar for energy. It only stores sugar. In reality, liver is the storehouse of any excess sugar that we consume. It stores this sugar in form of a compound known as glycogen. Between meals when our body needs sugar, the liver breaks down the glycogen to form glucose. This glucose is then used by the remaining body as energy fuel.

Nobody really appreciates and LOVES their liver … the forgotten organ.  Listen up!!! Eat more LEMONS!!!!!! Lemons stimulate the liver into making dozens of enzymes needed for optimal human health. There is no other food better for top liver health than a lemon. Lemons also kill cancer cells. Four or five times a week I put an entire lemon, including the skin,  and some raw honey in my Vitamix … sometimes I add strawberries for color. It’s delicious and totally refreshing! I have one of the the nicest looking livers in New Jersey, and will send you a picture upon request.

FLATULENCE:  Above is the look and attitude my beloved gives me EVERY time I give a Rectal Shoutout. She must have Alzheimer’s because each and every time is, to her, apparently the first time she’s ever heard it. And she’s so damned smug about it … claiming that the Anal Announcement is something she doesn’t do.

Oh, yeah, well, it’s like this: the biological function of digestion causes the body to release gases. EVERY person expels a Jersey Air Freshener about fourteen times a day. I’ve done the calculation. According to the length of time I’ve known Ms. Nofart, she has actually let yer rip 45,990 times!!  This makes her the most blatantly dishonest person I know.

This is interesting … the Scented Scream carries germs! A microbiologist in Canberra – as recorded in the 2001 British Medical Journal‘ — asked a colleague to Trouser Cough directly onto two Petri dishes from a distance of 5 centimeters, first fully clothed, then with his trousers down. Then he observed what happened. Overnight, the second Petri dish sprouted visible lumps of two types of bacteria that are usually found only in the gut and on the skin. But the Kentucky Mating Call which had passed through clothing caused no bacteria to sprout … at least not in the petri dish. God only knows what resides in underwear that hasn’t been changed!

In China, “professional fart smellers” make up to $50,000 detecting Cornhole Odors to diagnose disease. The Yanomami tribe of South America uses Cheek Explosions as a means of saying hello.”Eproctophilia” is the official term for people who sexually aroused by Love Puffs.

For a rather funny classification of farts  (seriously) see here —-> http://www.fartnames.com/

EARWAX:  Earwax is another of our body’s mundane, under-appreciated, yet totally amazing protective devices. Like eyelashes and nose hair, earwax shields our body from outside invaders, including dust, bacteria, and other micro-organisms that can get in and irritate, inflame, or infect. Earwax lubricates our ears, in much the same way as tears lubricate our eyes. Without adequate amounts of earwax, our ears would feel dry and itchy.

Did you know you taste food with your ear? The chorda tympani is a branch of the facial nerve that originates from the taste buds in the front of the tongue, runs through the middle ear, and carries taste messages to the brain.

Like a Kentucky virgin’s hoo-hoo, your ear is strictly a No Insertion zone. Never, ever, stick anything in them … including those cotton tipped swabs. When you put something in your ear – to scratch an itch or to attempt to remove wax – you risk pushing wax further into the ear, where it can become blocked, and which then can lead to serious and painful issues. Believe it or not, for the most part the ear will clean itself out. Every movement of the lower jaw, whether it’s talking or chewing, pushes the wax toward the outside world — no cotton swab required. However, if you do mine some juicy slimy wax, rub it on your lips. In the past, it has been used as a lip balm and salve for puncture wounds.

BELLY BUTTONS:  Above — obviously, what readers of this article do best. Belly buttons are amongst the grossest areas of the human body. Researchers analyzed skin samples from 66 men and women’s belly buttons. The disgusting results? The average belly button has 67 different species of bacteria living in it, and two samples tested positive for archea, a rare single-cell organism commonly found in hot springs and deep sea vents never before found on humans. However …

According to researchers at the University of Helsinki, a woman’s belly button may signal her genetic health. If her belly button is symmetrical and located in the center of her body, the odds of her having a healthy baby may be higher. Researchers believe that harmful mutations in your DNA also show up in your belly button’s position and size, making it a quick way to judge someone’s genetic health. So, if your woman doesn’t have a perfectly round pretty belly button …. dump her, now! Unfortunately ….

A woman’s belly button is the gateway to getting into her pants, according to some sexologist named Yvonne Fulbright. She says, “It’s a great place to test the waters in just how far south your lover is willing to let you go.” She suggests focusing on the treasure trail with nibbling and gentle pulling to bring her body to life. For added enhancement, you can cover her navel with whipped cream, and then lick it off before moving further down to Paradise. If you do this, I suggest that the next day you visit a germ doctor, or get your tongue cleaned at a car wash.

Author: Stucky

I'm right, you're wrong. Deal with it. View all posts by Stucky