By Kaia Costa
- Your body has about 37 trillion cells, and roughly the same number of bacteria living in and on you.
- The human brain can generate enough electrical activity to power a small LED bulb.
- Your skin is the body’s largest organ, covering about 20 square feet in adults.
- Humans are born with around 270 bones, but adults usually end up with 206 because some bones fuse together during growth.
- Your femur (thigh bone) is stronger than concrete pound-for-pound.
- The lining of your stomach completely replaces itself every few days to prevent it from digesting itself.
- Your heart beats about 100,000 times a day and pumps roughly 2,000 gallons of blood daily.
- Nerve impulses can travel through the body at speeds up to 250 miles per hour.
- You blink around 15–20 times per minute, which adds up to millions of blinks every year.
- The tiny muscles controlling your eyes are among the most active muscles in your body.
- Your nose can distinguish at least a trillion different smells.
- Fingernails grow faster than toenails, and nails on your dominant hand usually grow faster too.
- The human body glows with a tiny amount of bioluminescence — it’s just too faint for human eyes to see.
- Your ears and nose continue changing throughout life because cartilage keeps growing and gravity changes their shape.
- DNA in a single human cell is about 2 meters (6 feet) long when fully stretched out — and it all fits into a microscopic nucleus.