The body is an accumulated wonder of parts fine-tuned by nature to perform precision tasks. Venture past the usual facts, and things tend to get interesting. In recent times, unknown body parts have turned up in fossils and living creatures, ranging from cute to creepy to deadly.

Doctors have grown things in strange places and traced the bizarre origins of the most normal of features. When life goes wrong, body parts can also unveil gruesome mysteries, suffering buried in history, and medical problems that beggar belief.

10 The Yo-Yo Injury

In 2005, Dazzling Dave visited schools in North Dakota. The professional yo-yo performer entertained kids for up to 12 hours at a time. A week later, the man, whose real name was David Schulte, noticed that his right index finger warmed more slowly than the rest. In cold weather, it was also the first to freeze.

When it started shifting colors—alternating between red, purple, and blue—he sought medical help. The doctor suspected a blood clot. A scan showed something else entirely.

There was no blood flow past the second knuckle of the finger. For some reason, the blood vessels had suddenly constricted and for too long. The unusual injury was probably caused by years of hitting that particular finger with a yo-yo.

Technically, it caused a condition known as Raynaud’s syndrome which can result in nerve damage and tissue loss. Luckily, the champion yo-yo artist suffered no lasting problems. A month of popping blood thinners solved the situation.^[1]

9 Crankles

In 2017, researchers riffled through the Natural History Museum in London. They found a game-changing fossil. The bones belonged to a carnivore called Teleocrater rhadinus.

When it was discovered in the 1930s, experts failed to find its place in the evolutionary tree. As a result, it was shelved and forgotten. The modern study determined that the creature was 245 million years old. It lived 10 million years before the dinosaurs. Even better, it was one of their ancestors.

Teleocrater‘s main surprise was a body structure more reminiscent of a crocodile than a dinosaur. In particular, they had crankles. Short for crocodile ankles, they gave the animal a reptilian gait on all fours like a monitor lizard.

This was significant. An impossibly long time ago, reptiles called archosaurs split into two lineages: the bird branch (which led to the dinosaurs) while the other remained reptilian, with today’s alligators and crocodiles.^[2]

Teleocrater is the earliest-known member from the bird line, but its crankles were like a strange missing link connecting it back to the archosaurs and the reptile branch. This profoundly challenged what scholars thought they knew about early dinosaur evolution.

8 Switchblade Cheeks

The stonefish is a rare fish. It also haunts Indo-Pacific coastlines as one of the most venomous creatures in the world. In 2003, a pet stonefish died. As the owner was a researcher, the fish hit the dissection table instead of the local pet cemetery. It started 15 years of curiosity about the species.

In 2018, when a “switchblade” was found in its face, the same scientist unraveled the mechanism behind the feature. The whole thing was bizarre. In other fish, the lachrymal bone is solidly fixed underneath the eye as part of the skull. When a stonefish gets huffy, this spike shoots out in a 90-degree angle—on each cheek.

This is no mustache. The lachrymal bones are dangerously serrated. To activate the spines, the fish pulls on chewing muscles in the upper jaw. This rotates and locks the spine through a mechanism shaped like a roly-poly. One stonefish species upped the freaky factor. Centropogon australis fluoresces in two tones. While the head emits red light, the spikes have a green glow.^[3]

7 Selam’s Foot

One of mankind’s most famous ancestors is Lucy. Found in 1974, she was an adult Australopithecus afarensis from Ethiopia. In 2000, a second one was found nearby. The female toddler was quickly dubbed “Lucy’s baby.” However, the child was the older fossil, having died around three million years ago, about 100,000 years before Lucy.

The youngster, renamed Selam, had the most complete set of A. afarensis foot bones ever found. Scientists already knew the species walked upright like modern humans. Indeed, Selam’s foot and ankle anatomy was identical to those of people alive today. The unusual part was that the two species developed their feet differently.

While young (Selam died at age three), A. afarensis‘s big toe was more fingerlike. It probably helped them to cling to their parents and trees for safety. Selam’s heel was also more fragile than those of human children.^[4]

Even though young A. afarensis were less suited for walking upright, their feet were already designed for life on the ground. Only later would they grow the same strong heel bones present in humans from birth.

6 Scaly Origin Of Teeth

In the quest to find out where human teeth came from, researchers turned to skates. These fish are covered in primitive scales called dermal denticles. Sharks also have them, which is why their skin feels like sandpaper.

A 2017 study found that the scales grew from neural crest cells, a critical element in mammal tooth development. A second find also suggested that teeth evolved from fish skin. Denticles, which roughly resemble teeth, also consist of dentine. A modern tooth is packed with this hard tissue.

However, the discovery does not mean that all species got their snappers this way. Research on zebra fish showed another evolutionary path where scales and teeth evolved from different types of cells. Skate skin presents a strong case that certain species grew scales as armor plating. Somehow, through millions of years, this external skeleton became modified and moved to the mouth as teeth.^[5]

5 Hitler’s Death Confirmed

When Adolf Hitler realized in 1945 that he could no longer escape the invading Allied forces, he committed suicide in his bunker. The Russians found his remains and threw the body into a river. For decades, they kept skull fragments to which nobody had access. During that time, rumors abounded that the fuhrer had faked his own death.

The conspiracy theories had sound roots. It is a fact that many high-ranking Nazis escaped when Germany’s power was broken. But things took a weird turn in 2009. Nick Bellantoni, an archaeologist and bone specialist, handled Hitler’s skull at the Russian State Archive.

During a documentary for the History Channel, he declared that the fragments belonged to a woman under 40. The Archive responded by saying that Bellantoni had never been there or handled the remains.^[6]

In 2018, the Archive finally permitted French pathologists to study the fragments. The teeth had complex dental work that perfectly matched Hitler’s medical records. Blue stains and a bullet hole showed that the fuhrer’s suicide plan began with swallowing a cyanide capsule, followed by a shot to the head.

4 White Blood

Recently, doctors in Germany faced something they had never seen before. A 39-year-old patient’s blood was so pale and thick that it looked like milk. The medical condition was not a mystery. The nearly comatose patient suffered from extreme hypertriglyceridemia. It is caused by too much fat in the blood.

Siphoning off the offending triglyceride molecules and returning the cleaned plasma to the body usually solves the problem. However, when staff tried the normal route, his viscous blood clogged the hospital’s filtering equipment. Not once, but twice. The problem was a record amount of triglycerides. Around 500 mg/dL is considered “high.” The man’s count read an astonishing 18,000 mg/dL.

Desperate to save his life, doctors resorted to an ancient remedy abandoned by modern medicine—bloodletting. A good amount of the white gunk was drained and replaced with red blood cell concentrates and saline solution. It worked. Although the cause of the severity is unknown, the patient’s genes, obesity, and irregular consumption of his diabetes medication might have combined to cause the mother of all hypertriglyceridemia cases.^[7]

3 The Limb Pit

During the Civil War, the Second Battle of Bull Run took place north of Manassas, Virginia, in 1862. In 2018, archaeologists were investigating the battlefield when they discovered something exceptionally rare.

A shallow grave held two soldiers and the sawed-off limbs of up to 11 other men. The complete bodies, Burial 1 and 2, could not be identified other than being Union soldiers from the North.

Both died brutal deaths. Burial 1’s leg had been broken by a bullet which was still stuck in the bone when the skeleton was found. The injury was so bad that field surgeons probably left him to die. This frequently happened when there were too many injured soldiers.

Burial 2 was placed in the pit after the first man and rested slightly on top of him. His own death resulted from three bullets. One smashed his arm, another buried itself in the shin, and a third struck his groin. The bodies, with nine severed arms and legs arranged around them, were a unique find hailed as “one in a million.”^[8]

2 The Forearm Ear

When army private Shamika Burrage returned from leave in 2016, a car accident put her in rehabilitation for months. She also lost an ear. After Burrage recovered, her appearance bothered her so much that a counselor suggested plastic surgery.

In 2018, the William Beaumont Army Medical Center in Texas performed a rare procedure. They took rib cartilage from Burrage and shaped it like an ear. Afterward, it was inserted under the skin of her forearm. For the woman to experience feeling in the ear, doctors needed the new body part to develop fresh arteries, veins, and nerves—all available from the arm.

Once ready, surgeons replaced Burrage’s missing ear. Doctors also took the opportunity to reopen her hearing canal to restore the hearing she had lost. This was the first time that army plastic surgeons had performed this type of operation. However, the procedure dates to the early 20th century. Back in the day, rib cartilage ears were also grown under the skin but without the nerves and blood vessels.^[9]

1 Severed Russian Hands

Early in 2018, a fisherman decided to visit a small island near the Amur River in Siberia. Upon arrival, he noticed a hand in the snow. There was no sign of the rest of the body. Soon afterward, the man found a bag stuffed with the same grisly thing. All told, there were 54 human hands severed at the wrist. There was also medical waste nearby.

Social media cried foul after an anonymous sender circulated the photos online, showing the brutal cache in detail. The Russian government was unfazed. Investigators insisted that the amputations had a mundane explanation. Some forensic laboratories in Russia dispose of bodies without identities but keep the hands as a record.^[10]

In this case, authorities admitted that the unidentified laboratory broke the law by dumping the hands. Despite lifting fingerprints from only one pair, investigators also kept insisting that the hands were not the result of darker criminal activities.

There are a variety of ways that you can die depending on where you are and what you’re doing when it happens. Although some individuals peacefully pass in their sleep, others have to go through immensely uncomfortable and drawn-out deaths.

SEE ALSO: 10 Weird Causes Of Death Through History ?utm_source=seealso&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=direct

Death itself isn’t surprising. What’s astonishing is that you may die from the most mundane and unexpected parts of daily life. We all do these seemingly insignificant things without thinking twice about them. However, somewhere out there, someone has found a way to die because of them in one way or another.

10 Doing Nothing

We’ve already established that there’s no way to escape dying. Our bodies are inherently designed to do that when enough time passes—unless we manage to die earlier, which is always a possibility given how clumsy we are as a species.

One would think that unnatural deaths could be completely avoided by doing nothing at all. It stands to reason that if you’re doing nothing, you’re not doing anything that can kill you earlier than you’re supposed to die. Unfortunately, that isn’t the case as doing nothing has a kill count of its own.

Yup, it kills about 5.3 million people every year. Scientists say that it’s almost as bad as smoking or obesity, and we should make sure to keep moving around to lower our chances of being included in that statistic.

We’re not saying that it doesn’t make sense as physical inactivity is known to be an unhealthy habit. All we’re saying is that we didn’t know that sitting on your couch all day can actually kill you.^[1]

9 Sneezing

Depending on where you are in the world, people’s responses to sneezing could range from blessing you to telling you the correct way to do it so as not to offend them. However, it’s not a particularly noteworthy bodily function.

Even if we don’t fully understand the mechanics behind sneezing, we shrug and go about our daily lives without ever thinking about it. Of course, that’s until we find out that it’s also one of the few regular functions of the body that can kill you.

You see, sneezing triggers some powerful responses in the body, especially among all the organs involved in the process. Many people suggest blocking your mouth and nose to keep you from making sounds during sneezing. As one man found out, that is one way of absolutely destroying your pharynx and general throat area.

That’s not the only way it can kill you, either. People have died from it in a variety of ways—from brain hemorrhage to heart attacks caused directly by sneezing.^[2]

8 Taking The Stairs

Taking the stairs is a fairly normal part of our daily routine that we don’t really think about a lot as, let’s face it, they’re stairs. Thinking about whether they can kill us is the equivalent of worrying if walls can kill us. Even if the stairs do cause injuries due to the accidental fall here and there, it certainly doesn’t come across as something with a fatality rate.

