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15 Weird Facts About Your Body That Sound Made Up

Your body is stranger than you think. Number 3 is going to bother you.

You live in your body every day, but it still has a few surprises. Here are 15 real facts that sound completely made up.

1.You're a little taller in the morning

The cushions between the bones in your spine get squeezed during the day. After a night lying down, they spring back, so you can be up to about a centimeter taller when you wake up.

2.You can't tickle yourself

Your brain predicts exactly how your own touch will feel and dials down the response. That's why tickling only works when someone else does it.

3.You glow in the dark, very slightly

Researchers in Japan found that the human body gives off a tiny amount of visible light. It's about 1,000 times too faint for our eyes to see.

4.Your stomach lining replaces itself every few days

The surface cells lining your stomach are constantly worn down by acid, so your body replaces them every few days.

5.Your stomach acid can dissolve some metals

Stomach acid is strong enough to dissolve some metals, like zinc. A layer of mucus keeps it from digesting your stomach.

6.Babies have more bones than adults

Newborns have somewhere around 270 to 300 bones. Many fuse together as they grow, leaving adults with 206.

7.The smallest bone in your body is in your ear

The stirrup bone, or stapes, in your middle ear is about the size of a grain of rice.

8.Your fingernails grow faster than your toenails

Fingernails grow about twice as fast as toenails, so a lost toenail can take more than a year to fully grow back.

9.Your heart beats about 100,000 times a day

That adds up to more than 2.5 billion beats over an average lifetime.

10.Your blood vessels stretch for thousands of miles

Laid end to end, the tiny blood vessels in an adult body would likely run several thousand miles, longer than a drive from New York to Los Angeles.

11.Your brain is an energy hog

Your brain makes up about 2% of your body weight, but it uses roughly 20% of your body's energy.

12.Your left lung is smaller than your right

It's a little smaller to make room for your heart.

13.Goosebumps are leftovers from furrier ancestors

When animals get cold or scared, their fur stands up to trap heat or look bigger. On us, it just makes bumps.

14.You make a lot of spit

Your mouth produces somewhere between 2 and 6 cups of saliva a day, which helps you taste, chew and swallow.

15.You almost never sneeze in your sleep

While you sleep, your body mostly switches off the sneeze reflex, so a tickle in your nose usually has to wake you up first.

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