Human body has 206 bones- Longest bone is
femur in the thigh and largest bone is the
pelvis, or hip bone.
The
smallest bone is the '
stirrup', deep in the ear. It is hardly larger than a grain of rice.
The ears and end of the nose do not have bones inside them.
Their inner supports are
cartilage or 'gristle', which is lighter and more flexible than bone. This is why the nose and ears can be bent.
After
death, cartilage
rots faster than bone. This is why the skulls of skeletons have no nose or
ears.
There are about 60 muscles in the face.
Smiling is
easier than frowning. It takes 20 muscles to smile and over 40 to frown.
The longest muscle in the body is the
sartorius, from the outside of the hip, down and across to the inside of the knee. It rotates the thigh outwards and bends the knee.
The smallest muscle in the body is the
stapedius, deep in the ear. It is only 5mm long and thinner than cotton thread.It is involved in hearing.
The biggest muscle in the body is the
gluteus maximus, in the buttock. It pulls the leg backwards powerfully for
walking, running and climbing steps.
The
heart beats around
3 billion times in the average person's life.
About
2 million blood cells die in the human body every second, and the
same number are born each second
It takes about
1 minute for a red blood cell to
circle the whole body.
Red blood cells make approximately
250,000 round trips of the body before returning to the bone marrow,
where they were born, to die.
Red blood cells may live for about
4 months circulating throughout the body,
feeding the 60 trillion other body cells.
Unlike other body cells,
brain cells can not regenerate. Once brain cells are damaged
they are not replaced.
Adults eat about
500 kg of food per year and
1.5 litres of saliva are produced
each day.
Muscles contract in waves to move the food down the oesophagus. This means that
food would get to a person's stomach, even if they were
standing on their head
The highest recorded "sneeze speed" is
165 km per hour
The
surface area of the lungs is roughly the same size as a
tennis court
The breathing rate is
faster in
children and women than in men.
