11 We Are Living A Fraction In The Past Because Of Our Brain
When you go out on a clear and starry night you will see the light from the stars radiating down to us on Earth. The light from these stars left that sun that it came from a long time ago, and what we are seeing is a snapshot of the past, although the image we see is only a star it was sent a long time ago. Would you believe that the life we live is a fraction in the past? The reason we are all living in the past is due to our brain, not the distance light has to travel.
Now the amount of time that we live in the past is small. So small that you wont even notice it. By doing a series of simple tests scientists have determined that we are living about 80 milliseconds in the past. Basically, when you think you are seeing an event occur it has already happened.
Why do we see things as happening but have already happened? To answer this question we can thank our brain. Our brain tries to adjust and fix things for us and create a cohesive picture of the world around us. By delaying things by 80 milliseconds the brain is able to process the world in a much simpler way for us to understand.
There’s are some simple experiment that you can try yourself to show this lag in time.
First experiment:
Touch your nose and toe at the same time. What do you feel?
You should feel the touch on your toe and nose at the same time. Logically this doesn’t make sense because the nose is closer to the brain than the toe, so the sense of touch should reach your brain sooner. Not convinced yet? try the next test and be blown away.
Second experiment:
You will need a partner for this one. Stand 30 metres away from each other and one of you clap. The synchronisation will be perfect. As the hands touch you will hear them clap. Now, this shouldn’t be because sound moves slower than light, but the brain adjusts the image of the clap. Now comes the second part of the experiment. Keep clapping and take one step backwards. Instantly the synchronisation should be off. The hands will now touch before the sound arrives. The reason this happens is because at further than 30 metres away the sound arrives more than 80 milliseconds later than the light. You will also have noticed how abruptly this happened too.
Having conducted those two experiments you can now say you are a time traveller and that you are living in the past, albeit only 80 milliseconds.
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12 But The Brain Can Also Read Words That Aren’t Words
Confused yet? Try reading the following and see how well you do. We have the unscrambled solution below for those who struggle.
Answer for those who are struggling:
This is cool. Did you know that if the first and last letters of a word are in the correct position the other letters can be anywhere and the brain is able to figure out the word. This has just been proven by you reading this. Some people will struggle with this but most will succeed.
13 You Can Scratch Your Throat By Massaging Your Earlobes
As bizarre as this sounds it is true and actually works. If you get an annoying itch in your throat you can scratch it by massaging your earlobes. But how could massaging earlobes possible relieve an itchy throat?
By pulling on your earlobes and massaging it between your thumb and finger, it stimulates a nerve in the ear that will trigger a reflex in the throat. When the reflex in the throat occurs it will cause a small muscle in the throat to spasm which removes the itch.
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14 You Can Drink Venom And Be Completely Fine
We all know how important it is to keep away from the sharp and pointy end of venomous snakes. While not all snakes are venomous, and not all of them that are can kill you, the venom that a snake bite possesses can still render a person fairly ill and severely incapacitated. But that’s only if you are bitten. If for some reason you decide to injest the deadly substance, you will be perfectly fine.
The venom of a venomous snake is safe to drink because for it to be a hazard it must be injected into the body. This is because venom attacks the blood and muscle systems of the body. If it is ingested it will simply be digested as any other food is. Provided it doesn’t enter your blood stream you will survive unharmed.
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15 How Long Are Your Eyes Closed A Day Due To Blinking
This fact about blinking only requires a little math. We all know that when you blink it is to lubricate the eyes, so as to stop them from drying out. Plus we know that blinking only takes a fraction of a second. But, did you know that if you add all those fractions up it means that your eyes are actually closed for up to 1 hour and 30 minutes each day? How do we get this figure?
An average blink lasts about one third of a second. So it’s pretty quick. But the thing is that we blink a very lot. In fact, scientists have shown that most people blink on average 15 to 20 times a minute, which is 1,200 times an hour. Now, figuring that most people are awake for 16 hours a day that gives us 19,200 blinks a day, which is pretty astounding in its self. So lets break those numbers down a little more.
