top10 things you didnt know about yourself

10.

Your stomach is smarter than you think

Your stomach has more neurons than many animals have in their actual brains; its collection of neurons is so complex, that some call it a “second brain” for humans. While other parts of the body – the palms of your hands, for instance – also have high levels of neurons, your stomach is unique in that it can effectively think for itself, meaning that you can digest food without having to think about it. Ever been nervous, irritable, or content for apparently no reason at all? Ever found yourself unable to concentrate after an enormous meal? Chances are, your stomach is partly to blame – all the more reason to eat wisely.

9

You are as hairy as a chimp

This statement might seem to be untrue as soon as you glance in the mirror (unless you suffer from hypertrichosis), but you are indeed as hairy as most other primates. Just like chimps, we have hair all over our bodies – only it’s much finer and shorter than that of our furry cousins. Per square inch of our body we have an average of 500-1000 hair follicles.
And the hairiest creature? The sea otter puts all other animals to shame, with nearly a million hairs per square inch.

8

You are a miracle

Biology teachers often begin the year by applauding their students: “Well done,” they say. “You’ve already done the hardest thing you will ever have to do.” When the students look bemused, the teacher will explain. Everybody began as a perfectly symmetrical ball of cells – yet we’ve all ended up having a front, a back, and sides. How can a spherical cell end up forming orifices as complex as eyes, ears, and nostrils? It has to flatten, twist, and push itself into shape. This forms the first orifice you have – your anus. Typically, this becomes the biology teacher’s second joke: All humans start as arses – it’s just that some remain as arses for their whole lives.

7

You are part-virus

One of the bigger surprises unearthed by the Human Genome Project was exactly how much of our DNA has been contributed by viruses. Viruses can’t reproduce on their own – so some viruses have to insert their DNA into a host cell in order to be copied. If the virus inserts itself into a sperm or egg cell, then the resulting offspring may carry the virus DNA in every one of its cells. This has happened so often in human evolution that no less than 9% of our genome is directly derived from viruses.

6

You can’t tickle yourself

…unless you have schizophrenia. Tickling is thought to be a key part of human bonding, especially between children and their parents. When we grow up, we may come to dislike being tickled – but most people never overcome the nervous twitching and laughing that comes with another person touching us in a certain way. Yet – as we all know – we can’t tickle ourselves, since our brain knows exactly what to expect. For schizophrenics, however, it isn’t so easy to recognize the touch as belonging to themselves – many will laugh just as hard from a feather guided by their own hand.

5

Your body is younger than you are

You are changing all the time. You inhale, you exhale, you eat, and you excrete. You take in molecules and expel others constantly. If you are over the age of puberty, then it is likely that not a single part of your body ever belonged to your baby self. This leads to an interesting problem, still hotly debated by philosophers: if every part of you is different today, are you still the same person you were at birth?

4

You are partially blind

Unfortunately, your eyes have a design fault: both of them have a blind spot. This blind spot is large enough to cause problems for those who lose sight in one eye. Thankfully for most of us, the fact that we have two eyes means that the blind spots go unnoticed.

3

You can count without counting

When you are presented with groups of up to four objects, you don’t need to count them to figure out how many there are. For these small groups, you have an instinctive grasp of the number of items. Members of the Piraha tribe in Brazil don’t have any numbers in their language, and so they’re unable to count – yet even the Piraha are able to comprehend numbers up to four.

2

You may have no free will

It’s often a very violent debate: are you free to make your own decisions, or are your decisions shaped by forces beyond your control? Many arguments have been put forward on both sides of the debate, but here I will focus on the experiment carried out on a patient by Benjamin Libet.
Libet, while observing the patient’s brain, told him to move his hand whenever he wished. Libet found that the brain registered a desire to move the hand, even before the man himself was aware of this desire. This suggests that we may act impulsively, without actually making a decision. It only seems to us afterwards that we did something from our own free will, since we rationalize our action after it happens.

1

You have stripes

Many mammals have stripes: cats can have very clear lines, or patches, which develop as certain cells start expressing different genes, and then pass the variation on to other cells. Humans are no different – it is simply that our stripes are usually invisible. You can usually only see these stripes – called Blaschko’s Lines – when a disease affects one type of cell, but not a neighbouring type.

top 10 things you should never discuss online

10.

