Fun facts

16 of the weirdest and wackiest facts on the human body

Did you know that 206 bones make up the human skeleton? It’s just one of the many fun facts you’ll find in Operation Ouch!: The HuManual. Join Dr Chris and Dr Xand as you find out all about crazy bodily functions and bizarre real-life medical cases. Here are 16 weird, wacky and sometimes-a-bit-gross facts… 

Dr Chris & Dr Xand

1. Your eyes blink around 20 times a minute. That’s over ten million times a year!

2. Your ears never stop growing!

3. Earwax is actually a type of sweat!

An illustration of grumpy looking earwax from Operation Ouch!: The HuManual
Illustration: Dan Green | Operation Ouch!: The HuManual

4. The tongue is covered in about 8,000 taste-buds, each containing up to 100 cells helping you taste your food!

5. You produce about 40,000 litres of spit in your lifetime. Or to put it another way, enough spit to fill around five hundred bathtubs – yuck!

6. The average nose produces about a cupful of nasal mucus every day!

An illustration of some mucus from Operation Ouch!: The HuManual
Illustration: Dan Green | Operation Ouch!: The HuManual

7. You are about 1cm taller in the morning when you first get up than when you go to bed. This is because during the day the soft cartilage between your bones gets squashed and compressed.

8. If you walked for 12 hours a day, it would take the average person 690 days to walk around the world.

9. The only muscle that never tires is the heart.

An illustration of two skeletons from Operation Ouch!: The HuManual
Illustration: Dan Green | Operation Ouch!: The HuManual

10. The entire surface of your skin is replaced every month, which put another way means you have about 1,000 different skins in your life!

11. The body has 2.5 million sweat pores.

12. Every minute you shed over 30,000 dead skin cells.

An illustration of a happy looking brain from Operation Ouch!: The HuManual
Illustration: Dan Green | Operation Ouch!: The HuManual

13. If you live to age 70, your heart will have beat around 2.5 billion times!

14. Spread across their lifetime, most people spend an average of one whole year sitting on the toilet.

15. On average you fart enough in one day to fill a party balloon.

16. We wee enough wee every month to fill a bath!

What did you think of this facts piece? Is there anything you’d like to see more of on the website? Send any suggestions to: childrenseditor@penguin.co.uk

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