ken atchity door to door: 50 HUMAN BODY MYSTERIES [via David Angsten]

50 HUMAN BODY MYSTERIES [via David Angsten]

The Human Body is a treasure trove of mysteries, one that still
confounds doctors and scientists about the details of its working. It's
not an overstatement to say that every part of your body is a miracle.
Here are fifty facts about your body, some of which will leave you
stunned... or...

1. It's possible for your body to survive without a surprisingly large
fraction of its internal organs. Even if you lose your stomach, your
spleen, 75% of your liver, 80% of your intestines, one kidney, one
lung, and virtually every organ from your pelvic and groin area, you
wouldn't be very healthy, but you would live.

2. During your lifetime, you will produce enough saliva to fill two
swimming pools. Actually, Saliva is more important than you realize. If
your saliva cannot dissolve something, you cannot taste it.

3. The largest cell in the human body is the female egg and the
smallest is the male sperm. The egg is actually the only cell in the
body that is visible by the naked eye.

4. The strongest muscle in the human body is the tongue and the hardest
bone is the jawbone.

5. Human feet have 52 bones, accounting for one quarter of all the
human body's bones.

6. Feet have 500,000 sweat glands and can produce more than a pint of
sweat a day.

7. The acid in your stomach is strong enough to dissolve razor blades.
The reason it doesn't eat away at your stomach is that the cells of
your stomach wall renew themselves so frequently that you get a new
stomach lining every three to four days.

8. The human lungs contain approximately 2,400 kilometers (1,500 mi) of
airways and 300 to 500 million hollow cavities, having a total surface
area of about 70 square meters, roughly the same area as one side of a
tennis court. Furthermore, if all of the capillaries that surround the
lung cavities were unwound and laid end to end, they would extend for
about 992 kilometers. Also, your left lung is smaller than your right
lung to make room for your heart.

9. Sneezes regularly exceed 100 mph , while coughs clock in at about 60
mph.

10. Your body gives off enough heat in 30 minutes to bring half a
gallon of water to a boil.

11. Your body has enough iron in it to make a nail 3 inches long.

12. Earwax production is necessary for good ear health It protects the
delicate inner ear from bacteria, fungus, dirt and even insects. It
also cleans and lubricates the ear canal.

13. Everyone has a unique smell, except for identical twins, who smell
the same.

14. Your teeth start growing 6 months before you are born. This is why
one out of every 2,000 newborn infants has a tooth when they are born

15. A baby's head is one-quarter of its total length, but by the age of
25 will only be one-eighth of its total length. This is because
people's heads grow at a much slower rate than the rest of their bodies.

16. Babies are born with 300 bones, but by adulthood the number is
reduced to 206. Some of the bones, like skull bones, get fused into
each other, bringing down the total number.

17. It's not possible to tickle yourself. This is because when you
attempt to tickle yourself you are totally aware of the exact time and
manner in which the tickling will occur, unlike when someone else
tickles you.

18. Less than one third of the human race has 20-20 vision. This means
that two out of three people cannot see perfectly.

19. Your nose can remember 50,000 different scents. But if you are a
woman, you are a better smeller than men, and will remain a better
smeller throughout your life.

20. The human body is estimated to have 60,000 miles of blood vessels.

21. The three things pregnant women dream most of during their first
trimester are frogs, worms and potted plants. Scientists have no idea
why this is so, but attribute it to the growing imbalance of hormones
in the body during pregnancy.

22. The life span of a human hair is 3 to 7 years on average. Every day
the average person loses 60-100 strands of hair. But don't worry, you
must lose over 50% of your scalp hairs before it is apparent to anyone.

23. The human brain cell can hold 5 times as much information as an
encyclopedia. Your brain uses 20% of the oxygen that enters your
bloodstream, and is itself made up of 80% water. Though it interprets
pain signals from the rest of the body, the brain itself cannot feel
pain.

24. The tooth is the only part of the human body that can't repair
itself.

25. Your eyes are always the same size from birth but your nose and
ears never stop growing.

26. By 60 years of age, 60% of men and 40% of women will snore.

27. We are about 1 cm taller in the morning than in the evening,
because during normal activities during the day, the cartilage in our
knees and other areas slowly compress.

28. The brain operates on the same amount of power as 10-watt light
bulb, even while you are sleeping. In fact, the brain is much more
active at night than during the day.

29. Nerve impulses to and from the brain travel as fast as 170 miles
per hour. Neurons continue to grow throughout human life. Information
travels at different speeds within different types of neurons.

30. It is a fact that people who dream more often and more vividly, on
an average have a higher Intelligence Quotient.

31. The fastest growing nail is on the middle finger.

32. Facial hair grows faster than any other hair on the body. This is
true for men as well as women.

33. There are as many hairs per square inch on your body as a
chimpanzee.

34. A human fetus acquires fingerprints at the age of three months.

35. By the age of 60, most people will have lost about half their taste
buds.

36. About 32 million bacteria call every inch of your skin home. But
don't worry, a majority of these are harmless or even helpful bacteria.