The Middle East

Everyone has an opinion about the Middle East. It may be about the Palestinian State; it may be about oil; it may be about Israel; but that little area of land is blood-soaked for a reason. Trying to talk about the Middle East will almost always end up in a fight because no one has been able to come up with a win-win solution to the area’s problems in a few thousand years. Any solution requires one side or the other to give ground and so far, no one has decided to. This mentality carries over into the supporters of the different positions. Israel is evil. The Palestinians are evil. The Jews are evil. The Arabs are evil. Round and round it goes. Again, no middle ground.

9

Homosexuality

Can’t be discussed rationally. No way, no how. To some it’s a perfectly acceptable lifestyle. To others, it is anathema. It is genetic. It is a choice. It can be “cured”. Once a homosexual, always a homosexual. Nature – or nurture. What’s really upsetting is no middle ground is usually available. If one happens to be a live and let live type of person, he or she is still in some danger of being painted negatively by the other side. One thing that makes this particular topic so explosive is homosexuality is much more mainstream now than it used to be. To some, that is a positive and sought after development. For others, it is a sign that the apocalypse is at hand.

8

Jesus Christ

Arguably the most discussed man in all of history. His life traditionally splits the dating system of the Western World into BC and AD. He is also probably the single most divisive person in all history. He was a good man and a great teacher but nothing else. He was God in the flesh. He never existed. Strangely, many people of all stripes who can rationally and calmly discuss the existence of God devolve into name calling and mudslinging once Jesus is brought up. Jesus is another guaranteed firestorm starter.

7

Race Relations

“Can’t we all just get along?” isn’t really an option. Things are better than in the past in some instances, but in others, not so much. Regardless, trying to talk about it reasonably is nearly impossible. Moderate voices are usually shouted down. Even in the 21st century some people still believe in the superiority of one race over another, despite the fact that, organically, race is a myth. We have ethnicities, yes, but race is an artificial construct based almost solely on the amount of melanin in a person’s skin and the size and layout of the facial bones and musculature. We’ve come a long way, but a long way remains and to discuss it reasonably is difficult. Cries of discrimination start coming in from all sides and before anyone knows it, the “discussion” is in the crapper.

6

Abortion

Pro-Choice. Pro-Life. Anti-choice. Baby. Fetus. When does birth begin? I have read more than once that civil debate on abortion is difficult in person and absolutely impossible online. The reasons are plain. It’s a topic that is naturally polarizing. It pits men against women, one religion against another, freedom against bondage, and for some it is literally a matter of life and death. The most divisive facet of the abortion debate, however, is the tendency for both sides to apply black and white thinking to a subject with way too many gray questions to fit into those pigeonholes. The result in “real life” can be crazy mad protests all the way up to clinic bombings. Online isn’t much better as otherwise nice, civil, rational people go from zero to pissed off in less than a second. Too visceral. Avoid at all costs.

5

Gun Control

This is mostly an issue for Americans and there is a certain amount of politics involved, but even those who live in countries with very strict gun control, or no gun control (and little concern about it) are sure to weigh in on this controversial topic. It is, of course, all the more controversial for Americans because it goes to the very core of the nation – the constitution and the right (or not) to bear arms. We have already had at least one incident of comment war over this topic.

4

The Holocaust

The Holocaust is ALWAYS a fire starter. It never happened. It happened but the numbers are inflated. It happened but why is it so important. The Holocaust is about the Jews. The Holocaust is about all the targeted populations of the Nazis. The Holocaust didn’t get the job done. One reason this topic is so toxic is enough people are around who were eyewitnesses to make a strong case one way, but enough people are around who must rely on second hand information to be subject to influence by deniers. Either way, almost NOTHING elicits the strong feelings that the Holocaust does, and if one makes the mistake of saying one doesn’t care either way, well, god help you.

