Beauty with nip

  Since the dawn of humanity, an estimated 100.8 billion people have lived and died, a number that increases by about 0.8% of the world's population each year. What happens to all of those people's bodies after they die and will the planet eventually run out of burial space? When a person's heart stops beating, the body passes through several stages it begins decomposing. Within minutes after death,  the blood begins settling in the lower most parts of the body. Usually eight to twelve hours later, the skin in those areas is discolored by livor mortis, or post moterm stain. And while at the moment of death the body's muscles relax completely in a condition called primary flaccidity, they stiffen about two six hours later in what's known as rigor mortis. This suffering spreads through the muscles, and its speed can be affected by age, gender and the surrounding environment. The body also changes temperature, usually cooling off to match its environment. Next comes de...

  In 1995, the British Medical Journal published an astonishing report about a 29 year old builder. He accidentally jumped onto a 15 centimeter nail, which pierced straight through his steel toed boot. He was in such agonizing pain that even the smallest movement was unbearable. But when the doctors took off his boot, they faced a surprising sight: the nail had never touched his foot at all. For hundreds of years, scientists thought that pain was a direct response to damage. By that logic, the more severe an injury is the more pain it should cause. But as we have learned more about the science of pain, we have discovered that pain and tissue damage dont always go hand in hand, even when the body's threat signaling mechanisms are fully functioning. We are capable of experiencing severe pain out of proportion to an actual injury, and even pain without any injury, like the builder, or the well documented cases of male partners of pregnant women experiencing pain during the pregnancy o...

  In 1905, psychogists Alfred Binet and Theodore Simon designed a test for children who were struggling in school in France. Designed to determine which children required individualized attention, their method formed the basis of the IQ test. Beginning in the late 19th century, researchers hypothesized that cognitive abilities like verbal reasoning, working memory, and visual spatial skills reflected an underlying general intelligence or g factor. Simon and Binet designed a battery of tests to measure each of these abilities and combine the results into a single score. Questions were adjusted for each age group, and a child's score reflected how they performed relative to others their age. Dividing someone's score by their age and multiplying the result by 100 yielded the intelligence qutient, or IQ. Today a score of 100 represents the average of a sample population, with 68% of the population scoring within 15 points of 100. Simon and Binet thought the skills their test assess...

  In 1997,  a French woman named Jeanne Calment passed away after 122 years and 164 days on this earth, making her the oldest known person in history. Her age was so astounding that a millionaire pledged $1 million to anyone who could break her record. But in reality, living to this age or beyond is a feat that very few, maybe even no humans, are likely to accomplish. Human bodies just are not built for extreme aging. Our capacity is set at about 90 years. But what does aging really mean and how does it counteract the body's efforts to stay alive? We know intuitively what it means to age. For some it means growing up, while for others, its growing old. Yet finding a strict scientific definition of aging is a challenge. What we can say is that aging occurs when intrinsic processes and interactions with the environment, like sunlight, and toxins in the air, water, and our diets cause changes in the structure and function of the body's molecules and cells. Those changes in turn d...

  Why does your mouth feel like its on fire when you eat a spicy pepper? And how do you soothe the burn? Why does wasabi make your eyes water? And how spicy is the spiciest spice?  Lets back up a bit. First, what is spiciness?  Even though we often say that something tastes spicy, its not actually a taste, like sweet or salty or sour. Instead, whats really happening is that certain compounds in spicy foods activate the type of sensory neurons called polymodal nociceptors. You have these all over your body, including your mouth and nose, and they are the same receptors that are activated by extreme heat. So when you eat a chili pepper, your mouth feels like its burning because your brain actually thinks its burning. The opposite happens when you eat something  with menthol in it. The cool, minty compound is activating your cold receptors. When these heat sensitive receptors are activated, your body thinks its in contact with a dangerous heat source and reacts accordin...

