Legendary reggae musician Bob Marley once said, “One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain.”
Turns out, science backs him up. According to a 2023 study by scientists at McGill University in Montreal, listening to your favorite music reduces pain by one point on a 10-point scale.
Uniforms convey a sense of competency across professions ranging from delivery person and airline staff to chef and firefighter.
Psychological implications may be even stronger when it comes to matters of health.
The world’s most important pieces of infrastructure are overbuilt with safety in mind.
New bridges can handle stresses far beyond what they’d ever experience, and airplanes are similarly designed with redundancies.
It helps our bodies create vitamin D and mood-lifting serotonin, and even syncs our circadian rhythms.
However, some people experience an unexpected side effect after glancing into the sun: sneezing.
What are the health benefits of having a close friend, like identical twins close, for your entire life?
Well, according to research from the University of Washington, the positive effects on life expectancy can be astounding.
Some 500 million years ago, an ancient fish-like creature produced at least one offspring with a curious mutation — twice the number of genes.
These excess genes began developing in new directions, eventually creating more and more complex brains.
One of the most complex parts of human anatomy is also one (or rather two) that we use hundreds of times per day yet often take for granted.
Human hands are the body’s multipurpose tools, equipped with 27 individual bones.
No two humans smell exactly alike, because odor is a complex medley of aromatic influences that come from our environment, genes, and various secretions.
All of these add up to what’s known as our volatile organic compound (VOC).
Gender can also be a differentiating factor, as a 2023 study from Florida International University discovered.
From the automatic tasks of regulating breathing and blood pressure to the voluntary efforts needed for muscle movement, the central nervous system puts in a lot of work to maintain the complex mechanisms of the human body.
Pace is crucial to keep this system running smoothly which is why some signals from our body’s command centers can reach a speed of 268 miles per hour.
Bioluminescence, the strange biology that causes certain creatures to glow, is usually found at the darkest depths of the ocean where the sun’s light doesn’t reach.
While these light-emitting animals seem otherworldly, the trait is actually pretty common.
In fact, humans can glow.
People breathe primarily out of one nostril at a time.
The human nose is a biological wonder.
It can smell up to 1 trillion odors, trap harmful debris in the air before it enters your lungs, and affect your sex life.
But arguably its most important job is to condition the air you breathe before that air enters your respiratory tract.
The human skeleton is sometimes called the scaffolding of the body, and the name is apt because, like scaffolding, our bones are less permanent than you might think.
Human bones grow in a process known as modeling, and once a person reaches adulthood, the skeleton system refreshes itself in a process known as remodeling.
Researchers have long studied the connection between seasonal changes and youth growth patterns, with substantial evidence pointing to higher rates of growth among children in the Northern Hemisphere during the spring and summer months.
They have fiery tempers. They are more susceptible to pain sometimes and hate going to the dentist.
On that last account, at least, there's a decent amount of research that might explain the anecdotal evidence.
One little-known aspect of smell is how it fluctuates throughout the day.
According to research conducted by Brown University and published in the journal Chemical Senses in 2017, our sense of smell is somewhat regulated by our circadian rhythm, the internal biological process that regulates a human’s wake-sleep cycle. (If you’ve ever traveled across the ocean, the resulting jet lag is a disruption of this rhythm.)
Not for everyone, though. Roughly 12% of people dream entirely in black and white, making their nightly visions much like watching an old movie.
That comparison isn’t a coincidence, either. The number used to be much higher: In the 1940s, 75% of Americans reported seeing color in their dreams only rarely or never, and some researchers believe that black-and-white television is part of the reason why.
That breaks down to between 12 and 18 breaths per minute for an adult. Children typically breathe more quickly, up to 60 breaths per minute, which tapers down to the adult rate by their teenage years.
All those inhales and exhales add up, and by age 50, the average human has taken at least 400 million breaths. Each one helps fuel our bodies; oxygen is a crucial component needed for our most basic functions, like moving muscles, digesting food, and even thinking.
What Is a Food Recall?
Food recalls sound pretty straightforward. Food gets contaminated during some stage of the production process, the FDA steps in, and the items are removed from shelves to keep people safe, right? But the food recall process can actually get a bit murky for shoppers due to two terms: “voluntary” and “mandatory.”
