The Amazing and Strange Things the Body Can Do

The human body is a complex machine capable of doing incredible things. It can predict the weather, turn off certain features to give us a boost of energy, heal internal damage, and even glow.

Deciphering all the myths and crazy claims people have about the body can be tricky, but this list outlines the wildest things that are actually true. While some of them may seem creepy, it's interesting to learn about things you can do that you might not have known about.

10 PHOTOS

1. Fetal cells can remain with their mothers for years, even decades after the end of the pregnancy. These embryonic cells left behind are more than mere souvenirs from a baby; studies show that they can be used as an aid if the mother has suffered an injury such as a stroke. Louise McCullough, director of stroke research at the University of Connecticut Medical Center, conducted a study with colleagues that found that fetal cells can act like stem cells. McCullough studied fetal cells from mother mice that had suffered a stroke. These cells quickly found the area of ​​the brain where the stroke had occurred, and within 72 hours the fetal cells surrounded the area of ​​the clot.

2. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and your digestive system can shut down at times of need to give energy to other systems in your body. So yes, you can feel "super strength" when trying to pull a person out from under a car. Whenever the sympathetic nervous system alerts your brain to danger, adrenaline is released, which can increase breathing, speed up your heart rate, and relax the muscles in your stomach and intestines to reduce blood flow to those organs, which can slow or even stop digestion.

3. Noam Cohen, director of the University of Pennsylvania Rhinology Research Laboratory, says our sinuses have the same bitter taste receptors as our mouths, and they use these receptors to evaluate molecules that pass into the airways. Harmful bacteria activate these bitter receptors. The lungs and nasal passages are filled with thousands of tiny, hair-like projections called cilia. These fine hairs are responsible for detecting impurities in the body. According to a 2009 study published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, once the cilia pick up bitter impurities, they begin to work to flush them out of the body.

4. For centuries, men and women have used their muscles to compete in the toughest sports in the most intense places on earth. This requires the body to pass the comfort point, but the brain does not always allow the body to use its full power. The human brain works like a computer, tracking and programming our muscles through learned thoughts and behaviors. However, elite athletes are learning to train their "computers" to go beyond their normal performance limits.

5. Can your joints really predict the weather? Rheumatologists have been trying to answer this question for years, and research shows that your joints most likely can. A 1997 study published in the International Journal of Biometeorology found that there is a correlation between arthritis pain and various weather variables: temperature, relative humidity, atmospheric pressure, wind speed, and precipitation.

6. Although yawning has traditionally been considered a sign of sleepiness or boredom, evolutionary psychologist Andrew Gallup says, "Recent evidence suggests that yawning may help cool the brain." This "cooling" effect occurs when you take a deep breath, stretching your jaw to increase blood flow, causing a downward flow of cerebrospinal fluid and blood from the brain. This allows the incoming air to slightly cool down liquids. And why are we doing this at night? According to Gallup, “At night, when we are about to go to bed, our brain and body temperatures reach their highest point during the day.”

7. Who would have thought that cardiovascular health could potentially be one of the benefits of music? One study suggests that this has a direct link to the physiological changes that control heart rate, respiration, and blood pressure. “Music causes continuous, dynamic, and to some extent predictable changes in the cardiovascular system,” says Luciano Bernardi, professor of internal medicine at the University of Pavia in Italy.

8. Humans are the only species known to blush. The father of evolutionary theory, Charles Darwin, called it "the most peculiar and most human of all expressions."

9. According to a 2009 study, human bioluminescence in visible light exists, and our bodies are capable of emitting light in small amounts that can change daily. However, our eyes are unable to catch this glow. "The intensity of the light emitted by the body is 1,000 times lower than the sensitivity of our naked eyes," say scientists at the Tohoku Institute of Technology.

10. Autobrewery syndrome, also known as intestinal fermentation syndrome, can make those who suffer from it feel hangovers. Those who experience this condition may suffer from drinking even a small amount of alcohol or no alcohol at all. This syndrome occurs when an excess of saccharomyces cerevisiae, which is a type of yeast, is produced in the intestines. This yeast enters the gastrointestinal tract, which then causes a fermentation process that causes the production of ethanol.