Facts about the Human Body

Tallest man and shortest man... right now

We studied the human body this year as part of our schooling... or maybe I should say we sorta studied the human body. I am not sure we did anything 100% for school this year.

I'm not gonna lie, this was a hard, hard year. Between trying to feed a severely malnourished child who desperately tried to throw up every meal and changing burn bandages for 6 weeks on my poor baby I spilled hot water all over... school was about the last thing on my mind.

I would have these really elaborate plans for school projects. Ha, the human body!! After all, it seemed we really needed to study the body because we were certainly having a plethora of issues with body around here. I planned for us to put together a human skeleton (plastic of course), make a lapbook (click here for an example of a lapbook) on the human body, learn about all the systems (digestive, respiratory, skeletal, muscular, nervous.=, etc...) Seriously, all of a sudden I decided these kids should be in med school.

In the end, I decided it was most fun to skip to the back of the book and read the facts, figures and records.

Here are some things I think you should know. Please, don't ever say my blog is not educational!

Your mouth releases about 3 cups of saliva a day. (Gross!)

Food takes about 3 days to pass through your digestive system. (Eat some corn and count the days, baby!)

There are more bacteria living inside one person's intestines than there are human beings on Earth. (I don't even know what to say about that!)

Shortest man: THE shortest man who ever lived was Gul Mohammed of Delhi, India. He lived from 1957 t0 1997 and measured 1 ft, 10.5 in tall. (Seriously!?)

Shortest woman: This was probably Lucia Zarate, a circus performer from Mexico. She lived from 1864 to 1890, and was said to be about 1 ft, 8 in tall

Oldest person: There are many claims to the longest lifespan, but the oldest person for whom there are reliable records was Jeanne Calment from France. She was born in 1875 and died in 1997, at the age of 122, and she was active throughout her old age. She was still riding a bicycle at the age of 100, acted in a film at the age of 114, and released a pop record at the age of 121. (I am guessing I didn't hear about the record because it wasn't that popular???)

Most children born to one woman: A Russian woman named Mrs. Vassilyev, who lived from 1707 to 1782, gave birth to the greatest number of children on record- 69 altogether. They included 16 sets of twins and seven sets of triplets. (3 words: SHOOT ME NOW!)

DID YOU KNOW:

You are taller in the morning than in the evening. During the day, the cartilage in your spine squashes down by up to 0.3 in because of the effect of gravity. At night, when you lie down, the cartilage expands again.

You spend a year of your life with your eyes closed because you are blinking.

In one day, your blood travels a distance of about 12,000 miles as it is pumped around and around your body.

Children have a better sense of smell than adults. It is at its most sensitive when you are about 10 years old, and then gets worse as you get older. (My husband would tell you that my sense of smell died altogether when I was 30.)

Human bone is stronger than concrete or steel.

At the age of about 30, the human body starts to shrink. (DEPRESSING!)

FYI... by the grace of God, my children scored very high on this years' Stanford Achievement Test!