Health
Discover facts about health. Small discoveries that change the way you see familiar things.
Health
Why you should never pee on a jellyfish sting
You can thank the TV show 'Friends' for convincing an entire generation to publicly urinate on their loved ones. Urine contains urea and varies wildly in pH.…
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Why “starve a fever, feed a cold” is bad advice
Taking medical advice from a time when doctors thought leeches cured ghosts is generally a bad idea. Whether you have a cold or a fever, your immune system is…
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Why cutting a melon can drag bacteria inside
The deeply textured skin of a melon acts like a perfectly woven net to capture soil-based pathogens. Slicing through it with a knife immediately drags all…
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Mammary structures feature multiple independent exit ducts
Instead of utilizing a single, highly efficient plumbing system, the biological faucet is equipped with multiple entirely separate microscopic exit holes. It…
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Can donating blood really burn 650 calories
Forget the treadmill, just drain your veins. When you donate a pint of blood, your body has to work overtime to synthesize new proteins, red blood cells, and…
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Your skin makes its own radiation shield
Pigment production specifically scales up to absorb and scatter incoming ultraviolet radiation before it strikes the nucleus. A darkening hue is not a sign of…
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Specific genetic mutations enable high altitude survival
Living on top of mountains requires a hardware update. Tibetan populations possess a unique variant of the EPAS1 gene that drastically optimizes oxygen usage,…
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Your gut has a reverse gear
Your body doesn't just passively let things go; it actively throws it in reverse. It completely flips the normal rhythmic contractions of your gut, turning…
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Motor units activate in a strict physical sequence
Your nervous system utterly refuses to use all its strength at once, choosing instead to recruit tiny muscle bundles one at a time like a reluctant shift…
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Can a fast metabolism make you age faster
Congratulations to everyone bragging about their rapid metabolism, you are essentially speedrunning life. While you might be able to eat five slices of pizza…
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Left-handed people don’t actually die younger
A highly flawed 1991 study claimed lefties died nine years earlier because they supposedly kept getting killed by right-handed power tools. It turned out the…
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Your decaf coffee may still contain caffeine
If you are highly sensitive to stimulants, your evening decaf might still be keeping you awake. The extraction process is never entirely perfect, leaving…
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Victorians once climbed inside dead whales
In nineteenth-century Australia, a widely accepted wellness cure involved finding a recently deceased massive marine mammal, carving a small hole in it, and…
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Cecum forms a blind pouch at the primary junction
Where your internal pipes finally meet, nature inexplicably installed a dead-end cul-de-sac. Matter drops into this completely absurd little pouch before…
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You started developing as a microscopic butt
Developmentally speaking, humans are deuterostomes. In the womb, the very first thing that forms is your anus, followed by a tube that becomes your mouth.…
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Red wine wasn’t as healthy as we were told
You would have to drink gallons of wine to get enough resveratrol to actually matter. The initial studies praising red wine were largely statistical…
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Every human begins existence as a single fertilized egg
Despite growing into a wildly complicated biological chassis containing trillions of intricate parts, the entire architectural process starts at absolute…
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Saturated fats remain entirely solid at room temp
There is a reason butter sits happily on the counter without melting into a puddle. This specific type of lipid packs its chains so tightly together that it…
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You can talk in your sleep at any stage
Most bizarre sleep phenomena are restricted to specific deep or light cycles, but sleep talking respects absolutely no boundaries. You can mumble embarrassing…
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Margarine starts as liquid vegetable oil
This spreadable alternative was invented in a lab, not harvested from a pasture. It requires intense mechanical manipulation to force liquid plant extracts…
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What your heart actually does when you sneeze
The dramatic myth that your heart totally stops when you sneeze is slightly exaggerated but rooted in frightening reality. The massive shift in chest pressure…
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Exercise changes the bacteria living in your gut
Working out does not just punish your muscles; it completely evicts the lazy bacteria living in your intestines. Physical activity actively alters the…
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There’s trace gold in your hair
Because clearly, nature decided you needed to be partially made of jewelry. Your hair follicles absorb trace elements from your bloodstream, meaning there is…
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Turkey isn’t the reason you feel sleepy after dinner
You are not passing out because of the bird, you are comatose because you ate five pounds of carbohydrates and gravy. Turkey actually has comparable…
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