However, multiple studies conducted around the world have shown that stairs are deadlier than we give them credit for. In the UK, around 1,000 people die from falling down stairs every year. This is ridiculously high if you think about it. The researchers assume that most of it is just the elderly doing elderly things.

Another study in India found out that most people who died on stairs were in the 31–40 age group, followed by 21–30. In contrast, US statistics show that only 27 people die due to elevators every year, even though viral accident videos tell us that elevators are supposed to be a whole lot scarier than the stairs.^[3]

7 Mowing Your Lawn

Having a lawn is out of reach for many people due to skyrocketing real estate prices across the country. However, for the select few who do, mowing it is one of the regular parts of their weekly routine.

Although it’s probably easy to find a way to die from a lawnmower if you really want to, it’s not more dangerous than any other machine you have in the house. (You can always accidentally stick your head in the mixer.) However, if you check out the stats on how many people manage to kill themselves mowing their lawns, you’d be surprised.

It was highlighted by Kim Kardashian in one of her tweets. She pointed out that 69 people died due to lawnmowers every year. That’s just the deaths. In addition, about 250,000 people injure themselves using the lawnmower every year.^[4]

6 Furniture

If you live in a house, chances are that it has furniture unless you’re going for the really minimal Instagram look that’s all the rage these days. Even if nearly all of us have stubbed our toe on a chair or some other mundane piece of furniture at some point, it doesn’t come across as something that could kill you in the way that leaving the gas on could.

Yet, furniture causes an unexpected number of deaths across the world every year. Many of them are due to accidental tipping.

Now we aren’t sure if furniture manufacturers are still not skilled enough at their jobs after all these years of practice. But we know that a bunch of consumer checks are in place before you can set up a furniture retail store. As for the numbers, a child dies due to a piece of furniture falling on top of him every two weeks in the US. About 2,800 injuries were reported in 2016 alone.^[5]

5 Balloons

Balloons are a common decoration at a wide variety of events—from Christmas to birthday parties to surprise interventions. Even though our fascination with balloons drops in direct proportion to how old we get, we don’t exactly think of them as deadly.

For the one-off ridiculously stupid person who may decide to swallow them for some unfathomable reason, health care has come far enough to stop it from being a fatal accident. Right? Not really.

Even in 2019, a surprisingly high number of people—primarily children—die of choking on balloons, and none of our futuristic health care can do anything to stop it.

Of course, there are other things in the house that kids can swallow and choke on, too. But balloons are particularly dangerous because they can obstruct the breathing pipes more effectively than most other things. That’s because balloons are all elastic and rubbery. It’s difficult to get them out even if you do make it to the ER in time.^[6]

4 Playing Golf

Depending on how rich and old you are, golf is either a leisurely activity you indulge in on weekends or a highly competitive sport you regularly play with a whole group of equally competitive friends. We won’t say it’s impossible to die on a golf course if you really try, but rogue golf balls hitting people in the wrong spot cause more fatalities than you’d think.^[7]

A ridiculously high number of people have died from flying golf balls. These individuals were just in the unfortunate path of the golf ball—like a 10-year-old boy in Alabama or a 69-year-old man in California or even a 27-year-old in Queensland, New Zealand.

3 Going To A Doctor

Of course, we’re not talking about serious diseases that will kill you nonetheless, only a bit faster if you don’t go to the doctor. We’re talking about the general phenomenon of visiting a doctor as a surprisingly high number of people die from faulty prescriptions and medical errors that could have been avoided.

The most surprising culprit? Bad handwriting from doctors.

Anyone who has ever thought “no way anyone can read this” was right after all, according to the numbers at least. Every year, about 7,000 people die due to bad handwriting with prescriptions per a study by the National Academies of Science’s Institute of Medicine.

In addition, general medical errors cause a whopping 250,000 deaths every year. That’s a conservative number depending on which study you’re reading. (The estimate can go as high as 440,000.)^[8]

2 Doing Your Laundry

We’re used to the idea of certain things in the household turning dangerous if not taken care of—like heavy-duty computers or exposed power sockets. However, none of those things have anything on doing your laundry.

If you thought there was no way that washing your clothes—especially the part where you dry them—can pose any sort of danger to you, let alone kill you, it’s time to rethink your approach to laundry. Regularly taking care of the dryer may someday prove to be the difference between staying alive and, well, not.

The US Fire Administration even has a special instructions manual for using the clothes dryer, which kills an average of 13 people and injures 444 every year in the US. The primary cause is the dryer catching fire due to reasons like not cleaning out the lint after every round or just generally not taking care of your electronic equipment like a responsible person.^[9]

1 Taking A Bath

Unless you’re not a part of civilized society or you’re not bathing on a dare or something, we assume that you take a bath every day (or at least regularly). It’s not exactly rocket science. You go in, splash yourself with water, wash with some soap, dry yourself, and come back out. It’s a mundane part of our everyday routine. If not for the irritating need to stay clean to be presentable to people, most of us wouldn’t even bother with it.

For a part of such a basic routine, though, taking a bath puts you at an unnaturally high risk of dying if statistics are to be believed. In the US alone, an average of 335 people die due to drowning in their own bathtubs every year. You’d think that most of them were kids or the elderly, but about half of those deaths were able-bodied adults.^[10]

Surprisingly, another common cause of dying inside the bathroom is hot water. Apparently, 20 people in the UK lose their lives every year due to burns from scalding water.

You can check out Himanshu’s stuff at Cracked and Screen Rant, get in touch with him for writing gigs here, or just say hello to him on Twitter.

Some of us will carefully check the labels on most of the products we use, scrutinizing them to see if we can find some suspicious ingredients listed. The rest of us do not care and just use these products anyway. But how would you feel if you discovered that your food or body lotion contained human body parts?

Sure, you would cringe. Well! It used to be the norm a few centuries ago—at a time when products did not have ingredient labels. Many people unwittingly turned cannibal after ingesting food items made from human remains. Others just used regular products that contained human remains without being aware of it.

More products containing human secretions and body parts are still being developed today. But fear not! You will probably not be ingesting food made from human body parts without knowing about it.

10 Paint

Mummy brown was a thing a few centuries ago. Also called mommia and momie, it was actually the name of a brown paint used by artists. As you should have guessed, the paint was made from Egyptian mummies. Manufacturers created it by grinding mummies into powder and mixing them with some other stuff.

Mummy brown first appeared in the 16th century and quickly became a favorite of artists, who used it in their paintings as if it were just another paint. Interestingly, some manufacturers also made it from any corpse that had mummified enough. French artist Martin Drolling even used mummy brown made from dead French kings.

The use of mummy brown declined in the 20th century when most artists discovered its origin. However, it only went “extinct” in 1964 after manufacturers could not get fresh supplies of mummies to make the paint.^[1]

9 Medicine

A few centuries ago, many Europeans turned into unwitting cannibals after consuming medicines made with the bones, blood, and fats of living and dead people.

People of the day believed that these medicines cured a wide range of ailments. Skulls were ground into powder to make medicine for almost every problem with the head. Usnea, a moss that often appeared on buried human skulls, was used to stop nosebleeds and cure epilepsy.

Body fat was applied to the skin to cure medical problems like gout. Bandages were also soaked in fat before they were used to cover wounds. Egyptians mummies were not spared, either. They were ground into powder to produce a medicine that supposedly cured internal bleeding.

People without any medical issues also used the medicines due to the erroneous belief that the healthiness of the dead could be passed to them. One such believer was the English King Charles II, who drank a mixture of ground human skull and alcohol to maintain his health. The drink was called “the king’s drops.”

Fresh blood from a living person was also added to cooked food or just drunk to remain healthy. Many poor people who could not afford a living human’s blood often attended public executions with cups to siphon fresh blood from the executed person.

The act of using human body parts as medicine reached its height between the 16th and 17th centuries and started to die down in the 18th century. It had disappeared by the 20th century.^[2]

8 Diamonds

Within the last few years, several businesses have sprung up, offering to turn the cremated remains of our dead relatives and animals into diamonds—or as they prefer to call them, “memorial diamonds.” The process works because diamond is made of carbon, which is the second-most plentiful element in our bodies.

The process begins with the cremation. The human body produces several pounds of ashes after cremation. However, this is often filled with impurities, which are removed when the ash is cleaned with acid.

The carbon is 99 percent pure at this point but still contains around 1 percent of a few other elements like boron. That boron is often left alone because it has nearly identical properties to carbon, which makes them difficult to separate. However, the boron content makes the diamond blue. The more boron, the bluer it is.

Interestingly, diamonds made from people who underwent chemotherapy while alive are often lighter than diamonds made from people who did not. This occurs because chemotherapy often reduces the boron content of the body.^[3]

7 Food

Scientists at Pennsylvania State University are already working on converting our poop and urine to food. This diet is not intended for regular people but for astronauts, especially those who will travel on long-term space voyages to, say, Mars.

The scientists made the food by anaerobic digestion, a process in which microbes break down waste without using oxygen. In this instance, a first group of microbes is added to poop and urine to produce methane. That methane is then fed to a second group of microbes.

The result is a consumable substance that contains 52 percent protein and 36 percent fats. The diet is free of diseases because the microbes work so quickly that dangerous pathogens do not have time to form. The invention has not been released yet because the scientists are still working on it.^[4]

6 Lampshade

In 2005, Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans. While most people went back to salvage whatever was left of their homes after the disaster, others like Raymond Henderson found something interesting: a lampshade made from human skin.

Henderson was checking out a flood-soaked drum set at a yard sale a few months after the hurricane. The seller said that he had a lamp along with its 25-centimeter-long (10 in) lampshade made from the “skin of Jews.”

Although skeptical at first, Henderson purchased the lampshade for $35 and took it home where he carefully inspected it. He discovered that it was real human skin. He could even see the wrinkles and pores on the dried skin. He later sent it to a lab where it was confirmed to be human skin.

There are suspicions that the lampshade was made by the Nazis during World War II even though there is no definite evidence of its origin. The ethnicity of the skin owner could not be tested, either, because the product was too dry to contain traceable DNA samples.^[5]

5 Books

On the shelves of Harvard University library sits a book titled Des Destinees de l’Ame (“Destinies of the Soul”). The brown, dusty, and aged cover will make most people think that it is a regular book—until they realize the cover is actually brown, dusty, and aged human skin. Anthropodermic bibliopegy, the practice of using human skin for bookbinding, was common in ancient times.

Des Destinees de l’Ame was written by Arsene Houssaye, who gave it to one Dr. Ludovic Bouland sometime in the 1880s. It was Dr. Bouland who added the human skin cover. He had gotten the skin from a woman who died at a mental hospital.

Another anthropodermic bibliopegy book sits at the M Shed museum in Bristol, UK. On the cover are the words Cutis Vera Johannis Horwood (“The Actual Skin of John Horwood”). The book is owned by the Bristol Record Office. The infamous pirate skull-and-crossbones insignia is also etched onto the cover.

