There Are “Flying Flies” in Our Eyes and No... We Aren’t Kidding

Our body is this amazing machine designed to perform the most intricate functions: it can regenerate itself, go to extreme lengths to keep us safe, and even create life. It’s no wonder that we are constantly discovering new facts that leave us awestruck.

At Bright Side, we enjoy learning about interesting things that we have never heard of before and we also want you to show off your knowledge about these amazing facts to your friends and family.

1. Your strongest muscle can’t be trained at the gym.

If you take into account weight, then the strongest muscle is the masseter. It works alongside the other muscles in the jaw to close the teeth with a force of about 55 pounds on the incisors and 200 pounds on the molars.

2. The female body has the largest cells, while the male has the smallest

The largest cell in the female body is the egg cell, also known as ovum, and it’s so large it can be seen without the need of a microscope. On the other hand, sperm cells are the smallest in the male body. This just proves that size doesn’t matter since both play a vital role in the reproduction process.

3. You can get dandruff around your nose.

Seborrheic dermatitis is a skin condition that appears as red, flaky, itchy skin on the scalp and other oily areas of the body such as the face, sides of the nose, eyebrows, ears, eyelids, and chest. The good news is that it’s not contagious and it doesn’t cause any serious harm to the body.

4. Over the course of 10 years, your body will have regenerated an entirely new skeleton.

Remodeling is a process that implies removing old pieces of bones and replacing them with new tissue, and it does so about every 10 years.

5. Looking to change the color of your eyes? Just get really angry.

When you go through a turmoil of emotions, the body releases a hormone that changes the size of the pupils, and by doing so the pigments in the iris—the part of the eye that carries the color—change. That’s why your eyes might seem darker—and thus more threatening—when you get angry.

6. Your body produces enough saliva per day to fill a carton of milk.

Though this is not something you lay awake at night thinking about, but your body produces about 0.5 and 1.5 liters of saliva per day in normal conditions. This is actually important since saliva plays a vital role in fighting off oral infections and maintaining the overall health of the mouth.

7. The enamel of your teeth is as strong as that of a shark.

It is the hardest substance in your body and it works as a protective barrier against harmful bacteria and acids that can attack the teeth. It appears to be that we have something in common with the scariest predators in the ocean: shark and human teeth are equally strong. Unfortunately, they are not equally sharp.

8. The brain shrinks during pregnancy.

Researchers have found that pregnancy shrinks the gray matter in the brain. But, chill, this is only temporary and it’s actually not a bad thing. Losing volume can actually represent the fine-tuning of connections, which can make for more efficient brain circuits.

9. Stomach acid can dissolve almost anything, except for plastic.

With a pH level of 1, gastric acid is one of the most acidic substances you can find. The strange fact is that, even though it can dissolve metal (please don’t put it to test), these enzymes cannot dissolve plastic.

10. The little hairs in your nose continue moving after you die. Yikes!

They’re called nasal cilia and, obnoxious as they may be, they serve more than one purpose. They act as a barrier to prevent pathogens from entering the body. What’s interesting is that these tiny hairs are also used to detect the time of death since they can continue moving up to 20 hours after death.

11. The longest hiccup attack was triggered by a hog.

Charles Osborne made it to the Guinness World Records for having “the longest attack of hiccups.” The never-ending episode was triggered when a hog fell on top of him while he was trying to weigh it. Though he never found a cure, he still led a relatively normal life.

12. You actually have more than 5 senses and, no, we’re not talking about a sixth sense that lets us see dead people.

Humans have 5 basic senses: touch, sight, hearing, smell, and taste. But there are actually more. The thing is, we’re not that aware of them. There’s the proprioception that’s connected to self-movement and body position. Then the thermoception, which is the sensation and perception of temperature. We also have nociception, chronoception, and equilibrioception.

13. A great part of what you vacuum when cleaning is your own skin.

It turns out that all the dust you’ve been cleaning in your house is not grime but actual dead skin. From the billions of skin cells that we have — 30,000 and 40,000 of them fall off every hour. Let’s be grateful they’re invisible to the naked eye.

14. Humans are the only animals with chins.

You probably started running through a list of animals in your head, including gorillas and chimpanzees... But no, we’re the only ones that have them. It’s definitely a chin-stroking fact, isn’t it?

15. You have enough iron in your body to make a nail.

Humans have about 4 gr of iron in their bodies, with most of it coming from red blood cells. If you concentrated all the iron in your body, it’s believed it would contain a similar quantity to that of a nail.

16. There are “flying flies” in your eyes.

Muscae volitantes, Latin for "flying flies’’ are tiny floaters that appear to be swimming in your field of vision. These tiny objects—made from bits of tissue, red blood cells, or clumps of protein—cast shadows on the retina and that’s why they are more noticeable when looking at a uniform bright surface, like a blank wall, snow, or a clear sky. They’re quite common and most people don’t even notice them since the brain adapts to them.

Do you also see “flying flies” when staring at your computer screen? Which fact blew your mind?