The world is a big, wonderful place full of facts we never thought possible. For instance, if a pregnant mouse has a sudden medical issue, the fetus will send stem cells to heal the mother, increasing its chances of survival as well. Fetal stem cells have been found in human mothers as well, dubbed by science as microchimerism.
Bright Side dug up some more marvelous facts about nature and its creations, upholding our yearly resolutions to spread knowledge and joy.
1. The heart slows when your face touches water.
As mammals, we can’t breathe underwater, so as part of the mammalian dive reflex, our heart rate goes down in the water — more so if we go underwater. Even splashing the face with water makes the heart slow down, making it a great way to calm down.
2. Fungus can break down plastic in weeks.
It is said that in the future, there may be more plastic in the ocean than fish. This is why the plastic-eating fungus is great news, and there are around 50 new species of such fungi discovered already. One of the fungi discovered can digest plastic within 2 months, so there’s hope for us yet.
3. Newborn babies can support their own weight.
Newborn babies are strong — strong enough to be able to grasp things in their tiny fists and even support their weight as shown by an experiment done in the nineteenth century. Louis Robinson witnessed babies able to hang from a walking stick, from 10 seconds to 2 minutes and 35 seconds.
4. Koala fingerprints have been mistaken for human ones.
We’ve been told that our fingerprints are unique, and they are. But the fact remains that even though we share a common ancestor with the koala that was alive 100 million years ago, koala fingerprints look very similar to human fingerprints, as do chimpanzee fingerprints for that matter.
5. Snails can sleep for 3 years.
If you thought bears had it good with hibernation, meet the snail. Snails can sleep rather than hibernate for 3 years at a time without needing food. Of course, this is with some snail species, not all of them. Meanwhile, bears usually hibernate for just 4-8 months.
6. Sloths need 2 weeks to digest food.
Sloths don’t only move in slow motion — even their insides move slowly, ostensibly to preserve energy, which is why a sloth’s digestive system takes 2 weeks to process the food it ate. Plus, most of what it eats is indigestible, giving it very little energy from each slowly chewed mouthful.
On the other end of the spectrum lies the shrew, whose digestion takes mere minutes and is done so fast, not much of it is fully digested. This is the reason why shrews eat their own feces. They can die of starvation in a matter of hours if they don’t eat.
7. Your brain ignores seeing your nose.
We can see our nose all the time, it’s just that the brain tends to ignore it because it’s a constant visual stimulus. It’s the same with people who wear glasses. After a while, they simply stop noticing them.
8. Your forearm is the same length as your foot.
If you don’t have the time to try on a shoe, measure it from your elbow crease to your wrist. If it fits or is just a little smaller, it would fit your foot because the length of your forearm is the same as your foot. And this is just one of many human body ratios that are a marvel in themselves, including the fact that your femur bone is one-quarter your height.
9. You can “see” your white blood cells.
If you look up at a cloudless, bright blue sky and see some wiggly things at the periphery of your vision, you’ve just experienced the blue field entoptic phenomenon. The wiggly things are white blood cells moving in the fine blood vessels moving in front of the retina, at the back of the eye.
10. Human beings have striped skin, but only cats can see it.
Human beings have stripes and patterns on the skin too, and they are called Lines of Blaschko, name eponymously by the scientist who discovered them, Dr. Alfred Blaschko. These are closer to tiger stripes, forming more of a V-pattern fanning out from the center to the extremities. These lines are visible under UV light, a spectrum that cats can see too, which is why cats can see you as a striped being as well.
Which of these facts turned out to be a revelation for you? Share your extreme nature facts with us and blow us away.
Preview photo credit Shutterstock.com, Shutterstock.com
Mean bullies started laughing when “quiet kid” took the stage, then the music began
When “Quite Kid” took the stage, all the bullies began to laugh, but you should see what happened when the music began.
Some people are born performers for large audiences. Many of the top performers in the world had to endure demanding rehearsals and practice sessions in order to feel as comfortable on stage as they do for the watching public.
Even some of the most well-known performers still have the same pre-show anxiety as when they were performing in their high school talent program.
When Brett Nichols has to perform in front of an audience, he still gets nervous. Brett may not seem it, but he is still a teenager. However, his dance moves are so similar that you might mistake him for Michael Jackson’s reincarnation.
Even while he hasn’t quite “made it” in the home entertainment industry, he did create a skill program that has inspired a great deal of people to follow in Brett’s footsteps and achieve their goals.
Brett’s peers perceive him as a quiet and reserved individual, so they are taken aback when he walks onto stage with the same level of confidence as the King of Pop. It almost seems like Brett had a private lesson, a master class, with Jackson, where he got to pick the famed performer’s head and learn his relocations from the expert.
In the end, though, Brett was never able to become close to Jackson. After countless hours of rigorous effort and dedication to the art form, he only recently learned the dance moves.
Brett had a reputation for being quiet and reserved in school, so when his classmates saw him strolling through the skill program’s next step, they didn’t know what to expect from him. Still, the crowd might have known they were in for a treat as soon as the music started.
A Michael Jackson song won’t be attempted by anyone unless they are extremely skilled at it. That was comprehended by the crowd.
Brett’s personality may be the most inspiring aspect of his productivity. He demonstrates how shyness may be shed like unwanted skin because he is perceived as one of the “shy ones” at school.
This efficiency is almost like Brett being a beautiful butterfly that emerges from its cocoon. His friends also see the progress he has made, which is one of the reasons this video clip has ended up being so motivating.
If Brett is capable of taking on the challenge, then so is everyone else who has been hiding their talent from the public due to shyness or insecurity.
Brett left a lasting impression on the judges of the competition as well as his audience at the efficiency. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that Brett placed first in the skill program.
As a result of his outstanding performance at the Pitman High School talent program in Turlock, California, Brett was invited to perform for his fans on ABC’s The View, NBC, and CNN.
Additionally, Brett has a deal with Michael Jackson tribute bands to start traveling with them. He has been struck all the way through.
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