19,200 blinks during waking hours a day and each blink lasts a third of a second. By using mathematics we can work out that the eyes are closed for 6,400 seconds, or roughly 106 minutes a day.
Even if the blink of an eye is only one tenth of a second, that still means that our eyes are closed for 30 minutes a day.
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16 Some Women Poop Through Their Genetalia
There’s a condition called Rectogenitalial fistula which results in feces and flatulence passing through the genitalia. It is an abnormal connection between the rear and genitalia. It is usually caused by birth complications and poor health care.
While the condition is rare, it can be debilitating. Treatment is often delayed for several months to allow the swelling to subside, in which the condition can sometimes rectify itself if the fistula is only small. If it is larger, invasive surgery is required to repair the damage.
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17 What Does 20/20 Vision Mean?
Twenty Twenty (20/20) vision usually refers to perfect vision, but it actually means normal vision. It derives from what an average, normal persons vision is at 20 feet. If you have 20/20 vision it means that you can see at 20 feet what a person with normal vision can see. If your eyesight is better than average and it is say 20/15 it means that you can see at 20 feet what a person at 15 feet can see. If your eyesight is poorer than average it goes the other way. If you had 20/50 vision it means what you are able to see at 20 feet a person with normal sight can see at 100 feet. In the United States the cut off for legal blindness is 20/200.
These figures are converted to metric figures of 6/6 for countries that operate on the metric system.
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18 Left Handed People Are Smarter
Are left handed people smarter? Yes, they are, but there is a catch to this odd little benefit. And it’s not the kind of thing that you would be boasting about.
Well this is sure to stir up a little competition, and I must say that I’m glad that I reside on the side with the most participants. Would you believe that left handed people are smarter? As odd as it sounds that the had that you prefer to use would play a part in your intelligence, it is true, or appears to be that way. But how much smarter are they?
Well it’s not exactly a case of being outright smarter. It’s more of a case of a better chance at being smarter. Following a recent study into intelligence quotient and the hand that you favour, it found if you’re left handed there is a better chance that you will have an IQ above 131. Depending on the IQ test, an IQ of 131 is regarded as genius. But as we have already mentioned, there is a catch, a rather disturbing trend in the results.
If you have seen Silence of the Lambs you would no doubt be aware of Hannibal Lecter. Hannibal the cannibal as he was known was a brilliant, but disturbed man. You know where this is going. He was a genuis, but as mad as a hatter. This is one result the same study revealed. While left handed people are smarter. they are also more likely to be schizophrenic, autistic, dyslexic and epileptic. But also more proficient at maths, so would make a perfect homicidal accountant.
But don’t despair. If you are left handed you are in good company. Barack Obama and Michelangelo are left handed, along with Simpsons regular, Ned Flanders.
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19 Poop Transplant Pills Treatment
You may have read our fact about rabbits eating poop. Well they aren’t the only animals that eat poop, some humans do too. Just like the rabbits, it is needed for the gut. Who though would need to eat poop, and do they eat it whole or in the form of poop transplant pills? The answer has a bit of history behind it, and explaining.
There is a bacterial disease that affects about 500,000 Americans every year, and kills around 14,000 a year. It is called Clostridium difficile. C-diff, as it’s also known, is extremely difficult to cure. The only way to treat the infection is with a super strong antibiotic. The down side to strong antibiotics is that they not only kill the bad bacteria in your body, but the good too. Now when the good bacteria is killed that means frequent trips to the bathroom.
Now this is where the poop pill treatment comes in. The antibiotic treatment for C-diff is so strong it usually results in debilitating diarrhoea, with only one effective treatment. A poop transplant.
Before poop transplant pill were recently developed, the only way to place faecal matter from a healthy colon into the patient was by mixing the poop with saline or 4% milk and delivering the ‘treatment’ through nasogastric tubes. The one benefit of it going in that way was that there was no taste, unless of course you burped. That did happen at times, and I bet you know what the result was.
