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Random Facts


Mona

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You're born with more bones than you die with.

The bones in the skull fuse together, as do a few other bones elsewhere in the body. The clavical bones are the last to fuse, they rarely fuse completely before the age of 30. In a lot of populations, though, the clavical bones never fuse. We no longer need them too, as we aren't knuckle walkers like our ancestors were, so we don't need the support of a fused clavical.

Other evolutionary oddities: some people are actually being born without their pinky toes. My geology teacher told us that his wife was one of those people. Pinky toes are completely useless, so it makes sense. People are also being born with smaller sternums. I think that's a bit odd, since you need that there to protect things. Also, scientists have no idea why we have a nail on our big toe. I guess other apes don't have them, but we do, and there isn't any practical purpose for it.

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- Costochondritis is a condition that causes inflamation of the bones and cartilage in the chest wall. Sometimes the pain can also affect the back, neck and arms, and is often mistaken for a heart attack.

- 1 in 5 people do not like sex.

- The highest point in Pennsylvania is lower than the lowest point in Colorado.

- The universe is 15 billion years old.

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The bones in the skull fuse together, as do a few other bones elsewhere in the body. The clavical bones are the last to fuse, they rarely fuse completely before the age of 30. In a lot of populations, though, the clavical bones never fuse. We no longer need them too, as we aren't knuckle walkers like our ancestors were, so we don't need the support of a fused clavical.

Ever been to Wales?

Just kidding. Seriously. :unsure:

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- Costochondritis is a condition that causes inflamation of the bones and cartilage in the chest wall. Sometimes the pain can also affect the back, neck and arms, and is often mistaken for a heart attack.

- 1 in 5 people do not like sex.

- The highest point in Pennsylvania is lower than the lowest point in Colorado.

- The universe is 15 billion years old.

When a female spider mates she can last all night every time she has an orgasm she gives off some

kind of white stuff.

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Mona, I am interested in human anatomy. So, what other body parts are useless?

Um...well, there are the obvious ones, like the appendix, tailbone, and to a certain extent the tonsils. The muscles by the ears are also useless. They were once used to move the ears, but we no longer need to do that, and we can't do that. At most, some of us can wiggle those muscles, and that's it. Male nipples are obviously an oddity. Wisdom teeth are also partly useless. We use them if we have them, but there are a lot of problems associated with them and they are not in any way essential to our survival or anything at all, really, other than providing age dating for forensic scientists. The hair on our arms and legs are useless. When we are scared, they stick up to try to make us look bigger to whatever is threatening us. However, they are so thin and sparse that it is useless. I don't know much about this one, but I personally can't think of any reason for armpit hair, either.

Our sinus system is also heading that way to uselessness, I think. We still use it, but it is not that important to us. Many animals gather information through sent, but we gather the majority of our information through sight. The nasal bone (I can't remember the technical term for it right now) is located above the nose and between the eyes, and in humans is very small. This is one reason why we have such poor senses of smell, and why humans are so easily affected by nasal problems and infections.

We've adapted pretty well to walking on two legs, but there are still problems with the spine. Because we walk upright, we have a pretty drastic curve in our spine, and most back problems we have are a result of gravity compressing the lumbar vertibrae (the vertibrae in the lower back.)

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I heard for a statue of a man on a horse; if the horse has one front leg up, the man on the horse was wounded in war, if the horse has its two front legs up, the man died in battle, and if all four of the horse's legs are on the ground, the man died of natural causes.

Something like that. I read that the other day and thought it was interesting.

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