As the title already hints, the book was made from the skin of John Horwood, who was executed at age 18 for killing Eliza Balsum after falling in love with her. Horwood threw a stone at Balsum and almost broke her skull. Balsum survived the attack but later died of her injuries.^[6]

Horwood was tried and executed for the murder. His remains were sent to anatomy schools for dissection, and his skeleton was later put into storage. The skeleton was discovered and buried by Mary Halliwell 190 years after his hanging. Horwood was Halliwood’s great-great-great-grandfather’s brother. The book itself contains details of the murder.

4 Boiled Eggs

Some Chinese people believe that eggs boiled in the urine of young boys have medicinal properties. The eggs are called tong zi dan (“virgin boy eggs”). They are a thing in Dongyang in Zhejiang Province, China, where they are sold on the roadside. Consumers claim that the eggs cure or prevent a myriad of ailments.

The eggs are made by boiling regular chicken eggs in urine. It is a two-step process. The eggs are first boiled in urine. Then they are removed, cracked, and returned to the pot to continue boiling. This allows the urine to seep into the egg, altering its look and taste. While some consumers swear by its efficacy, others think it is just gross.

The egg vendors often visit schools with buckets for young schoolchildren to pee into. The vendor later recovers the pee-filled buckets to make the eggs. However, they often ask sick students not to pee in the buckets to ensure that they only end up with healthy urine and eggs.^[7]

3 Cosmetics

In 2005, The Guardian exposed an unnamed Chinese cosmetics company for using the skin of prisoners executed in China as an ingredient in its beauty products. The company planned to ship the cosmetics to Europe where they would be sold to unsuspecting buyers.

According to The Guardian, the company had informed prospective partners about a new beauty product created with the skin of executed prisoners. The company claimed that the product could clear wrinkles on the skin and lips. The Guardian added that the company had already shipped some of the products into the UK at the time of the report.

An unnamed agent of the company who had earlier bragged about the existence of the product later retracted his statement when The Guardian asked him for an interview. He had earlier revealed the existence of the product to an undercover researcher pretending to be a businessman.^[8]

The Guardian added that skin from executed prisoners is sometimes used in beauty products sold in China. The Chinese government supposedly knows about this but looks the other way as long as the companies keep it a secret. However, there are concerns that European users could be susceptible to infections from the executed criminals.

2 Bricks

In 2018, South African scientists revealed that they had developed a process to make bricks from human urine. The process actually allows them to create any solid substance from urine, but they seem to prefer making bricks instead.

The scientists created the bricks using bacteria, sand, urine, and calcium. First, they add bacteria to sand to create an enzyme called urease. Then they add the urease to urine. The urease decomposes the urea in the urine, leaving a hard, rocky substance called calcium carbonate.

This calcium carbonate is used to make the bricks or whatever else the scientists want to create. Fertilizer is a by-product, which makes sense as urea is synthesized to manufacture fertilizer across the globe.

Urine bricks are not on the market yet because researchers are still trying to perfect the process. Besides, they are also concerned about the source of their urine. A single brick needs approximately 20 liters (5 gal) of urine to produce. The average adult will require a few weeks to pass that much urine.^[9]

1 Perfume

A few years ago, Katia Apalategui’s mother lost her husband. She missed her husband so much that she often smelled the pillowcase he used before his death just so she could remember him. Katia Apalategui soon got some ideas and decided to make a perfume that smelled just like a dead person.^[10]

Apalategui teamed with chemist Geraldine Savary of the University of Le Havre in France to create a method of retrieving odor from the belongings of a dead person and using it to make a perfume. Apalategui has her product in the market already. Each bottle of perfume is custom-made and costs $600.

The human body is a wondrous thing and arguably a miracle of science. Consider how many other things are as complex as a human in the known universe and we do kind of stand out as pretty incredible. It’s either extremely fitting or extremely offputting then that some people have taken it upon themselves to use parts of bodies to craft new and interesting things. 

10. Flesh Map

Artists are often unique and creative individuals. They have to be if they want to succeed at their craft. So while some artists are happy to put ink to paper or paint to canvas, others like to experiment with how they create their works. After all, anything can technically be art if you try hard enough.

American artist Andrew Krasnow is an artist who pushes the envelope in how he makes art and also what he considers art. For twenty years, Krasnow has used human flesh to make sculptures. 

Using skin from bodies that have been donated to science, Krasnow has made lampshades, boots, and even a map of the United States. Naturally, Krasnow has a meaning behind his art and considers it a commentary on human cruelty. 

9. Ancient Blood Paint

Few things are more interesting from an archaeological standpoint than ancient cave paintings. Seeing some of the earliest forms of communication, art, and historical documentation is fascinating. Most of us think of cave art as little stick figures throwing spears at stick buffalo, but there’s more to it than all that. For instance, aside from the subject of the cave paintings, there’s something to be said for the paint itself. 

Research has shown that prehistoric artists in Australia and Tasmania developed the red pigment they used for their art in a very simple and all too obvious way. They used blood.

Several paintings dating back 10,000 years, and one at least 20,000 years, show evidence of proteins from human blood. The art itself looks to have been painted over even older carvings. It’s possible these date back as much as 31,000 years, making them some of the oldest cave paintings in the world.

8. Bone Sculptures

Not so long ago, humans used to be big fans of carving things from ivory. The fact that this had to be harvested from elephants wasn’t a concern for many people, and we’ve made countless pieces of art and even piano keys from it. The cruel and macabre practice is mostly, but not completely, behind us. But the fact is, death and the things it leaves behind have always fascinated us as a species. Some people are still making art from the bones of animals. And humans. 

Bruce Mahalski makes sculptures that, from a distance, might look like any other sculpture you’d see in a museum. Get closer, however, and the textures will catch your eye. He makes extensive use of animal bones, the kinds of things that might be left over from dinner or found on the forest floor. But then there are the human ones.

Mahalski’s art is like a three-dimensional collage of bits and pieces, large and small. The human bones are given no more prominence than any others and, in fact, are often hard to pick out of the crowd. This is intentional, as Mahalski doesn’t feel like humans are any more important than the other creatures of the earth. His goal is simple to show a reverence for both life and death, whether the bones are from chickens or humans.

7. Body Worlds

In 1995, the first Body Worlds exhibit opened to the public in Tokyo. Since that time, over 40 million people have gone to museums around the world to check out the exhibit or some of the spin-offs it inspired. 

The concept of the exhibit is as fascinating as it is grisly. They subject human bodies to a process called plastination. They remove fluids from the body, replacing them with polymers that harden and preserve the body perfectly. This allows the bodies to be manipulated in a variety of fascinating and unusual ways. They can be stripped of their flesh, or cut to show perfectly preserved cross sections. They can remove layers beyond just flesh including fat, muscle, and bone. In some cases, whole bodies constructed of nothing but veins and arteries in the shape of the human that once housed them have been made. 

Originally it was said that all of the bodies were donated by people who, in life, were 100% aware of what would happen to their bodies after death. That said, the exhibit actually returned some bodies to China in the early 2000s as there was evidence they had been executed prisoners. A competing exhibit called Bodies says that they are simply unable to verify one way or another if the bodies they used were executed prisoners or not. 

6. Human Skin Books

For a serious book fan, nothing beats a leather-bound tome. Whether it’s a personal journal or a valuable old antique, a book bound in leather can be a conversation piece and a collectible. But it’s worth looking into when a leather-bound book was made, and exactly how it was made. Leather comes in various forms after all, from sheep to cow and, more often than you might think, human.

In the 19th century, it became a rare but not unheard-of practice for the flesh of executed criminals or mental patients to be used to bind books. The skin of the first man hanged at the Bristol Gaol in England was used to bind the book that told the story of the man’s crime. The flesh of William Burke, a known murderer, was used to bind a journal cover. 

The practice was by no means widespread, and today there are only a handful of examples that have been found and definitively identified. It seems as though the books were mostly produced by doctors, people who had access to corpses and the skill to remove human flesh. Why they also felt the need to use it to make books is a matter that has not been fully determined, however. 

5. Lab Grown Human Skin Bags

The future comes at your fast and technology is changing the world every day. Just look at your local grocery store in the meat section and you’ll see that there’s already a section devoted to meat that isn’t actually meat. And soon there will be a section devoted to meat that is meat. It was just never alive.

Lab-grown tissue is a real thing and will revolutionize both your barbecue and healthcare. But maybe it’s destined to revolutionize fashion as well. After all, if you can grow skin without a living body, what’s stopping you from making your own leather? And, for that matter, what’s stopping you from making human skin leather? 

Designer Tina Gorjanc had plans as far back as 2016 to make leather handbags made from skin grown from the DNA of designer Alexander McQueen. McQueen died in 2010, but Gorjanc has access to some of his DNA thanks to hair samples he left behind. 

Celebrity bags aside, the same technology could be used to make a bag out of anyone’s DNA, if they had the money and the interest. 

4. Teeth Necklaces

There’s a popular legend that George Washington had wooden teeth. Look into it and you’ll see that’s not the case and he very likely may have had dentures made from the teeth of other humans. There has always been a market for human teeth, and they’ve served a number of purposes. Reusing them as dentures is almost too normal. Back in the day, they were used as necklaces as well.

Archaeologists in Turkey uncovered relics in a Neolithic that date back thousands of years. Among them are some teeth that are around 8,500 years old, which were drilled and strung together to form a necklace, just like beads. Analysis also indicated that the teeth likely came from different people.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that ancient peoples were knocking teeth out just for the fun of making jewelry, but it also doesn’t preclude that as a possibility. There was no sign of disease, so the likeliest possibility was that they were removed from someone on purpose, rather than falling out naturally.

3. Hair Sweaters

In the Bible, wearing a hair shirt is a form of penance. You slip into a camel hair garment as a way to punish yourself because it’s terribly uncomfortable. In modern times we have terribly uncomfortable wool sweaters that can get very itchy and arguably fit the bill here as well. Suffice it to say, there are not many benefits to wearing a shirt made of hair. And those ones aren’t even human hair. 

For those who do like the idea of hair, or fur, but not the cruelty aspect associated with traditional fur farming, some design clothing made from human hair. It’s arguably sustainable and offers something unique if nothing else. 

2. Blood Album

Sometimes an artist will talk about how they put their blood, sweat, and tears into the work that they make. It’s a metaphor in almost every single case, but not always. For instance, there is at least one album you can get that has been pressed with the blood of several pop stars inside. 

The Flaming Lips released an album called The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends back in 2012. As a special treat for extremely rabid fans, there were 10 special pressings of the album made. These versions contain blood samples taken from the aforementioned friends, including Ke$ha, Chris Martin, and Erykah Badu. The album had a price tag of $2,500 a pop and was sold with a normal copy of the album so you could still listen to it without risking a bloodbath in your record player. 

In 2014, Meredith Graves of the band Perfect Pussy one-upped the Flaming Lips by having her own blood pressed into the wax itself rather than just being encased in a compartment in the vinyl and put out 180 copies of the album. 

1. Blood Ink

Ancient cave artists aren’t the only ones who saw the upside to using blood as ink. Modern art has found some uses for it as well, and it’s not the avant-garde fringe art you may think. In fact, in more than one instance the use of blood in art has been incredibly mainstream. 

Back in the year 1977, the band KISS was incredibly huge. They were so big, in fact, that Marvel comics actually had a KISS comic to chronicle some fictional adventures for the band. 

For the Super Special #1 issue, blood was drawn from all four band members and mixed into the ink used to color the book. And why not? They were taking on some big-time Marvel villains like Dr. Doom. Blood was inevitably going to be spilled. 

