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Saturday, July 12, 2008

WHY DO BODY JOINTS MAKE POPPING SOUNDS???

Do a deep knee bend, and it's very likely you'll hear popping sounds coming from your knee joints. There are also popping sounds when you "crack your knuckles."
What causes the popping sounds? Actually, two separate and distinct sources are responsible for the familiar popping sounds our joints emit.
The sound heard when our knuckles crack, results when a finger joint is extended almost to the end of its range. The joint, surrounded by a lubricating fluid, is encased in a capsule. At times, we intentionally, or unintentionally, extend the joint so far that the gas dissolved in the fluid spontaneously separates from the solution, forming a small bubble, and making a cracking sound. Not until the fluid reabsorbs the gas can the sound be reproduced. Whether or not there is truth to the old wives tale, that cracking ones knuckles enlarges them, remains open to debate.
On the other hand, the sound produced when we do deep-knee bends, is a snapping sound, produced when our tendons, which are merely the fibers that connect muscles and bones, elastically snap into new positions as our joints move under stress. Because the tendons shift back and forth with the movement of the joint, there is no waiting time before this snapping sound can be reproduced....

HOW COME TEARS COME OUT OF OUR EYES WHEN WE CRY???

Tears flow from our eyes when we cry because they contain chemicals and hormones produced by our bodies.When we become upset, our brains and bodies overreact and work overtime by producing chemicals and hormones.Crying helps eliminate these extra chemicals that we don't need.The chemicals and hormones disappear from our body through the form of tears. As our tears flow, they sooth our sadness or distress by withdrawing these chemical agents.That is why many people feel calmer or more refreshed after crying--because the tears get rid of these hormones that are produced when we are sad, happy, or distressed.

WHY DO WE GET GOOSE BUMPS WHEN IT IS COLD???

Goose bumps are a vestige from the days when humans were covered with hair.
When it's hot and you need to cool down, little muscles at the base of each hair relax. Your hair becomes relaxed. Your sweat glands pump out body heat in sweat. Your blood vessels get big to take more heat to the skin to get rid of it. When it's cold, the arrector muscle pulls the hair up. The duct to the sweat glands gets small to conserve heat. Our blood vessels also get small to save heat.Hair standing up doesn't make very good insulation - we don't have enough fur for that. Humans don't have very much hair on their bodies anymore. Millions of years ago, humans probably did. And that hair standing on end helped keep people warmer. Those little muscles we have on the end of each hair still work. They still make goose bumps.
Cold is not the only thing that can cause our hair to stand on end. Fear or anger can cause the same reflex. The same is true for other mammals. You'll notice that on a cat or dog. Their fur gets bigger when they're angry or afraid.....

WHY DO WE GET HICCUPS????


When you hiccup, your diaphragm involuntarily contracts. (The diaphragm is a dome-shaped muscle that separates the chest cavity from the abdomen. It plays an extremely important role in breathing.)This contraction of the diaphragm then causes an immediate and brief closure of the vocal cords, which produces the characteristic sound of a hiccup. What actually causes the hiccup is difficult to say - in most instances, there is no obvious cause.
Attacks of the hiccups seem to be associated with a few different things: eating or drinking too fast; being nervous or excited; or having irritation in the stomach and/or throat.
In some extremely rare cases, the underlying cause of hiccups can be pleurisy (inflammation of the membrane lining of the lungs and chest cavity), pneumonia, certain disorders of the stomach or esophagus, pancreatitis, alcoholism, or hepatitis. Any one of these conditions can cause irritation of the diaphragm or of the phrenic nerves that supply the diaphragm - it's the irritation that causes the hiccups.Still, the cause of most attacks of the hiccups remains a mystery.


Two months?! That sounds like a nightmare!! Is that the longest they can go on, then?
Well, the world record stands at 68 years, with a guy called Charles Osbourne (again, from the USA), who hiccupped continuously from 1922 to 1990. The poor guy basically had hiccups for life.

Saturday, July 5, 2008

WORLD'S SMALLEST DOG