  Your hands, up close, are anything but smooth. With peaks and valleys, folds and rifts, there are plenty of hiding places for a virus to stick. If you then touch your face, the virus can infect you.  But there are two extraordinary simple ways you can keep that from happening: soap and water, and hand sanitizer. So which is better?  The corona virus that causes COVID-19 is one of many viruses whise protective outer surface is made of a lipid bilayer. These lipids are pin shaped molecules whose heads are attracted to water, and tails are repulsed by it. So in water rich environments, lipids naturally form a shell like this, with the heads outside and the tails inside.  Their shared reaction to water makes the lipids stick loosely together this is called the hydrophobic effect. This outer structure helps the molecular machinery of the virus break through cellular membranes and hijack our cells. But it has thousands upon thousands of weak points where the right molecu...

  Has anyone ever told you, "stand up straight!" Or scolded you for slouching at a family dinner? Comments like that might be annoying, but they are not wrong. Your posture way you hold your body when you are sitting or standing, is the foundation for every movement your body makes, and can determine how well your body adapts to the stresses on it. These stresses can be things like carrying weight, or sitting in an awkward position. And the big one we all experience all day every day: gravity. If your posture is not optimal, your muscles have to work harder to keep you upright and balanced. Some muscles will become tight and inflexible. Others will be inhibited. Over time, these dysfunctional adaptations  impair your body's ability to deal with the forces on it. Poor posture inflicts extra wear and tear on your joints and ligaments, increases the likelihood of accidents, and makes some organs, like your lungs, legs efficient. Researches have linked poor posture to scolios...

  What keeps you up at night? Pondering deep questions? Excitement about a big trip? Or is it stress about unfinished work, an upcoming test, or a dreaded family gathering? For many people, this stress is temporary,  as its cause is quickly resolved. But what if the very thing you awake was stress about losing sleep? This seemingly unsolvable loop is at the heart of insomnia, the world's most common sleep disorder. Almost anything can cause the occasional restless night a snoring partner, physical pain, or emotional distress. And extreme sleep deprivation like jetlag can throw off your biological clock, wreaking havoc on your sleep shedule. But in most cases, sleep deprivation is short term. Eventually, exhaustion catches up with all of us. However, some long term conditions like respiratory disorders, gastrointestinal problems, and many others can overpower fatigue. And as sleepless nights pile up, the bedroom can start to carry associations of restless nights wracked with an...

  Ciggarettes are not good for us. Thats hardly news we have known about the dangers of smoking for decades. But how exactly do ciggarettes harm us?  Lets look at what happens as their ingredients  make their way through our bodies, and how we benefit physically when we finally give up smoking. With each inhalation, smoke brings its more than 5000 chemical substances into contact with the body's tissues. From the start, tar, a black, resinous material begins to coat the teeth and gums, damaging tooth enamel, and eventually causing decay. Over time, smoke also damages nerve endings in the nose, causing loss of smell. Inside the airways and lungs, smoke increases the likelihood of infections, as well as chronic diseases like bronchitis and emphysema. It does this by damaging the cilia, tiny hairlike structures whose job it is to keep the airways clean. It then fills the alveoli, tiny air sacs that enable the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide between the lungs and blood....

  The earliest known pregnancy test dates back to 1350 BC in ancient Egypt. According to the Egyptians, all you have to do is urinate on wheat and barley seeds, and wait. If either sprouts, congratulations, you are pregnant!  And if wheat sprouts faster, its a girl, but if barley, its a boy. In 1963, a small study reprodyced this test and found that it predicted pregnancy with a respectable 70% accuracy, though it couldnt reliably tell the sex of the baby. Scientists hypothesized that the test worked because pregnant women's urine contains more estrogen, which can promote seed growth. Now its easy to take this ancient method for granted because modern pregnancy tests give highly accurate results within minutes. So how do they work? Over the counter pregnancy tests are all designed to detect one thing: a hormone called HCG. HCG is produced in the earliest stages of pregnancy and starts a game of telephone that tells the body not to shed the inner lining of the uterus that month...

  The biggest kidney stone on record weighed more than a kilogram and was 17 centimeters in diameter. The patient didnt actually swallow a stone the size of a coconut. Kidney stones form inside the body, but unfortunately they are extremely painful to get out. A kidney stone is a hard mass of crystals that can form in the kidneys, ureters, bladder or urethra. Urine contains compounds that consists of calcium, sodium, potassium, oxalate, uric acid and phosphate. If the levels of these particles get too high, or if urine becomes too acidic or basic the particles can clump together and crystallize. Unless the problem is addressed, the crystals will gradually grow over a few weeks, months or even years, forming a deteectable stone. Calcium oxalate is the most common type of crystal to form this way, and accounts for about 80% of kidney stones. Less common kidney stones are made of calcium phosphate, or uric acid. A slightly different type of stone made of the minerals magnesium ammoniu...