A Canadian team have recently developed a poop transplant pill to treat C-diff. The pill is a triple coated cleansed form of faecal bacteria. The patient must take between 24 and 34 of the poop pills for the treatment to be a success. Although it is still a difficult task, it would be much easier than suffering from C-diff or ingesting some ones poop through tubes.
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20 Blue Eyes Are A Mutation And Have A Common Ancestor
Did you know that all blue eyes are a mutation? This is certainly going to upset Fascist protagonists, who preached that pure blooded Aryans were blue eyed and had blond hair. Perhaps they were suggesting that they were mutants? So what’s the deal with this then?
Mutations in nature are are perfectly natural part of the evolutionary process. As the environment around creatures change, they have to adapt to fit in and survive. One noticeable example is race, or more accurately, skin complexion. Certain parts of the globe experience more daylight hours, have less shade, and are all round hotter. People in those parts usually have a darker tone to their skin than people from more polar regions. Another great example is the Woolly Mammoth. These animals were essentially a hairy elephant that thrived during the ice age. It goes to show just how a mutation can benefit evolution. Without a dark skin, or in the mammoths case, hair, the survival could not be guaranteed.
But some mutations are not helpful. There have been great examples throughout history of people and animals mutating and not surviving too long. A great example would be albino creatures, such as tigers and even people. In a tigers case, being albino inhibits their ability to hide, making survival extremely difficult. A lack of camouflage can result in death by starvation. With albino people they are presented with less immediately dangerous situations than animals in the wild. Some of the problems people with this condition posses a heightened risk of melanoma and eye problems. Now to use the eye problems as a segue to the blue eyes mutation.
It’s believed that blue eyes originated about 6,000 to 10,000 years ago from a single person. This blue eyes mutation was the result of the OCA2 gene being affected. This prevented the melanin being produced in the eyes, which basically resulted in the brown being turned off. But it wasn’t completely shut off. If it was the hair and skin would have also been affected, resulting in an albino person.
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21 Brushing Teeth Before Breakfast Is Recommended
Did you know that rushing teeth before breakfast is the recommended way to maintain your teeth is a wholesome and healthy condition? But why would you brush your teeth before you eat instead of after eating? After all, if you’ve just eaten won’t brushing restore them to pristine cleanliness? Well, yes, they will be clean, but vulnerable also.
We are all pretty aware of the need to maintain a healthy set of teeth. Once your adult teeth are gone, there’s only a handful of options left. One is for dentures. Another is for the more costly option of dental implants, and the third it to render your smile completely toothless. If you’re like me all of those options are something that you only want to deploy as a last resort. So did you know that is you brush after a meal it can cause damage to your teeth?
Tooth decay and sugary foods are a potent mix. It has long been recognized that sugar accelerates the process of decay. Not only can sugar cause your teeth to decay, but any food can do the same. Left on and in between your teeth, it becomes a breeding ground for bacteria that will not only consume the leftover food, but also your teeth. So brushing after a meal should offer protection, right? It does in a way, but because breakfast meals usually contain higher levels of sugar and acids, brushing exposes them to these.
Now, the problem here is that tooth enamel doesn’t last forever. In fact, the enamel is prone to attacks from acid and sugar. Yes, brushing does clean the teeth, but when you clean them immediately after a meal the enamel is weak. Brushing can actually remove or significantly damage it. It’s for this reason that the dental profession nor recommends that brushing teeth before breakfast to maintain a healthy, and longer lasting set of teeth. If you still want to brush after a meal dentists do have some advice that might interest you. To play completely on the safe side, dentists recommend that you wait at least an hour after eating before you brush your teeth. Waiting this long will allow the enamel to harden up and withstand the rigors of a good brushing. But if you don’t want to brush, cheese or milk can offer a safe and tasty solution. These products will balance out the harmful acids in your mouth.
Don’t feel ashamed not knowing that brushing teeth before breakfast is the recommendation for healthy teeth. In reality, about 80 percent of people are unaware that cleaning them after a meal, especially breakfast, can shorten their life.
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Well that’s the end of our list of 21 pointless facts about the human body. We hope that you enjoyed reading it as much as we did compiling it.