3

Politics

Of all the topics on this list, politics is the one that seems to have shown the most recent increase in rancor (though not on Listverse – item 6 takes the cake there). In the US we have the Republicans and Democrats, and in many other countries (such as the UK and most of the Commonwealth there is a similar variation of partisan political parties. For the diehard political pundit, his party is his team. It’s his family. It’s a mountain he’s ready to die on. I’ve seen people get physically sick upon learning “their” candidate had lost an election. The saddest part of this polarization is the gridlock it creates in governments. After all, the politicians know about the splits and they’ll pull out all the stops to add to their camp so they can stay in office.

2

Origins of Man

Evolution or Creation? The books that have been written on this subject for either position could probably fill a modest library. Each side has reams of data and boatloads of facts to back up its position and each side roundly thinks the other side’s data and facts are so much excrement. The worst part is, again, no middle ground. If one tries to adopt a position that incorporates both sides, each side will rip him or her to shreds. When the origins of man come up, the gloves come off.

1

Religion

More people have died in the name of God, whatever name that may be, than pretty much all other causes combined. Christian. Muslim. Buddhist. Atheist. Scientologist. No matter the stripe, a surefire way to get EVERYONE mad is to disparage another’s religion or lack thereof. It’s simple, really. Religion or, spirituality if you will, is probably the most intensely personal part of anyone’s being and that includes those who reject religion and spirituality altogether. Also, religion is a family affair. When someone feels his religion is under attack, that attack immediately becomes personal and familial. One push leads to a counter push and the atomic explosion goes off. To make matters worse, some religions have as an integral part a command to proselytize. Also, some people, not from a sense of command, but of desire, will want to proselytize. When that happens, your intensely personal experience collides with another person’s intensely personal experience and the result is a perfect storm of firestorm.
So, there it is. The ten topics you cannot discuss online (without serious drama following shortly thereafter). A word for the wise: it might pay to discuss the reasons behind this inability to discuss certain topics without a war, rather than discussing the merits of the items mentioned specifically. Let’s keep this more civil than the last list that mentioned one of the topics here

top 10 strange building materials

10.

The ice hotel

In Jukkasjärvi, a village in Sweden within the Arctic circle, each year a hotel constructed entirely out of ice is built. Every room is a display of art carved in ice. Even the beds are blocks of ice, though spread with reindeer skins. When the summer comes and the hotel melts visitors are offered the ability to stay in rooms of ice maintained in a freezer building. Because water has such a highly specific heat capacity it requires a large amount of energy to melt ice.
This is what allows buildings from igloos to palaces to be constructed from it. Ice is also remarkably strong. A rather grander building of ice was planned by the eccentric president of Turkmenistan, Saparmurat Niyazov. He ordered the building of a palace of ice near the Turkmen capital. Since the average temperature there is rather higher than it is within the Arctic Circle the project was more impressive.

9

Buddhist beer temple

The Wat Pa Maha Chedi Kaew temple in Thailand is constructed from a million glass beer bottles. Decorative mosaics at the temple are constructed from beer bottle lids. The mixture of brown and green glass allowed the incorporation of intricate patterns within the temple’s walls. Since the walls are colored glass they allow for privacy but also a beautiful but diffuse light to spread throughout the buildings.
The monks who built the temple wished to highlight the wasteful nature of consumption and the possibility of reclaiming beauty from rubbish. Since glass is rather too brittle to make a complete structure, the temple does have a concrete core to support its weight.

8

House made from an airplane

There are many houses made from reclaimed structures, such as disused water towers. There are houses made from retired train carriages. Most impressive for scale and boyish playfulness are houses which are built inside converted airplanes. Because airplanes are built to be robust they make surprisingly good buildings. Their exterior is strong and weatherproof and their interior is spacious once stripped of seats and storage compartments. Another factor in their favour is the low cost of buy a retired passenger jet.
Since a retired plane is of no value except as scrap metal, they can be had very reasonably. Because of the advantages converted planes have as homes there are now several companies which specialise in them. Perhaps they will not be so unusual in the future as they seem now.

7

Tires

Millions of tires are thrown away every year. They are, in many ways, a perfect building material. They are as tough as they are plentiful and can be used as a stacking system for walls. Of course they need something packed within them for stability but there are houses that have been made from tires, filled with clay, and stacked like bricks.
Rubber, being highly insulating, makes a building constructed in this way cheap to heat or keep cool. For those worried about a rubber fire in their house it is possible to avoid this risk by coating them with plaster or concrete.