  Over the course of our lifetimes, our bodies undergo a series of extraordinary metamorphoses: we  grow, experience puberty, and many of us reproduce. Behind the scenes, the endocrine system works constantly to orchestrate these changes. Alongside growth and sexual maturity, this system regulates everything from your sleep to the rhythm of your beating heart, exerting its influence over each and every one of your cells. The endocrine system relies on interactions between three features to do its job: glands, hormones and trillions of cell receptors.  Firstly, there are several hormone producing glands: three in your body and seven in the rest of your body. Each is surrounded by a network of blood vessels, from which they extract ingredients to manufacture dozens of hormones. Those hormones are then pumped out in tiny amounts, usually into the blobloodstream. From there, each hormone needs to locate a set of target cells in order to bring about specific change. To find it...

  When faced with a big challenge where potential failure seems to lurk every corner, maybe you have heard this advice before: "Be more confident." And most likely, this is what you think when you hear it: "if only it were that simple." But what is confidence? Take the belief that you are valuable, worthwhile, and capable, also known as self esteem, add in the optimism that comes when you are certain of your abilities, and then empowered by these, act courageously to face a challenge head- on.  This is confidence. It turns thoughts into action. So where does confidence even come from? There are several factors that impact confidence. One:  what you are born with, such as your genes, which will impact things like the balance of neurochemicals in your brain. Two: how you are treated. This includes the social pressures of your environment. Three: the part you have control over, the choices you make, the risks you take, and how you think about and respond to challenges ...

  One of the most common misconceptions about eating disorders are that they only affect women according to a survey conducted by self magazine and the University of North Carolina, 65  of American women between the ages of 25 and 45 have reported taking part in unhealthy eating behaviors. However, roughly 1 in 3 men are also affected by this deadly psychological disorder. At the age of twelve, I experienced an eating disorder that made me never look at food the same way. I was always nervous child but I had a heavy breakdown when I couldnt keep up with all the changes trown my way. I started middle school, and had trouble making new friends. That same year, my farther also left to start a new career in another country. Everything spiraled out of control and soon my body began to reject food the way it rejected the harsh reality. Luckily, Im a survivor of my eating disorder. I learned not to let it define me, and neither should you if you are currently going through a similar ...

  Which of these has the least carbohydrates? Roll of bread? Bowl of rice? Or soda? Its a trick question. Although they may differ in fats, vitamins and other nutritional content, when it comes to carbs, they are pretty much the same. So what exactly does that mean for your diet? First of all carbohydrate is the nutritional category for sugars and molecule that your body breaks down to make sugars. Carbohydrates can be simple or complex depending on their structure. This is a simple sugar, or monosaccharide. Glucose, fructose, and galactose are all simple sugars. Link two of them together, and you have got a disaccharide, lactose, maltose or sucrose. Complex carbohydrates, on the other hand, have three or more simple sugars strung together. Complex carbohydrates with three to ten linked sugars are oligosaccharides. Those with more than ten are polysaccharides. During digestion, your body breaks down those complex carbohydrates  into their monosaccharide building blocks, which ...

  Depression is the leading cause of disability in the world. In the United status, close to 10% of adults struggle with depression. But because its a mental illness, it can be a lot harder to understand than, say, high cholesterol. One major source of confusion is the difference between having depression and just feeling depressed. Almost everyone feels down from time to time. Getting a bad grade, losing a job, having an argument, even a rainy day can bring on feelings of sadness. Sometimes theres no trigger at all. It just pops up out of the blue. Then circumstances change, and those sad feelings disappear. Clinical depression is different. Its a medical disorder, and it wont go away just because you want it to. It lingers for at least two consecutive weeks, and significantly interferes with one's ability to work, play or love. Depression can have a lot of different symptoms:  a low mood, loss of interest in things you'd normally enjoy, changes in appetite, feeling worthless...