Though it sounds like the stuff of urban legends, it really did happen and was even certified by a notary public. Obviously, someone felt it was unbelievable even at the time it was happening. A copy of the book in decent condition will run you a few hundred dollars on eBay.

Closer to the present, rapper Lil Nas X caused a stir by releasing some limited-edition Satan-themed shoes in 2021 that also contained his blood in the ink used for the design. Many people were up in arms over the idea, but it also made international news and guaranteed that the shoes would be known the world over, so maybe the plan worked out just fine.

Our bodies are made up of various parts that seamlessly come together to help us perform day-to-day functions. Some of them—like the heart and lungs—may pull more weight than the others, though we can all agree that every body part is important in its own way.

Some parts possess awesome, specialized abilities beyond their day-to-day functions that most of us don’t know about. We don’t require these organs to be able to do these things in our daily lives. But for the specific situations for which they’re designed, they can outperform even our best machines.

10 Liver Can Reprogram Itself To Regenerate

Our body’s ability to heal itself is truly extraordinary and something we take for granted. If it wasn’t for that, every minor wound would turn into a life-threatening situation. For all its merits, though, our self-healing abilities aren’t able to regenerate lost tissue. In cases of tissue damage, the most our bodies can do is patch things up with scars.

Of course, that is true only if we exclude the liver from the conversation, which is the sole organ that can fully regenerate itself. Scientists have been impressed by this seemingly isolated ability for a long time, even if they don’t quite understand how it evolved.

A recent study may suggest the answer. In case of damage, the liver is able to reprogram itself to mimic the earliest stages of childbirth and regrow itself as if nothing had happened.^[1]

9 The Skin Can Smell

Being able to smell our surroundings is one of the most useful abilities we have. It alerts us to any potentially harmful microbes in the surrounding environment and lets us know exactly what we need to avoid to remain healthy. We’ve always assumed that it’s just the nose that has this ability. In some recent experiments, though, we’ve realized that a few other organs—like our skin—may also be able to detect smells.

In a study, researchers discovered that the skin’s cell division mode is triggered when the skin is exposed to a synthetic form of sandalwood oil. Simply put, some types of aromas may signal our skin to start its healing process. This works independently from our traditional olfactory receptors in the nose.

Exactly how our body perceives odor—and the precise organs involved in the process—is an ongoing area of research. From all the information we’ve gathered to date, it seems that smell may have other functions in the body that we’re currently unaware of.^[2]

8 Our Bones Are Stronger Than Steel

The bones are possibly some of the most boring organs of the body. They don’t seem to do anything other than keep the overall structure intact, even if some of us know the important role that bone marrow plays in the general functioning of the body. They’re often overshadowed by the cooler, more hip organs.

If we just bothered to read up on them, though, bones are impressive on their own, especially when it comes to strength. Ounce for ounce, bones are stronger than the toughest man-made materials like concrete and steel. If your first response to that is “well, then how do I manage to break them so often,” it’s because they’re also incredibly flexible.

Scientists have been perplexed by their flexibility and strength for quite some time. According to recent research, it’s all due to how they’re structured. Human bones are shaped like ropes tied together in a helical structure.

Every layer down to the nanoscale repeats that formation. Imagine it as a rope made with individual threads, except that the threads are ropes as well that are made with even tinier threads right down to a resolution of 5 nanometers.^[3]

7 Eyes Can Perceive Flavor

We know that our eyes can do some awesome things—from being able to see in the night to tracking things at high speeds. However, all of that is still only related to sight. Did you know that our eyes can also taste?

Research proves that human eyes are relatively good at identifying flavors. Moreover, our visual sense of a flavor can even override our taste buds. In one experiment, the researchers gave professional wine tasters two glasses of wine from the same bottle of white wine. However, the contents of one glass was colored red with flavorless dye.

In a massive blow to the wine tasting industry, the critics identified the latter as red wine.

While you may think that occurred because wine tasting is a bogus science anyway—which may be true—something more complicated was happening. When the brain senses two conflicting pieces of information about taste, it goes with the visual information even if it’s the brain of someone with years of expertise related to that taste.^[4]

6 Smelling STDs

One of the biggest problems with modern dating culture is the scarily high prevalence of STDs. If you’re not careful, a careless one-night stand may leave you with much more than feelings of regret and unfulfillment (like warts). If you’re lucky, all you’ll need is a few doctor visits to fix it. If not . . . well, you know how this goes.

Apparently, the human body has built-in mechanisms to detect STDs without having to go through all that. One of them is our sense of smell. One study found that women are capable of smelling gonorrhea just from saliva or armpit samples of men, something that otherwise takes quite a few tests and medical visits to detect.^[5]

It makes perfect sense, too, as women may have developed this ability to weed out potentially risky sexual partners.

According to studies done on mice, there’s evidence that our sense of smell may be able to detect much more than STDs, including other viruses and parasites.

5 Brain Can Manipulate Time

As Albert Einstein spent his life trying to convince everyone, time is relative. It’s only now that we have the tools required to prove that, and the more we experiment, the more we find that he was absolutely right. We now know that our perception of time is intrinsically related to our position in space and is influenced by many other seemingly unrelated factors.

According to science, our brain also plays a huge role in how we perceive time and even has the ability to tweak it when required. It’s because of the simple concept that our internal clock is different from real time and is controlled by different parts of the brain.

Ever notice that time seems to pass a lot faster when you grow old?

It’s not just in your head. Studies show that our internal clock really slows down with age, which in turn makes everything outside appear to happen faster. The same concept applies when time seems to fly by when we’re having fun.^[6]

4 Facial Expressions Can Influence The Brain Into Actually Feeling Those Emotions

Our faces can convey a ridiculously wide array of emotions. Of course, not everyone is capable of employing the full expression spectrum. But even the most reserved among us can do a lot with the face. However, we always assume that our expressions indicate what’s happening in the brain and never the other way around.

As it turns out, our expressions can influence our moods to the extent that our countenance can trick the brain into feeling whatever you want it to. The results of many studies seem to confirm this.

Take the one where they used Botox to remove frown lines from patients suffering from depression. The procedure ended up alleviating much of their depression, suggesting that looking sad may contribute to feeling that way. Another study found that people who are forced to smile with a pen between their teeth find the same comics funnier than people with the pen between their lips, which suppresses their smiles.^[7]

3 Sperm Can Smell The Egg

Reproduction is a fairly simple procedure once you find a partner willing to do it with you. In a nutshell, it’s all about introducing sperm to the general vicinity of the egg. As long as the woman is in the fertile period of her reproductive cycle, both of them should come together to do their thing and make an embryo.

Although we know the basics, what exactly happens when sperm make their way to the egg is still not clear.

According to science at least, it’s due to sperm’s innate ability to smell out the egg. Many studies have found that a man’s sperm has odor receptors similar to those in the nose and they’re specifically designed to detect a fertile egg just by its scent.

Now we don’t yet know if the eggs have similar receptors that work in the opposite direction, though scientists think that it’s a very real possibility. More research is underway to understand how smell affects the reproductive system. This has applications in many fields of medicine (like contraception).^[8]

2 Our Immune System Kills Cancer Cells Every Day

Most of us don’t quite understand how cancer works, even if around 4 out of 10 people will be diagnosed with it at some point in their lives. Although the whole process is a bit more complicated than can be explained here, simply put, it’s what happens when the cells grow abnormally in any way (hence the term “malignant growth”).

Some types of cancer accelerate the growth of the cells, while others slow it down—and it can happen to anyone. Cancer risk is the price we pay for having such a complicated and evolved growth mechanism.

What we don’t realize, though, is that the body is constantly fighting cancerous growths and comes out as the victor many more times than it loses. Our immune systems are constantly checking for cancer cells and destroying them, a process that’s underway every day of our lives.

In many of those cases, it takes a call on killing cells that won’t die on their own and may turn into tumors. Despite our immune systems winning so many of the mini battles going on in our cells, cancer is still prevalent in all human populations because the bad kind of growth only has to win once for cancer to happen.^[9]

1 Vagina Has The Ability To Clean Itself

Thanks to Big Pharma, many women think that vaginal discharge is some sort of impurity they need to clean up to keep things hygienic. The market is flush with products that claim to improve vaginal cleanliness, and unsurprisingly, many of them cost a fortune. If Big Vagina was an equally influential lobby, we’d know that it doesn’t need any cleaning at all.

As men around the world already know, the female vagina is an evolutionary marvel. At the time of puberty, it’s colonized by a good kind of bacteria that gradually forms a mini ecosystem of its own. Vaginal discharge is made up of that bacteria (among other things like mucus from the cervix), and it protects against sexually transmitted diseases along with naturally keeping the inner walls clean.

That’s why if a woman goes to a gynecologist, they almost always tell her to never wash the inside of the vagina. Well, if they’re good at their job anyway. That’s not to say that women should give up on cleanliness around their private parts altogether as regularly cleaning the outer area is still essential.^[10]

You can check out Himanshu’s stuff at Cracked and Screen Rant or get in touch with him for writing gigs.

Across cultures and throughout history, many specific features of the day have obtained significant importance. We carve out certain hours of our day to provide us with satisfaction, entertainment, or general peace of mind. Sometimes, we base our entire day on certain groups of hours. Even exact times appearing on the clock developed value to many. Some of these aspects of our day originated centuries ago, and some are much more recent. This list takes a look at ten of the most impactful.

SEE ALSO: 10 Bizarre Calendar Fixes That Made Us Add Or Skip Dates

10 Spanish Siesta

The Spanish Siesta found its way into the popular lexicon. Unfortunately, it is sometimes used derogatorily to imply laziness, when in fact, that could not be further from the truth.

The term “siesta” comes from the Latin for “sexta,” meaning “sixth hour.” Romans began their day at dawn, and used the sixth hour of the day for eating and resting. From there, the tradition for midday rest eventually crossed into other cultures, most notably that of the Spanish. Their siestas came about after the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). Most people worked two jobs, thus splitting their work day into two parts: 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. and 4:00 to 8:00 p.m. This gave many the opportunity to have a nice rest if they so desired.

In today’s Spain, close to 60% of working age people have never taken a siesta. Yet, today’s Spaniards average only around 7 hours of sleep a night, a full hour below the recommended 8. It seems it is not just Americans that do not get enough sleep. We cannot all be like George Costanza and take a nap under our desk; we rely on coffee and energy drinks.

Spaniards are one the last European countries to turn in for the night. Midnight is the average bedtime in Spain, over an hour later than neighboring France. Vice President of the Spanish Society for Sleep Juan Jose Ortega believes there is still a place for the siesta in Spanish society. With the knowledge that his people are sleeping over an hour less than their grandparents, Ortega thinks “A brief siesta helps us to alleviate stress, strengthens the immune system and improves performance.”^[1]

9 Happy Hour

Everyone wants and deserves to be happy, even if it is only for about an hour a day. “Happy Hour” refers to the time of day, usually for more than an hour, when bars and restaurants offer discounts on certain foods and drinks. Show up after work, relax with colleagues, and enjoy half-off jalapeño poppers and beers. What a great way to end the work day. There is no clear reason how the term “Happy Hour” came to be used as it is today. But, we can piece together the history of the words involved and try to trace a path.