6

Petrified wood

Wood is one of the oldest building materials known. Strong, flexible, renewable, and cheap it was the go-to material for our ancestors. For those who want to be traditional but crave the strength of stone there is a possibility. Petrified wood – trees that died eons ago and have been fossilised, has been used in several buildings as a material.
In Lamar, Colorado, there is a car dealership office made from lumps of petrified wood. The town of Glen Rose in Texas underwent a petrified wood building frenzy in the 1920s when large numbers of petrified trees were discovered. Now the town houses a Creationist museum, one assumes it is not built out of fossilised wood millions of years old…

5

Plastic bottles

Recycling of materials will become ever more popular as resources become scarcer. A number of buildings have been made from plastic bottles. The benefit of using them is their extremely low cost and their ability to act as insulating materials. Air is a very good insulator, so sealed bottles of air will tend to keep heat in or out as desired. Since plastics resist biodegradation they can form long-lasting walls. It is not only small houses in impoverished nations which are using plastic bottles though. In Taiwan an exhibition hall was constructed from recycled bottles.
Many low cost houses in third world countries are built of corrugated metal and are dingy, to say the least. The only source of light may be the open door. To bring light into these homes a scheme called ‘Liter of light’ has been repurposing plastic bottles. Cutting a hole in the roof and inserting a plastic bottle will allow sunlight to radiate into the home and bring light indoors for people too poor to afford electricity.

4

Newspaper

In 1922 Elis Stenman began building a house out of newspaper. The entire house, save for the wooden frame, is made of newspapers rolled and varnished. The paper provides excellent insulation and the varnish keeps the property from collapsing into a pile of mush. As well as filling in the walls with newspapers Mr Stensmen also built the furnishings from donated papers.
His purpose in building his home in this manner was a very modern one- he wished to highlight the waste of our society with regards to what we discard.

3

Mammoth bones

It would be incredibly expensive to replicate a building made from mammoth bones today since the source has become extinct. Our ancestors however had a plentiful supply of mammoth bones in the late Pleistocene. Making a circular hole in the ground the large bones of the mammoths were used to create walls that were lined with mud and probably leather from the same animals.
All that remains today of these buildings are the bones which formed the walls but it is probable that they resembled teepees, with a conical shape and a hole in the roof for smoke to escape from the fire used to heat them.

2

Salt

Salt was once so rare in Europe that it was used to pay soldiers’ wages; it is where we get the word salary from. In Bolivia there are massive salt flats and so no shortage of the substance. To build a house out of salt in Europe would be to court disaster as salt is, of course, soluble and so the first rain would wash your walls away.
In the high, and mostly dry, deserts where the salt flats exist there is no such danger. A hotel has been constructed of blocks of salt cut from the flats. Joining these bricks of salt together could not be easier. Simply wet the edge and press them together and the bricks will fuse. The hotel is much like the ice hotel mentioned earlier in that it is entirely constructed from salt – even the furniture inside. Seasoning your food at the dinner table should present no trouble.

1

Corn cobs

This building is merely a prototype and so cannot really be lived in at the moment. The construction is basically a wooden frame filled with dried corn cobs. The aim was to produce a cheap and biofriendly home. The architects managed to make it cheap- wood and corn are never expensive- but they have still to find a way to keep the rain and wind out of the building.
The key benefit of this building is that it is made from entirely renewable sources. It would also serve as an excellent source of popcorn on a movie night.

top-10-steroid-myths-busted

10.

Steroids Decrease Endurance

Steroids, in actual fact, greatly increase endurance by creating a greater count of red blood cells. Red blood cells are one of the most important physiological components for athletes – especially endurance athletes. These cells are responsible for carrying oxygen to the body’s tissues (including muscles). On a quick note, blood doping, the practice of increasing the number of red blood cells in the bloodstream, is illegal, however altitude training, the practice of training for several weeks at high altitudes too ultimately increase the red blood cell count too, is legal.