37. The colder the room you sleep in, the higher the chances are that
you'll have a bad dream.

38. Human lips have a reddish color because of the great concentration
of tiny capillaries just below the skin.

39. Three hundred million cells die in the human body every minute.

40. Like fingerprints, every individual has an unique tongue print that
can be used for identification.

41. A human head remains conscious for about 15 to 20 seconds after it
has been decapitated.

42. It takes 17 muscles to smile and 43 to frown.

43. Humans can make do longer without food than sleep . Provided there
is water, the average human could survive a month to two months without
food depending on their body fat and other factors. Sleep deprived
people, however, start experiencing radical personality and
psychological changes after only a few sleepless days. The longest
recorded time anyone has ever gone without sleep is 11 days, at the end
of which the experimenter was awake, but stumbled over words,
hallucinated and frequently forgot what he was doing.

44. The most common blood type in the world is Type O. The rarest blood
type, A-H or Bombay blood, due to the location of its discovery, has
been found in less than hundred people since it was discovered

45. Every human spent about half an hour after being conceived, as a
single cell. Shortly afterward, the cells begin rapidly dividing and
begin forming the components of a tiny embryo.

46. Right-handed people live, on average, nine years longer than
left-handed people do. This is largely due to the fact that a majority
of the machines and tools we use on a daily basis are designed for
those who are right handed, making them somewhat dangerous for lefties
to use and resulting in thousands of accidents and deaths each year.

47. Your ears secrete more earwax when you are afraid than when you
aren't.

48. Koalas and primates are the only animals with unique fingerprints.

49. Humans are the only animals to produce emotional tears.

50. The human heart creates enough pressure to squirt blood 30 feet in
the air.

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Yoga Gives Back

Written by Kayoko Mitsumatsu

From Posture To Power: Microcredit Changes Lives On Both Sides of the Ocean

We can talk about making change. But affecting real change in the world comes from impacting the lives of individuals. It comes from empowering people to be independent and able to make a living on their own while at the same time being fully integrated in our interdependent global community. Sometimes it takes something that seems to be radical to make this change, but these shifts can be deceptively small. They can be even as small (or as large) as the cost of a Los Angeles Yoga class.

How could this be? In the practice of microcredit, lending seemingly small amounts of money to small-scale entrepreneurs allows them to succeed and change their circumstances. This is the fundamental basis of microcredit’s transformative power; it’s a revolutionary concept in finance. This practice shifts the emphasis from financial transactions being focused only about large loans and large scale businesses, which are out of reach of many one-person operations, institutions and organizations – to lending practices that actually make a positive difference in a person’s life. Microcredit practices based on social justice and empowerment operate through a combination of small-scale loans based on trust and community support, with structured repayment plans and programs that encourage savings. In these situations, people actually have the opportunity to solidify long-term change in their lives.

Dr. Muhammad Yunus and the Yoga Gives Back Team: Joel Bender, Leslie Hendry, Dr. Muhammad Yunus and Kayoko Mitsumatsu (left-right)

In 2006, economist Dr. Muhammad Yunus and the institution he founded, the Grameen Bank, were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. This award was in recognition of their revolutionary efforts to create this micro-credit model, support sustainable economic practices, and provide an alternative to what were exploitive norms. When a person is caught in a cycle of poverty, they may become trapped in the system, particularly since large banking institutions have historically ignored people without assets or credit histories, who are just starting out and who may not have already proven themselves. Most banks prefer to lend large sums of money that represent a greater profit margin and are set up only for large loans in order to make a profit themselves. And even making it more challenging, people at the bottom of the economic scale worldwide have had to rely on moneylenders charging usurious terms and interest rates to obtain funds to plant the next crop, buy inventory of new equipment, or upgrade a business in any way. Institutions such as the Grameen Bank and their affiliates are offering another approach. It’s one that has significantly impacted millions of people.

As Dr. Yunus described in an exclusive interview with Yoga Gives Back in May, 2009, “We started in 1976, and today within Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, eight million people borrow micro loans, ninety-seven percent of them women.” This represents an enormous potential for change and empowerment that just did not exist on a large scale in this form prior to 1976.

There is a social cycle in economics, and Dr. Yunus explained this: “Poverty is not inside the person. Poverty is forced from outside. Poor people are as capable [a] human being as anybody else. They have the same power and energy, same potential. But they are denied such facilities. They cannot express themselves. Money is one of the most important items missing in their lives. You need a dollar to catch a dollar. You cannot catch a dollar with an empty hand. So, that first dollar, nobody has given to her. So she remains dependent on someone else. She has to be hired, to slave; she has to work to make food available on the table. What we have done, we have put that first dollar into her hands as a banking proposition. Conventional banks never come to the poor people. They go to rich people to make more money. The person who does not have a dollar – she cannot get it. So we did it. We did it in a way that is affordable to her. Because we do not insist on collateral. There is no collateral.”