“Happy” comes from the Middle English hap which in turn is derived from the Old Norse happ meaning “good luck. “Hour” is from the Latin hora, which denotes 1/24 of a day, or one canonical hour. By the 19th century, “happy hour” was often used to refer to organized entertainment. It is possible that at some point, establishments appropriated that use of the term for the advertisement of their discounted offerings. Around World War I, the U.S. Navy used the term to let sailors know when they were allowed to participate in recreational activities. Sailors may have brought the term home with them and it further worked its way into popular culture.^[2]

8 Brahma Muhurta

In the Hindu religion, the last quarter of the night is the most important part of the day. This is approximately the 90 minutes prior to sunrise. Brahma Muhurta is time for the self, the only time of the day when one is fresh and aware. On this side of the world, many of us do not want to even look at the clock at this time of day, let alone get up and be active.

During Brahma Muhurta, it is believed the body benefits from such things as a boost to the immune system, increased energy levels, and relief of pain and soreness. To make this time the most advantageous, there are five recommended points of focus: meditation, reading, planning, introspect, and memory. Eating and engaging in a mentally stressful activity are not recommended.^[3]

7 Afternoon Tea

Despite what we might think, the English have not been tea drinkers for very long. The custom of drinking tea dates back to China circa the third millennium BC. Fast forward to the late 17th century and the reign of King Charles II. His new wife Catherine de Braganza came from Portugal, a tea drinking country. Catherine naturally brought some with her when she became England’s new Queen. Until this time, tea was mostly used medicinally in England, and was quite costly due taxation on importation. The aristocracy began to follow Catherine’s custom, but it would take a while yet before the general population became tea drinkers.

By the mid-1840s, dinner in England had moved to very late in the day. The Duchess of Bedford, Anna Russell, experienced hunger pangs around mid-afternoon and asked that a pot of tea and some light food items be brought to her chambers. Soon after, she began inviting friends to accompany her. Due to her friendship with and lady-in-waiting to Queen Victoria, Anna’s custom was adopted by the rest of the elites. More tea was imported and it became easier to purchase. The rest of England began to enjoy these get-togethers. People began sending announcements to friends and relatives stating the hour and day of the week in which they could all gather for tea and snacks.^[4]

6 Japanese Temporal Time

Japanese Temporal Time used animals to indicate each two hour block. This system came to Japan from China. Buddha’s observation of the animals under the Bho tree during his twelve years of meditation led to the order in which the animals are arranged. Each sign of the Zodiac corresponds to approximately two hours of the day.

These are the animals and the division of the day they each occupy:

The Rat: 11:00 p.m. to 1:00 a.m.
The Ox/Cow: 1:00 to 3:00 a.m.
The Tiger: 3:00 to 5:00 a.m.
The Rabbit: 5:00 to 7:00 a.m.
The Dragon: 7:00 to 9:00 a.m.
The Snake: 9:00 to 11:00 a.m.
The Horse: 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.
The Sheep: 1:00 to 3:00 p.m.
The Monkey: 3:00 to 5:00 p.m.
The Rooster/Chicken: 5:00 to 7:00 p.m.
The Dog: 7:00 to 9:00 p.m.
The Pig: 9:00 to 11:00 p.m.

For almost 1000 years, water clocks were the norm in Japan. During the Edo Period (1603-1868), Japan began using Western clock-making techniques to manufacture devices to keep better track of their unique time system. Some clocks, like lantern clocks, were driven by a plumb bob. Others like the paper weight and the carriage clock were driven by a spring. Soon after the end of the Edo Period, these types of clocks began disappearing as Japan gradually phased out the use of the temporal time system.^[5]

5 Graveyard Shift

Whether we have worked a “graveyard shift” or not, we all know that it means working late into the night, usually into the next morning. A lot of places are open 24 hours and need staff at all times of the day. Some people’s jobs require them to work during according to the time standards of other countries, so they need to be wide awake when the rest of us are sleeping. But from where did the term actually originate?

First off, there is no evidence pointing to the phrase having anything to do with cemeteries. Some believed it came from people having to sit in a graveyard all night to listen for the ringing of bells connected to special coffins. There are conflicting reports as to exactly where and when it was first coined. There is evidence it was first seen the New Albany Evening Tribune in May 1895 which featured a story about the dismal nature of being on the graveyard shift while working in a mine. It may have originated in the Salt Lake Tribune in June 1897 in which it described policeman working the graveyard shift. In any case, if you are working the graveyard shift, it is likely you will be unfortunately working through the next time of day on our list.^[6]

4The Witching Hour

Those who have seen the film Paranormal Activity know that most of the bumps in the night in that film happen around 3:00 a.m. Purportedly, this is the start of the witching hour. However, evidence varies on the actual time, and on the era in which the term was conceived. Facts themselves are tough to substantiate with reputable sources, so take this knowledge with a grain of salt. Throw it over the shoulder if need be.

The phrase might stretch either to 1535, or to Pope Pius IV in 1560. In either case, the church soon began to forbid people (specifically women), from any activities between the hours of 3:00 and 4:00 a.m. Not long after, people known to be up at those hours were deemed to be possible witches. The paranoia spread and eventually made its way onto our shores in the form of the Salem Witch Trials.

Even Shakespeare himself is sometimes credited with coining the term in Hamlet referring to the witching hour beginning at midnight. Today, many still believe it does start around 3, but no longer due to anything to do with actual (or suspected) witches. Around 3:00 in the morning is the time when most people enter the deepest phase of sleep. All of the body’s functions slow way down, thus waking up at this time often brings on a state of confusion, and sometimes panic. If I wake up convinced someone is in the corner of my room, I tend not to check the time. Why get freaked out even further?^[7]

3 10:10

Do people still buy watches these days? Sadly, so many of us rely on our cellphones to give us the time rather than a cool watch on our wrist. One way watchmakers have always tried to show off their wares is by setting their watches and analog clocks to a specific time. The popular time of late is 10:10. Of the 100 top selling watches on Amazon in 2009, 97 were set to 10:10.

It turns out that aesthetics are the main reason manufacturers set their watches to read 10:10. By setting the hands to the 10 and 2, the logo is ideally framed. The 10:10 position is also symmetrical, pleasing the brain’s desire for things to be in proportion and order. For photographs, Rolex sets their watches to 10:10:31, whereas Timex sets every watch, including digitals, to 10:09:36.

Dating back to the 1920s and 1930s, watches were almost exclusively set at 8:20. Watchmakers began to realize that hands set to 8 and 4 resembled a frown, and that a smile at 10 and 2 would be much more appealing. The feeling buyers get from seeing a “smiling” watch is part of the subconscious clues advertisers use in print ads. “In advertising, we would never expect someone to look at a watch and say, ‘The watch is smiling,’” says Linda Kaplan Thaler, chief executive of the New York advertising agency Kaplan Thaler Group. “(I)t’s just a feeling you get.”^[8]

2 11:11

At some point during our lives, we have all seen 11:11 on a digital clock and noticed its uniqueness. What draws us to pay attention to this time on the clock as opposed to other random times?

There is no other time on the clock with quite the allure or symmetry of 11:11. It is pleasing to our eyes to see such uniformity; the sight stays with us longer than other glances at the clock. Maybe it is the result of Baader-Meinhof syndrome. It tells us that there are actually two psychological processes going on. Selective attention occurs when we perceive something new, and when we look for it thereafter, it seems to keep popping up.

Confirmation bias tells us that each time we see it, we further cement its importance. Some of us may even remember who originally told us that it is good luck to make four wishes when 11:11 is on the clock. It seems some people apply so much significance to something like the numbers on a clock, that they believe its possible association with wish-making to be true. ^[9]

1 Earth Hour

In 2007, Sydney, Australia, inspired by the WWF (World Wildlife Foundation), decided to have a “lights out event.” This is considered the first Earth Hour. As of 2019, more than 185 countries take part in Earth Hour.

Once a year, around the end of March (near the Spring/Autumn equinoxes depending on your hemisphere), people are asked to turn off all non-essential lights. WWF hopes this will motivate think bigger and take action regarding climate change, and a broader commitment to our planet. Perhaps, Earth Hour will eventually become known as the time when the most number of people in the world feel connected to each other at once.^[10]

About The Author: Hello everyone on the internet! A little about me: I have two degrees in film: my B.A. from UC Berkeley, and my M.F.A. from Academy of Art University. I worked for a little while in the production office on several films including Bee Season, and Milk. I transitioned to TV and spent a few years in the “bullpen” working on live games for Pac-12 Networks. Lately, I’ve found that writing is what really does it for me. I’ve been writing film reviews for almost five years for the Concord/Clayton Pioneer. Very recently I’ve decided to branch out into comic books and online writing. I have also been a swim coach for twenty years.

Some body parts get all the attention, whether it’s the famous essentials like the heart, brain, and liver or the beauty of smiles or athletic musculature. However, there is a whole world of phenomenal body parts that deserve some more attention.

These unsung anatomical heroes might not be the most eye-catching, but they’re why you don’t walk into walls, choke every time you eat, or simply keel over dead while you’re reading this article, among other things. Here is a list of ten of the most underappreciated, interesting, and important parts of the human body.

10 Vestibular System

Ever wondered how you know where your head is in space? How you don’t get dizzy every time you nod or tilt your head? Or why you can’t walk in a straight line after spinning in a circle for a long time?

The answer is the vestibular system (VS), a minuscule, complex setup comprised of three semicircular canals and two chambers in each inner ear. The VS sits behind your eardrum, just next to the cochlea. The semicircular canals are three round tubes filled with liquid, which lie in different planes, enabling sensation of movement in all directions. There are special areas called maculae (not to be confused with the maculae in the retinas) at the end of the tube loops which are covered with sensory hairs. On top of the hairs is a jelly-like substance with tiny weights in it called otoliths. When you move your head, the semicircular canals and maculae move, but the fluid and jelly lag behind. This lag bends the sensory hairs and sends a message to your brain about the direction your head is moving. When you stop moving (or accelerating) and keep your head in a particular spot, the effect of gravity on the weighted jelly tells your brain where you are in space.

So, what happens when we spin in a circle and get dizzy? Ask a friend to spin in a tight circle, either on their feet or in an office chair, for over 30 seconds and then suddenly stop and try to focus on a fixed point. They will feel dizzy and struggle to walk in a straight line, and if you look closely, you will see their eyes flicking from side to side (a phenomenon called nystagmus). This happens because your VS has stopped moving, but the fluid inside the loops has enough momentum to keep moving. This tells your brain you are spinning, but your eyes and cerebellum don’t agree, so you feel completely off-balance, and your vision is distorted.^[1] You can also watch the medical student above try it.

9 Kneecaps

If you have ever fallen on your knees or had that sickening feeling of sliding a chair under a desk and colliding with an unfortunately placed table leg, you’ve probably been grateful for their protection. However, kneecaps are much more than built-in, rudimentary kneepads!

It’s all a matter of leverage. The main function of the kneecap, technically called the patella, is extension of the knee (straightening the leg). The kneecap is tethered to the shinbone (tibia) by a strong tendon, and the top of the kneecap is connected to a major muscle in the quadriceps group. Your “quads” are a group of four muscles, hence the name. The patella increases the effective force with which the knee can extend by 33 to 50 percent due to the increased leverage around the joint.^[2]

8 Cerebrospinal Fluid

Amid all the flesh, blood, and guts in the human body is this beautiful, crystal-clear fluid. Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) is produced in ventricles deep within the brain and circulates around the brain and spinal cord.