9

Women Will End Up Looking Like Men

Yes, women take steroids too, whether they are supreme athletes, bodybuilders or recreational users. But just like men, women can select the types of steroids they take so they don’t end up looking like a line-backer. Women do however suffer more side effects than men by way of clitoral enlargement, a deepening of the voice and hair growth in unwanted places, however they are reversible once the cycle is over.

8

Steroids are a Quick Fix

In actual fact, athletes will testify that more intense training and regime dieting is required in order to reap the full benefits that steroids have to offer. The fact is, steroids are not a magic pill or chemical that will instantly shape, define or provide your body with the athleticism you yearn for. A healthy lifestyle that combines a healthy diet, with a recommended 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep will compliment the intense training an athlete will punish his or her body through. If steroids were the magic peel that many people make them out to be, anyone could be the supreme athlete.

7

Liver Damage

Steroid users will be quick to tell you that injected steroids are a better method of taking the drug than oral digestion. If taken orally, the steroid must pass through the liver and could cause high levels of toxicity, however, this is not the case with all orally ingested steroids. Yet why should steroids take such a bad rap in terms of liver side effects when millions choose to kill their liver with alcohol and various forms of prescription drugs, all of which are legal? Such a stigma exists about steroids whereby communities look down on those that take them, but why does the same stigma not exist for alcohol, even if it may be just social drinking?

6

Penis Shrinks

No, your penis will not shrink. Your testicles might though. This is a common occurrence amongst anabolic steroid users however it is reversible – in other words, as soon as the cycle is concluded, your testicles will return to their normal size. Men, if you don’t want your significant other finding out about your steroid usage, blindfold your partner.

5

Depression

The media has built this one up a lot. Misinformation is being exploited. Every report that has linked steroids with depression has been purely anecdotal, and in most cases, the individual has had previous mental imbalances. Similar to myth #1, increased testosterone levels have been proven to increase positive moods and decrease stress.

4

Stunted Growth

It has been suggested that anabolic steroid use in teenagers leads to the premature closure of the growth plates. Once again, there is no scientific proof to prove this claim. One needs to merely look at Arnold Schwarzenegger, who admitted taking steroids from a very young age to see that steroids do not stunt your growth. That’s not to say that Arnold should be taken as 100% proof, but that coupled with no hard scientific data to prove such a claim should make this a myth.

3

Increased Chance of Prostate Cancer

Evidence has shown that men with higher levels of testosterone are at no greater risk of developing prostate cancer than men with low testosterone. Similar to myth #2, prostate cancer is largely a genetic predisposition. What should be pushed is more human studies on the use of anabolic steroids rather than rats so that the data is clear, not skewed, and so that these myths can be cleared up and rectified, and if there are any true dangers, they should be identified, not laughable fallacies.

2

Steroids Cause Baldness

Baldness is genetically determined. Increased levels of testosterone by way anabolic steroids will not cause baldness, but it has been argued that it could speed up the process. This side effect is enough to steer many people away from using steroids however there are ways of preventing this. Hair loss shampoos are recommended as a precaution for any cycle. As a general rule of thumb, athletes in their 20s, especially those who use the drug for pure aesthetic reasons, should think twice about taking steroids as their bodies are already producing large quantities of testosterone, more than what will ever be produced during a specific period in their life. It should be a decision that is seriously considered sometime into their 30s if they still feel inclined to experiment with the drug. The health benefits of such can be amazing.

1

Roid Rage

Best described in the documentary “Bigger, Stronger, Faster*,” steroids will only amplify personality characteristics that the individual already has. The only studies to have come from steroids are those performed on rats. The difference between humans and rats? We have a better capacity to control aggression. Caffeine and other stimulants have also been included within literature as stimulants that lead to higher levels of aggression, but should coffee be blamed for all outbursts by coffee drinkers? It also has been suggested that estrogen in fact is to blame for increased levels of aggression. Testosterone on the contrary makes males feel positive and motivated.
Misinformation is skewing the truth. Controlled human studies should be performed in order to put to bed all the myths and fallacies that surround anabolic steroid use and in order to take away the stigma associated with the use. Anabolic steroids have their place within sports and other recreations. But just like any other drug, they should not be abused. Be safe.