While that may seem like a radical concept, the Grameen Bank has proven that their success is much more than ideological. Dr Yunus cited statistics for us, “The repayment rate is almost 100%, without collateral or anything. This is the strength of microcredit which is now spread all over the world. There are by now at least 150 million borrowers in the world today. Bu it is still very small comparing to the need. We need more microcredit organizations in the world so that more people can be reached.”

Yoga Gives Back is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization begun in LA, with the goal to provide a way for Western Yoga practitioners to give back to India, the birthplace of Yoga, which has given us so much. We’re heeding Dr. Yunus’ call to reach more people through expanded opportunities for and awareness of microcredit and have targeted India and Indian families, women, and would-be entrepreneurs, who would be otherwise stuck in the cycle of poverty that Dr. Yunus described. Yoga Gives Back supports microfinancing operations in India, through the Grameen Foundation, headquartered in Washington, DC. Donations go directly to Grameen Koota, Bangalore, South India and our YGB awareness campaign focuses on the real stories of how poor women are changing their lives with small loans from Grameen Koota.

Ms. Vinatha M Reddy

Grameen Koota was started by visionary teacher and philanthropist, Ms. Vinatha M Reddy (pictured, above) in 1999, who learned about Nobel Peace Recipient Dr Muhammad Yunus’ microfinancing and immediately began exploring ways of replicating his work in her hometown. In 2000, she started providing small microcredit loans, averaging $25.00 a month, to fifty local women. Today, Grameen Koota’s work is reaching out to over 280,000 women in Bangalore, Mysore and many areas of Karnataka state, in South India, making real impact on these women’s lives as well as on the local economy.

Yoga Gives Back

The Los Angeles-based Yoga Gives Back has a worldwide reach and began out of the inspiration and dedication of my Yoga mentor Joel Bender and me. Our group has suddenly started growing almost daily and our mission is shared by a quickly expanding and loving Yoga community.

When I was growing up in Japan, which is a very middle-class society, I had never experienced or seen any real poverty, especially growing up in Tokyo in 1960s and 1970s, when Japan's post-war economic miracle was taking place. Then, I had a chance to live in Brazil in the late 1970s for two years, where as a teenager, I saw the divide between poverty and wealth, the reality of the real slums, kids on the streets begging every time you stopped the car at the traffic light, all very much like India. Social injustice hit me hard.

Once I started Yoga practice and feeling my life being so enriched by it , I felt a need to use my resources to help others. I was producing a documentary on Social Entrepreneurship and learned about microfinancing. I shared this information with Joel [featured in the teacher profile in this month’s issue of LA YOGA] who had been looking for the way he could give back to India since his first visit there – so we teamed up.

When I think about the growth of Yoga Gives Back thus far, I give a lot of credit to the entrepreneurship and volunteer spirit of Americans, willing to embrace and support a new grass roots campaign like ours.

Kayoko Mitsumatsu, co-founder of Yoga Gives Back, is a documentary filmmaker whose films deal with social justice issues, including First They Killed My Father a memoir of a Cambodia’s Killing Fields’ survivor.

A Life Changing Story of Microcredit: Jayashree

Jayashree

Jayashree lives in the suburbs of Bangalore and is married and the mother of two children. We visited her at her humble dirt floor one room home for the first time in 2007. We were touched by her warm smile and most generous hospitality, serving us hot tea and cookies.

Jayashree was born into a very poor family in Bangalore. When she was a child, her family’s financial situation became so severe that she had to drop out of school and work at a garment factory. She toiled throughout her childhood and after she got married at fifteen, her meager earnings had to support her ailing in-laws. She had two children. Her husband’s rickshaw business was not enough to pay her sons’ education or secure food for the family.

In 2007, Jayashree learned from her neighbors about Grameen Koota’s microcredit program and applied for her first loan. She was granted a first loan of 7,000 rupees ($175), and immediately bought her husband’s auto rickshaw. Owning their own rickshaw business increased their income significantly.

Jayashree was able to pay back her entire loan in one year and became eligible for her second loan in 2008. Having proven her diligence, her second loan amount doubled to 15,000 rupees ($375). This time, she bought a sewing machine and started stitching bags. The family’s earnings have now tripled and she is earning 150 rupees ($3.75) a day. In addition, she opened a small shop next to her house to sell her products which is earning her an additional 100 rupees ($2.50) a day.

She is sending her elder son to a medical school. Her son dreams of becoming a doctor and thanks his mother’s business for providing his education, their own home and daily food.

To participate in a Yoga practice where the proceeds support Yoga Gives Back and directly impact the transformation of not only your own life, but that of someone in India, start your Thanksgiving week at Yogaglo, Sunday, November 22, 10:00 A.M. - 12 noon. Some of the teachers include John Sahakian, Felicia Tomasko, Alexandra Aiken and Ally Hamilton; more to be announced. Yogaglo.com; yogagivesback.com.

For more information on Yoga Gives Back or to host a Yoga Gives Back class at your own studio or location, visit: yogagivesback.org or contact yogagivesback@earthlink.net.