CSF has many functions, including protection, as it provides an area of shock-absorption for the brain when the skull is hit or shaken. It also works to provide nutrients and clear waste from the brain and spinal cord in a similar way to blood in other parts of the body. The CSF is produced and absorbed in an exquisite balance to maintain the correct pressure to surround and support the central nervous system (brain and spinal cord).

Doctors sample CSF by performing a procedure called a lumbar puncture—inserting a needle into the spinal cord and collecting some of the fluid.^[3] It can be used to identify people who have an infection (such as meningitis), a bleed around the brain (hemorrhagic stroke), and other conditions.

7 Uterus

Most women are not particularly fond of their uterus, as it is often a source of pain or problems, but it deserves a prized place on this list.

The most obviously remarkable feature of the uterus is its ability to expand from approximately the size of a woman’s fist to fill most of the abdomen and some of the thorax during pregnancy and contain a full-grown fetus, placenta, and amniotic fluid. The proliferative capacity of the uterus is unrivaled in the human body.

The muscular function of the uterus is also truly unique. Most people are familiar with the pain and power of contractions during labor (which are in themselves a remarkable feat of physiology), but a less well-known muscular function occurs directly after birth. After the placenta detaches from the inside wall of the uterus, there is a huge risk of bleeding (postpartum hemorrhage), as multiple large blood vessels are exposed.

If that happened on your arm or leg, what would you do? Apply pressure. The uterus applies pressure to itself! Straight after delivery of a baby and placenta, a surge of hormones causes intense contraction of the uterus, which compresses the blood vessels and helps them heal and close.^[4]

6 Valves

Most of us are grateful for our sphincters (or should be), but what about our valves? The cardiovascular system is essentially plumbing, and one-way valves keep things flowing in the right direction. We have four very strong pumps (the heart) which work in coordination to pump blood in a figure eight to the lungs to exchange gas and then to the rest of the body, supplying nutrients, removing waste, and keeping everything in balance.

Blood is pumped out of your heart into arteries, which expand and contract as the heart pumps. This is why you can feel a pressure wave in them, your “pulse.” As blood moves away from your heart, arteries branch into smaller and smaller vessels until they pass through extremely fine tubes called capillaries that are only a cell wide. This is when exchange happens between blood and the tissues it supplies. Blood needs to move slowly here and no longer has a pulse due to the large surface area of the microscopic capillaries.

On the way back to the heart, blood travels in veins, which converge into larger and larger vessels. However, there is not a lot of pressure driving blood back to the heart, and most of the blood needs to overcome gravity to return. To deal with this, veins have one-way valves which keep blood flowing in the right direction. Sometimes you can see valves in people’s arms, particularly when you have a tourniquet on for a blood test; they look like little knobbles along an otherwise straight vein.

There are also four essential one-way valves within the heart. Each of the four pumping chambers in the heart has a one-way valve which snaps shut when it contracts to prevent blood from being pumped out in the wrong direction. The chambers in your heart work in pairs, and it is the sound of these valves snapping shut during the pumping action that you hear as the two “lub-dub” heart sounds. If there is anything wrong with how the valves work, you can hear added heart sounds, and the pump will work less effectively.^[5]

5 Lens

If you’ve ever had glasses fitted, you know how arduous the process is to find exactly the right lens to correct your vision. Much like the lenses in glasses, you have lenses within your eyes. They are transparent, concave structures that bend light to focus images onto the back of your eyeball, the retina, which sends the information to your brain to be interpreted as vision.^[6]

Unlike glass or polycarbonate lenses, our anatomical lenses are elasticated and able to change their shape to focus on objects at all different distances. As we age, the lens gradually loses elasticity. This is why most people require glasses to assist with reading as they get older; the lens is less able to recoil or “bounce back” into its thickest form, which is required for near vision. Glasses help to bend the light more, prior to passing through the eye.

4 Ciliary Muscle

How exactly do our lenses manage to change shape? This is achieved by the ciliary muscle, a rim of muscle around the lens which contracts and relaxes to make the lens thicker or thinner.^[7] This, in turn, bends beams of light entering the eye more or less, to keep images in focus.

This muscle movement, known as accommodation, is one of the most sophisticated motor functions in the body. Indeed, our eyes are among the most complex organs in our bodies.

3 Epiglottis

Anatomically, our trachea is in front of our esophagus, so every time we swallow, our food or water needs to pass over our windpipe and in to our food pipe. If this action is not coordinated, we choke.

The epiglottis is a flap of elastic cartilage which projects from the top of the larynx (the top part of the windpipe). When you swallow, the larynx is pulled upward. This is why you can see people’s throats move up and down when they swallow. The “Adam’s apple” is a prominence of cartilage in the larynx which makes this action more obvious in males. When the larynx is pulled upward, the epiglottis is folded over the entrance to the windpipe so that food and water pass over it, into the esophagus.

This is why it is important to lie someone on their side in the recovery position in first aid when appropriate. This is to keep their airway open and to allow any water or secretions to drain out of the mouth instead of into the airway.^[8]

2 Diaphragm

The diaphragm is a large area of fibrous and muscle tissue which separates the abdominal and thoracic cavities, and when it twitches, we get hiccups. Although the rib cage expands and contracts, diaphragm is the main muscle responsible for breathing. When relaxed, the diaphragm is dome-shaped, curving up into the thoracic cavity. When it contracts, the muscle flattens, increasing the intrathoracic volume and creating a sucking action, drawing air into the lungs as they expand.

The diaphragm also helps to regulate pressure on the chest and abdomen when vomiting, coughing, urinating, and passing stool.

When you look at an X-ray of the chest, the diaphragm is higher on the right than the left, due to the location of the liver.^[9] Every time you breathe, all your abdominal contents below the diaphragm move slightly as you inhale and exhale.

1 Skin

It’s the largest organ in the body, and although it’s one of the more highly recognized body parts on the list, its importance is not. The skin has six primary roles, if any of which stopped working, you would get very sick or even die.^[10]

Firstly, skin provides a barrier against physical, thermal, chemical, and radiation sources of potential trauma encountered in daily life. Also, skin regulates your body temperature. As annoying as we find sweating to be, it is actually essential to maintaining our normal physiology and is also involved in another primary function: maintaining the body’s fluid and electrolyte balance.

Skin also has multiple immune functions, acting as both a physical and immunological barrier against infection and allergic triggers. Metabolic functions of the skin include the production of vitamin D and other proteins that cells need to work. Finally, the skin is the most diverse sensory organ in the body, capable of sensing heat, cold, light and firm pressure, pain, and vibrations.

Littoral Spaces
Medicine / Arts

In 1859, Charles Darwin published his landmark book “On the Origin of Species”. In the book, he proposed the theory of natural selection, where he stated that the body and organs of living things slowly adapt to become better at whatever they are used for while parts that have fallen into disuse become smaller before finally disappearing.

Like other plants and creatures, the human body is the result of millions of years of natural selection. The body parts we need for our survival have become specialized at what they do while the ones we do not need are gone. But what parts have we lost over time? That is what we are out to answer.

10 Fascinating Facts About Human Evolution

10 Brow ridges

Several species of early humans including the Homo erectus, Homo heidelbergensis and our cousins, Neanderthals, had brow ridges. That is, the area of their heads right above the eyes reclined backwards into the top of their heads, just like the heads of chimps and gorillas.

Today, we Homo sapiens have lost our brow ridges. Instead, we have flat faces and high foreheads that go straight upwards until they merge with the top of our heads. Why is this so?

Researchers are unsure as to why ancient humans had brow ridges or why we lost them. However, they think we may have lost them for social reasons. During a social experiment, anthropologist Grover Krantz realized that people avoided him and even crossed the streets just to avoid passing his side when he wore a Homo erectus-like facemask in public.

This indicates that brow ridges were not so friendly and had to go as humans got more social and started living in large communities. In exchange, our heads got smaller and we developed more prominent and movable eyebrows we use to pass subtle information and emotions.

9 Claws

Logic dictates that herbivores have hooves, carnivores have claws and omnivores have either claws or fingernails. Actually, all omnivores would have had claws, if it were not for primates, a group of closely related creatures that includes humans, apes, lemurs, lorises, monkeys and tarsiers.

The earliest primates had claws, which they used for digging and scratching but they lost them when they started living on trees. Now, claws are very useful for climbing trees. However, they quickly become a drawback whenever a primate wants to move from one branch to another. This was why early primates developed hands and fingernails that could climb trees and grab branches.

8 Prehensile feet

We have all probably seen a photo of an ape using its feet to grab things or hang from tree branches. Those are prehensile feet and are a defining characteristic of apes and primates. Think of them as feet that can act as an extra hand when required.

Humans are the only primates that do not have prehensile feet. We used to have them but not anymore.

The earliest humans had prehensile feet until they started walking on the ground. Their toes got straighter and firmer and lost their flexibility as they evolved for walking and running. Our first four toes lost their flexibility first and the large toe soon followed, making it our last body part to evolve.

7 Canine teeth

Man with gold front teeth, close-up of mouth

Take a peep at the teeth of chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans and other large apes and you cannot miss those long and sharp canine teeth. We humans have canine teeth too but those are only in names. They are neither long nor sharp and are barely longer than the other teeth in our mouth.

So why do we not have long and sharp canines like other apes?

We actually used to but lost them after they fell into disuse. Like other apes, early humans developed large canines to fight other males for dominance. The prize of these fights was an exclusive mating right to several or all females in the group.

However, fights for dominance slowly fell into obscurity as early human babies got weaker and vulnerable to predators. This made human males spend more time protecting their babies than fighting for mating rights. Our canines have been getting shorter ever since and are currently the smallest that they have ever been.

6 Long arms

The earliest humans had long arms and short legs, much like today’s apes, when they first appeared six million years ago. We, in reverse, have shorter arms and longer legs. Why did this happen?

The reason is not far-fetched. The earliest humans were shorter and survived on a plant diet. This meant they required a larger digestive system and organs to process their meals. This made their rib cages expand to accommodate their larger requirements for digestion.

Things changed 1.9 million years ago when humans migrated to hotter climates and added meat to their diet. Their bodies became narrower and their digestive system got smaller since meat requires a shorter digestive tract and organs to digest.

At the same time, the legs got longer to allow them cover longer distances while seeking and chasing prey. The legs of early humans continued growing longer until the first Homo erectus appeared. They were the first ancestors of the modern human to migrate out of Africa. Their legs were spectacularly long, which helped them lose body heat.

5 Big stomachs

The human brain has gotten larger ever since the Homo habilis first appeared two million years ago. The brain of the Homo habilis was around 600 cubic centimeters. However, 1.5 million years ago, the Homo habilis went extinct and was succeeded by the Homo erectus, which had a brain size of around 900 cubic centimeters.

Researchers know our brains got larger as we got access to more food. Ironically, our stomachs got smaller around the same time. On the surface, this does not really make sense considering larger brains require more energy, which in turn, requires more food. Logically, our stomachs should get bigger to accommodate more food.

The reverse happened because early humans made the switch from a strict herbivorous diet that consisted of low quality plants to an omnivore diet that included lots of high quality meat. Their stomachs got smaller because meat packs more nutrients and energy than plants.

4 Large eyes

Some species of early humans had large eyes. This includes Neanderthals, our cousins, who freely interbred with early Homo sapiens for about 5,000 years before going extinct.

Researchers believe Neanderthals developed large eyes after migrating out of Africa to the colder parts of Europe and Asia where there was little sunlight. Their eyes got larger to accommodate more light. We Homo sapiens on the other hand, have smaller eyes because we remained in Africa where there was enough sunlight.

