0
The number of kneecaps a baby has.
They don’t get them until the child reaches two (at the earliest).
0.01
Parasites count for 0.01% of our body weight.
0.02
When you stub your toe, your brain registers pain in 0.02 of a second.
0.05
The breadth of a typical hair in centimetres.
0.6
The average person is 0.6 of a centimetre taller at night.
1
The number of minutes it takes for blood to travel through the whole human body.
The number of primates that don’t have pigment in the palms of their hands (humans).
1.13
The mouth produces 1.13 litres of saliva a day.
1.36
The weight in kilograms of the human brain – most of it water.
2
The amount in metres of nose hair an average person grows.
2
Your stomach has to produce a new layer of mucus every two weeks otherwise it will digest itself.
2.8
The amount of sweat in litres an average man on an average day excretes.
3
The amniotic fluid that surrounds a baby in the womb is replaced completely every three hours.
3
The weight, in grams, that one human hair can support.
The number of colour receptors we have in our eyes (goldfish have four, and mantis shrimp have ten).
3
The number of layers of human skin.
4
The approximate weight in kilograms of ashes of the average cremated person.
4
Fingernails grow four times faster than toenails.
4
The number of senses stronger than taste, the weakest of the five senses.
5
The number of months the average eyelash lasts.
6
Until babies are six months old, they can breathe and swallow at the same time.
6.8
The number of kilograms of hydrogen in the average human body.
7
The weight in grams of an eyeball.
7
The human body grows the equivalent of a new skeleton every seven years.
The percentage of the body’s weight that consists of blood.
8
The number of muscles in the tongue.
9
The number of metres the human heart has enough pumping pressure to squirt blood.
9
The length in metres of the digestive tract.
10
The percentage by which the male human brain is heavier than the female brain (men also have on average ten per cent more red blood cells than women).
10
The number of human body parts that are only three letters long: eye, ear, leg, arm, jaw, gum, toe, lip, hip and rib.
12
The number of days it takes for your body to generate a whole new set of taste buds.
12.7
The length in centimetres the average beard grows in a year.
15
The number of watts of electricity it would take to stop the heart.
The loss of 15% of the body’s water can be fatal.
16
The percentage of our bodyweight accounted for by our skin.
17
The number of hip muscles that work together in complex ways to produce a wide range of movement.
17
The number of muscles we use to smile.
17
The length in centimetres of the sternum.
18.5
The length in centimetres of the innominate (the bone linking the hip and the pelvis).
20
The percentage of all the body’s available oxygen used by the kidneys.
20
The number of watts of power that the brain runs on (about enough to power a very dim light-bulb).
20
The number of seconds it takes for a red blood cell to circle the whole body.
25
If all 600 muscles in your body pulled in one direction, you could lift 25 tons.
The percentage of a newborn baby’s weight accounted for by its head.
25
The number of muscles we use to swallow.
29
The number of bones in the human skull.
30
The length in metres of all the eyelashes shed by a human in their life.
36.46
The length in centimetres of the average humerus.
40
The percentage by which men sweat more than women.
40
The number of kilograms of dead skin we shed in a lifetime.
40.5
The length in centimetres of the average fibula.
43
The number of muscles we use to frown.
43.03
The length in centimetres of the average tibia.
46
Humans have 46 chromosomes (peas have 14 and crayfish have 200).
The number of miles of nerves in the adult human body.
48
If your body’s natural defences failed, the bacteria in your gut would consume you within 48 hours.
48
The average length, in centimetres, of the femur in an adult male.
54
The number of muscles we use every time we step forward.
56
The number of days it takes for a plucked hair to reappear.
65
The number of hairs shed by the average person each day.
72
The number of different muscles it takes to produce human speech.
98
The percentage of the atoms in our bodies that are replaced annually.
100
How fast a human sneeze travels in miles per hour.
121
The number of litres of tears an individual sheds in a lifetime.
The speed, in metres per second, at which pain travels through our bodies.
200
The angle in degrees of the average person’s field of vision.
206
The number of bones in a human adult. At birth, an infant has 350 bones. As the child grows, many bones fuse with other bones.
240
The number of gallons of air we breathe every hour.
250
The number of sweat glands in one square centimetre of human skin.
300
The number of muscles the human body uses to balance itself while standing still.
450
The number of hairs in an average eyebrow.
500
The number of genes that women have more of than men, and because of this are protected from things like colour blindness and haemophilia.
500
Our kidneys filter about 500 gallons of blood each day.
The average human eye can distinguish about 500 different shades of grey.
540
The number of calories the average adult loses with every litre of sweat.
590
The number of miles of hair the average human will grow in a lifetime.
639
The number of muscles in the human body.
900
The human body contains enough carbon to make 900 pencils.
2,200
The human body contains enough phosphorous to make 2,200 match heads.
9,000
Of the ten thousand taste buds in the average human mouth, nine thousand are on the tongue (the other thousand are on the palate or in the cheeks).
10,000
Humans can distinguish up to 10,000 different smells.
The number of miles of blood vessels in the human body.
100,000
The number of hairs on the average person’s head.
172,000
The skin of the armpits can harbour up to 172,000 bacteria per square centimetre. Drier areas have only about 4,000 bacteria per square centimetre.
250,000
The number of sweat glands in your feet (and they sweat as much as 0.2 litres of moisture per day).
250,000
The number of round trips of the body that red blood cells make before returning to the bone marrow, where they were born, to die.
700,000
The number of your own skin flakes you inhale every day.
2,000,000
The number of sweat glands in the average human body.
2,000,000
Our eyes are made up of more than two million working parts.
5,000,000
The number of red blood cells in a tiny droplet of blood.
15,000,000
The number of blood cells produced and destroyed in the human body every second.
42,000,000
The number of times the average person’s heart beats a year.
86,000,000
The number of bits of information per day that the human brain is capable of recording.
100,000,000
The number of light-sensitive cells in the retina.
100,000,000,000
The number of nerve cells in the human brain.