Curiously, there are suggestions that Neanderthal’s large eyes were a double-edged sword that may have contributed to their extinction. Researchers believe they dedicated a larger part of their brains to process information from their eyes. This meant other parts of their brains, including the parts they needed to develop complex social skills as Homo sapiens did, were smaller.

3 Tails

Modern humans grow tails in the embryo and have small tailbones after they are born. The tail and tailbone are actually the remnant of the longer tails we used to have. However, we lost those tails twice. We grew it, lost it and grew it again before losing it for a second time.

Humans first lost their tails when the Aetheretmon, an extinct fish considered the ancestor of all land dwelling creatures, lost one of its two tails.

The Aetheretmon had two tails, one atop the other. The first was a regular tail fin it used for swimming while the second was a fleshy tail it used for swimming faster. However, the fish later lost most of the fleshy tail while it kept its regular tail fin.

Millions of years later, the Aetheretmon would completely lose its regular tail fin as it evolved from a sea dwelling creature to a semi-aquatic and later, land dwelling creature. However, the fleshy tail it earlier lost regrew into the tail we see in most land animals today.

The hominids that would later evolve into apes and humans lost this fleshy tail as they started walking on two legs. Apparently, the tails would have affected their upright stance. Today, humans, chimps and gorillas do not have tails. Many monkeys have long tails but those that walk a bit more upright have shorter tails.

2 Fur

Why do humans have hair even though apes have fur? To find out the reason, we need to go back to the Australopithecus afarensis, a hominin considered the ancestor of the first humans.

The Australopithecus afarensis looked more like apes than humans. Think of it as an ape with human characteristics. It had ape-like arms, legs and fur but had a large brain and could walk upright like humans.

We lost our fur when Australopithecus afarensis abandoned the covers of the thick forests to hunt meat in the open savannah, which exposed them to more sunlight than they were used to.

However, sunlight and fur do no go hand in hand. Fur prevents sweating and traps heat, which would have caused the bodies and brains of the Australopithecus afarensis to overheat. So started losing their fur to allow them sweat and lose heat more easily.

1 Whiskers

Most mammals have whiskers but not humans. We do not have those things. Interestingly, we used to have whiskers but lost them around 800,000 years ago. To understand why we lost our whiskers, we need to understand why some animals still have them.

Animals use their whiskers to complement their eye. Every creature with a whisker actually has two kinds of whiskers: a long whisker and a short whisker. Animals use the long whisker to find their way in the dark and around tight spaces while the short whisker is reserved for recognizing objects.

However, we humans lost our whiskers after we transferred the jobs of both whiskers to other parts of our bodies particularly our fingertips, lips and genitals. Those parts are sensitive, just like whiskers, because they take in information from our surroundings and pass them over to our brains.

10 Evolutionary Advantages Of Seemingly Weird Body Functions

The combination of adaptation and natural selection produces some beautiful, graceful creatures. It also leads to some animals with totally bizarre body parts. Did sponges lose their brains? What’s so bizarre about the mantis shrimp’s seemingly telescopic eyes? Why do the sheepshead fish’s teeth appear so uncanny? What made researchers think of origami when they encountered the puzzle of the earwig’s wings?

Yes, it is a little creepy that an arachnid’s legs function “a bit like . . . tongues, noses, and fingertips.” Of all the places tentacles could grow, why would nature select a snake’s head? Skilled combatants claim that almost anything could be used as a weapon, but, unlike an aquatic salamander, even they might draw a line at ribs. The shoebill stork is nothing if not an innovative hunter.

There’s a good reason that the male venomous platypus need not fear being cuckolded when mating season rolls around. The proboscis monkey’s nose may strike people as rather homely, but females of his species seem to admire it, while another of his appendages is—well, for now, let’s just say you were warned . . . .

10 Genetically Modified Animals Not Intended For Consumption

10 Sponge’s “Brain”

Although modern sponges are brainless animals, some scientists believe that this was not always the case. These marine invertebrates may once have had, if not true brains, something similar to them.

If so, why did the sponges dispose of their neurons? The answer from evolution is simple: if sponges have, indeed, “lost their nerves,” as BBC reporter Melissa Hogenboom puts it, it was because they didn’t need them and because the loss benefited the animals.

Frank Hirth of Kings College London believes that sponges have undergone an “evolved loss” of neural structures. This loss is similar, Hogenboom suggests, to the losses of organs in other animals, such as crustaceans, which, living in dark caves, lose the need for eyes and evolve away from having them.

The loss, if it occurred, would provide certain advantages. Without brains, sponges need a lot less energy, and, since sponges can passively acquire nutrients by filter-feeding, a nervous system wouldn’t be an asset to their survival. In fact, feeding a brain would be “a waste of energy,” Hirth says, and the maintenance of such an “energy demand” would be impossible for sponges, which “sit on the sea bed . . . just filtering food that comes along.”

The view that sponges once had something akin to brains and lost them remains controversial among scientists. Neuroscientist Leonid Moroz, of the University of Florida in St. Augustine, is one expert among others who believes that sponges never developed neurons, since such cells are unnecessary to sponges’ survival.

Hirth and Moroz presented their differences of opinion concerning the issue during a March 2015 meeting of the Royal Society in London. However, the matter remains unresolved. According to Angelika Stollewerk of Queen Mary University of London, at present, either Hirth or Moroz may be correct. Time—and evidence—may tell; until then, both of her colleagues’ views remain possibilities.

If Hirth’s view proves correct, though, one of the most bizarre animal body parts of all time would have to be the useless sponge brain that disappeared when the animal’s survival favored its simplification.

9 Mantis Shrimp’s Eyes

The mantis shrimp’s bulging compound eyes, set on stalks, are so incredible they seem unreal. Unlike human eyes (and those of most other animals, including those of other arthropods), the mantis shrimp’s eyes are not equipped with single lenses through which light funnels onto a retina. Instead, the light-sensitive receptor cells at the surface of the shrimp’s eyes enable them to detect wavelengths of light in the visible, the infrared, and the ultraviolet spectra.

This ability to see many colors allows mantis shrimp to communicate by using their brightly colored body parts. Their bright colors warn of the mantis shrimp’s lightning-fast punch, which delivers an enormous wallop. Some species also possess bioluminescence, which they can use to signal other shrimp that have invaded their space to back off.

Other color displays function as mating signals. Females prefer more colorful males, so, through natural selection, both sexes of the mantis shrimp become even more colorful generation after generation. In short, mantis shrimp are survivors because the eyes they have evolved are perfectly adapted to their environment, the colorful corals of the ocean’s depths.

8 Sheepshead Fish’s Teeth

The sheepshead fish’s teeth are so bizarre they are downright unsettling. They are not the huge, jagged teeth most fish flash. Instead, they are fairly even and similar in size to one another. The fish has teeth that look much like human incisors, canine teeth, premolars, and molars.

It wouldn’t be much of a stretch to suggest that sheepshead fish could flash a fisherman a smile. In fact, in photographs that Nathan Martin took of the specimen he caught off Nags Head, North Carolina, recently, the fish looks as though it has been prompted to say “cheese.”

Experts say that the fish uses its choppers to eat barnacles and other animals equipped with hard shells. To show off his catch, Martin says he plans to hang it on a wall. Then, visitors can check out its toothsome smile.

7 Earwig’s Wings

The wings of the earwig are marvels of natural development. The arthropod lives on the ground. A glance at the insect, of which there are over 2,000 species, would not suggest that they have wings that, together, are twice the size of their bodies.

Intricately folded beneath the much smaller “leathery forewings,” these rear wings, which, as a National Geographic video explains, are “remarkably compact,” are not visible until the insect raises the rear of its body. Then, by flapping the exposed rear wings, the earwig causes them to unfold, which requires such a vigorous and sustained effort that the insect needs to anchor itself on a leaf or twig until the wings completely unfold.

Remarkably, “the open wings lock into place and remain stable,” the video indicates, doing so “without the use of muscle power.” Instead, the insect’s “elastic, spring-like wing joint allows this stability.” Researchers hope to unlock the secret of the earwig’s wings; doing so, they believe will have many important technological applications, “including folded tents, maps, and foldable electronics.” Unfortunately, an attempt to comprehend the unfolding of the wings by “using . . . origami-like folding” procedures failed, the article relates, because the wings “do not fold . . . at a single crease,” as paper does.

The earwig is known for one other rather bizarre reason. As the Oxford English Dictionary points out, the insect’s name derives from the mistaken “belief that the earwig has a habit of crawling into the human ear.” The name of its scientific order, dermaptera, is also rather imaginative. It means “skin wing.”

6 Harvestman’s Legs

For many, the harvestman is better known by one species among them, the daddy longlegs. The harvestman has eight legs, but, although it is an arachnid, it is neither an insect nor a spider, nor, as some believe, is the harvestman venomous. The harvestman’s most astonishing, totally bizarre body parts are its legs and not only because of their length.

As an article in The Atlantic points out, these amazing appendages “perform the work of several organs at once.” Their legs “can detect heat, water, pressure, and a panoply of chemicals.” Their legs’ sensory perception capabilities are “a bit like having tongues, noses, and fingertips ‘all over your knuckles,’” says Prashant Sharma, a harvestman biologist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

Their many-jointed legs also enable them to curl the appendages several times around tree branches. The lower parts of their legs are so distant from the rest of their bodies that they are outfitted with holes that help the appendages stay oxygenated.

The harvestman’s legs are amazing for other reasons, too. According to Rodrigo Willemart, who studies harvestman sensory ecology at the University of São Paulo, in Brazil, “The fourth pair sport seriously stabby spines, used by some harvestmen to pinch predatory flatworms in two or to joust for access to mates.”

In addition, their legs help male harvestmen compete for mates. For the females of the species, size, as measured, with regard to harvestmen, by length, is important. “Whichever male has the longest leg wins, and it’s the one that is going to mate,” explains Guilherme Gainett, a developmental biologist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

5 Tentacled Snake’s Tentacles

The appendages that grow from the face of the tentacled snake are unique. No other snake on the planet is so equipped. If its tentacles also make the reptile look rather sinister, its approach to hunting, author Bec Crew says, is downright “diabolical.”

Although it breathes air, it can stay underwater for 30 minutes before resurfacing to take its next breath, so it’s right at home in its native habitat, among the lakes, streams, and rice paddies of Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam.

When the snake is on the hunt, its tentacles waver about, as their nerve cells detect prey lurking about in the “muddy water” of their environment, Crew explains. The water is so “murky” that, without the aid of the tentacles, the snake would not discern the presence of its food.

When it has found its prey, the snake ambushes its victim. In the process, the predator turns a fish’s defensive posture to its own advantage. By flicking its tail, the snake prompts the fish to adopt its defensive “C” shape, which, Crew explains, normally allows the fish “to zip away from anything trying to grab or bite it.” In the process of reacting, the fish flips “right into [the snake’s] waiting mouth,” and the end of the hunt concludes “in just 15-20 milliseconds.” The prey “never had a chance,” Crew concludes.

4 Spanish Ribbed Newt’s Ribs

The Spanish ribbed newt doesn’t use its ribs just for the support of its abdomen. According to Matt Walker, an editor at Earth News, when it is under attack, the newt “pushes out its ribs until they pierce through its body, exposing a row of bones that act like poisonous barbs.” Astonishingly, the newt is none the worse for having adopted this bizarre defense maneuver.

Thanks to photographic and X-ray imaging technology, scientists have determined how the aquatic salamander accomplishes this incredible feat. By “swinging its ribs forward” so that they are at an angle of 50 degrees relative to its spine but keeping still otherwise, the newt stretches its skin until it is penetrated by the ribs, says Egon Heiss of the University of Vienna in Austria.

At the same time, the newt “secretes a poisonous milky substance,” Heiss adds. The combination of the poison and the spikes formed by the protruding ribs is “highly effective,” he declares, causing either the predator’s death or the attacker’s experience of agonizing pain. It helps considerably that the newt is immune to its own poison.

3 Shoebill Stork’s Bill

Although humans are not on the menu of the shoebill stork, baby alligators are part of the bird’s diet, as are such fare as lungfish, eels, . . . catfish, and . . . crazy stuff like Nile monitor lizards [and] snakes,” writer Nicholas Lund observes.

Its predatory ways are simple but effective. It stands and waits. When prey approaches, it lunges, scooping its next meal into its massive bill, along with whatever else happens to be in the vicinity, whether “water, mud, vegetation, [or] . . . other hapless fish.” Then, the stork shakes its head back and forth to get rid of the debris it may have collected along with its prey, before using its massive bill to decapitate its live, squirming quarry. At this point, it’s all over but the swallowing.

2 Venomous Platypus’s Feet

More animals than might be thought have really strange feet. One of the most bizarre of these body parts are those of the venomous platypus. Mindy Weisberger’s description of the platypus itself also perfectly captures the appearance of their feet in particular: they do, indeed, “look like they were stitched together by a rogue taxidermist from the [feet] of unrelated animals, as a prank.”

A wrinkled, leathery web fans out from the foot’s five claws, which emerge, seemingly abruptly, from the end of each leg. The claws lie along bifurcated folds each pair of which connect a section of web on either side of it, further complicating the look of the animal’s bizarre feet.

In males, the claws are “loaded with venom,” Weisberger says, which scientists believe may be used to dissuade competitive suitors from pursuing their romantic interest in females when mating season rolls around.

1 Proboscis Monkey’s Proboscis (and Penis)

As its name implies, the homely proboscis monkey has a strange-looking nose. Although the animal’s name doesn’t suggest that any other part of its body is in any way bizarre, the male of the species has a penis that can only be described as totally bizarre.

The Jimmy Durante of the animal world, the somehow sad-looking proboscis monkey has a nose like a banana, except that it’s orange, rather than yellow. In addition to its “big nose,” writer Brad Joseph says, the monkey is cursed with a “pot belly, crazy voice box, and several other bizarre features, [which] once discovered . . . are never forgotten.”

The belly’s size is explained by its function: the stomach serves as a “fermentation vat,” in which “gut flora” convert leaves’ “structural cellulose . . . into usable sugar” and detoxify poisonous alkaloids.

The nose is either easily explained or inexplicable. The former is true if scientists are correct in assuming that the proboscis monkey’s proboscis is “attractive to females.” The latter is likely if the scientists’ hypothesis is false. One thing is certain, though: the animal’s nose has unmistakable presence. Not only is it there, but it’s impossible to miss.

The other “unique and attention-getting characteristic of the monkey,” as Joseph calls it, is the proboscis monkey’s penis. “Always erect,” the cone-shaped scarlet member rearing aloft from a black scrotum constantly perspires as a means of releasing “excess sodium,” Joseph explains, a necessity for life in the “salty, mangrove forests” in which the monkey makes its home.

Fish have been a part of the human diet for centuries. We have learned more about the risks and benefits of eating fish over time. We have also become quite fond of the taste and texture of fish. (Well…not our vegetarian and vegan friends.) Eating fish offers nutrients that aid in reducing the risk of death from heart disease. It also lowers the risk for other health conditions such as stroke. We even understand the role these nutrients play in the brain development of infants.

But…too much of a good thing is bad. Moderation is key.

Fish contains mercury and other contaminants. (Think about the polluted oceans.) Overconsumption of fish increases your level of mercury within the body. This is dangerous for pregnant and nursing women and their babies. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has created guidelines and interactive online tools to inform the public on safe fish consumption.

Yet, depending on your culture, traditions, and where you are in the world can determine the part of the fish you eat. In the U.S., many eat fish fillets and consider the remaining parts of the fish “undesirable.” Even though not everyone eats fish every day of the week, we all have some sort of encounter with a fish product every day. With the demand for fish increasing all over the world, fishermen and scientists are determined to find ways to repurpose fish waste or fish by-products.

Let’s dive in…

Related: 10 Products Which Were Invented In Unusual Ways

10 Biodiesel

Fossil fuels are a limited source. They are nonrenewable. Once they are gone, we cannot create more. It is not ideal to wait millions of years in the hope that more will form. But there is no need for a lengthy science lesson. In short, scientists have already begun searching for other sources of sustainable energy. From wind-powered turbines to solar panels to electric-powered cars, the search continues.

Someone had a bright idea to create an alternative fuel source. A less costly but energy-efficient source using fish by-products. Fish processing units produce billions of tons of fish waste every year. The waste or discarded fish parts such as bones, skin, and even fish heads are usually dumped back into the ocean—adding to our already polluted oceans. Eco-friendly biodiesel is created when the fish by-products or waste are pressed, and the fish oil is then extracted. The fish oil is the base for the biofuel, but other compounds are added before it is ready to be used by your car’s engine or even a plane.^[1]

9 Cosmetics

Ever thought about using fish skin on your face? We all want to look our best, don’t we? It makes us feel even better when we can use a beneficial product that makes a positive impact on our environment, right? In the beauty and cosmetic industry, collagen is well-known for its wrinkle-reducing properties and ability to improve skin health.

Marine collagen, or collagen derived from fish skin, has the same benefits as mammalian collagen (LINK 6). It can be used as a moisturizer for the skin to fight against aging. Maybe it will be your new favorite product to add to your daily routine. Other cosmetic products derived from fish by-products are nail polish remover, hair styling gel, and some makeup applications—the fish by-product is the base.^[2]

8 Gelatin

Can you imagine having strawberry and fish gelatin cups as a dessert? Or cranberry, vodka, and fish gelatin shots to unwind after a long week? Desserts are a sweet spot for me. And I can say that I have never considered having fish for dessert. Gelatin is usually made from cow and pig by-products, but it is also made from…you guessed it…fish. Though it may not be able to completely replace mammal-based gelatin, it does provide another option for those with religious concerns.

However, there are some different chemical properties of mammalian gelatin and fish gelatin. For example, gelatin from fish has a lower gelling point—the temperature at which the substance begins to solidify and form into a gel. Scientists performed a study and found that fish gelatin would be great for frozen desserts like ice cream. Just like mammalian-based gelatin, fish gelatin can also be used as a food additive.^[3]

7 Animal Food

Fish by-products are found in animal feed and pet food. This one may not be much of a surprise. But it is one that those without pets or those who are not familiar with livestock may overlook. Animals and humans both benefit from adding fish to their diet. The protein-rich fish by-products help with the growth and development of our beloved pets and livestock.

Also, the rise of animal lovers wanting to give their furry friends high-protein-rich food and treats has opened the market for new sources of meat. Fish skin is notably high in protein while low in ash, so it is an obvious choice to use in the manufacture of animal feed and pet food. With over $42 billion spent by U.S. consumers on pet food in 2020, with Millennials more focused on organic products, the need for safe and sustainable sources is obvious. And this is where fish by-products can really help. ^[4]

6 Food Packaging

The most frustrating thing about enjoying a snack during a hangry moment is trying to open the package. All frustrations aside. Great packaging for a product usually means that the product’s freshness and taste are preserved. It also improves the shelf life of the product.

To create ideal food packaging, companies usually use plastic films. But fish skin can be used to create a thin film that is biodegradable and an effective barrier. Gelatin films made from fish skins are great barriers or protectors against oxygen and oil. While it may sound unappetizing, it may help reduce our reliance on plastic-based packaging. As long as this fishy cling film is easier to get off of the roll without folding in on itself, we’re set!^[5]

5 Pharmaceutical and Medical

There are various ways fish by-products are used in the pharmaceutical and medical industries. Actual fish oil—in its liquid form—can be taken as a dietary supplement as can as marine collagen. Nutritional supplements have many forms, like liquid, powder, and capsules. For example, fish gelatin can be used to coat capsules for medicine or even create those gummy vitamins that are popular with children…and adults.

Even with a fish-rich diet, you still may not be getting all the fatty acids you need from your diet. Fish-coated supplements are a way that you can absorb those needed lipids to help lower your risk for cardiovascular disease, hypertension, and autoimmune and inflammatory diseases.

Some studies have also revealed that fish by-products can play a role in such medical products as artificial human skin, fine-grade absorbable sutures, and products to arrest bleeding during certain microsurgeries.^[6]

4 Clothing and Accessories

Fish are always in style—from the vibrant colors to mermaid tail flare to fishnet stockings. Whether inspirationally or literally, using fish in your wardrobe is not for those lacking a fashion sense.

In the past, Nordic countries used fish skins to make shoes and pants. They were even used to create an accessory like a bag or sack. Imagine a pair of leather fish skin boots with a fin-tastic matching bag. Today cowboy boots made with fish skin leather are thought to be luxurious even in the United States. One designer is even making sunglasses from salmon skin.^[7]

3 Household Items

Take a moment and look around your home or wherever you are right now. With minimal effort, you can find at least three products that use fish by-products. Ok…maybe it’s not the exact product in your home, but there are similar products in existence.

Fish waste is used to make soaps, candles, lubricants, rubber, detergents, printing ink, paint, varnishes, and glue. Fish glue is commonly used to bind wood, paper, or leather, and it is known to have a low setting time. Candles use the oils created from fish by-products. How many more functional products can be created from repurposed fish waste?^[8]

2 Photography and Electronics

Film photography seems to be a thing of the past. However, new technology is relevant and prevalent. To be more eco-friendly, scientists came up with a biodegradable film for photography and some electronic devices.

Thin and transparent films are made from fish scales for flat electronics such as logo display lighting and flat-panel displays to help with flexibility and a green or environmentally friendly approach. Similar to the benefits of using fish by-products as food packaging, films treated with fish gelatin increase the storability of photos—the ones you can hold in your hands, not digital.^[9]

1 Fertilizer

Have a green thumb? The common use of fish by-products is as a fertilizer. Often fish by-products are called fish offal. It is a term to describe all the discarded portions of the fish, including the eyes, head, heart, swim bladder, tail, scales, eggs, and milt. Using fish offal fertilizer is n everyday practice in organic agriculture, focusing on providing quality food from the environment while maintaining soil fertility. The fish offal is ideal fertilizer due to its nutrient-rich composition, low cost, and rapid decomposition.

There are more ways fish offal is used, but they did not make the top ten list. For example, isinglass is formed from dried fish bladder and sometimes used to clarify beer, wine, and vinegar. Another example is dried salmon skins, which are now being advertised in the mainstream as a healthy snack. There are many recipes using fish offal that offer a slight nudge toward eating nose to fin.

Scientists and fishermen are still looking for creative and beneficial ways to use the massive amount of fish waste created every year. But we can help too. How? Brainstorm. What way could I practically use fish oil? Where can we decrease the exploitation of fish? Bounce ideas off a friend. Do not shy away from sharing your thoughts. Maybe your next idea could be the one the world needs.^[10]