Most of us have some birthmarks or the other anywhere on the surface of our body. Let's see what they are? We have blood vessels distributed throughout our body. At some spots very small blood vessels called capillaries seem to cluster together, a…
Continue ReadingYes they do. The most obvious use is, of course, to identify criminals. But that is a very recent development. Fingerprints have been used for identification purpose only since 1901. Even otherwise, fingerprints do serve a purpose in the lives, e…
Continue ReadingAbout half a liter of water is lost through the skin every day. We do not become aware of this and this is called insensible perspiration. This sweating does not originate in the sweat glands, but results from diffusion through the skin layers. …
Continue ReadingThe reason we sweat is to control our body heat. When the body gets overheated, the skin produces sweat. It evaporates using up the heat of the body, thus bringing the body heat down. Sweating is caused by millions of minute glands that are scattere…
Continue ReadingThe skin is composed of two layers. The upper layer is the epidermis. This layer is made of dead, flattened cells, which are continually wearing off as we move around. The bottom of the epidermis is made of live cells that die and replace those that we…
Continue ReadingTickling is something that is not properly understood by scientists. Some of them say that tickling excites certain small, fine nerve endings just beneath the surface of the skin. Especially on the palms and soles. These nerve cells are arranged in cluster…
Continue ReadingSkin gets its colour from melanocytes. Melanocytes are cells which produce the brown colour, melanin. These cells are produced in the lower level of the epidermis. Everybody has the same number of melanin cells. What causes a difference in skin colour is t…
Continue ReadingYou may not believe it, but the largest organ in our body is the skin. The total weight of an adult's skin is about 3 kilograms. The average adult human body covered with about 1.7 square meters of skin. Skin, and the hair that grows on it, covers …
Continue ReadingMuscle tissue is made of cells whose cytoplasm can contract. When the muscles contracts, it become short, and thereby pulls on the bone in which it is inserted. When you want to show someone how strong you are and you "make a muscle" by contracti…
Continue ReadingA typical muscle is thick in the middle and tapers gradually towards the ends. It is the ends of a muscle that are attached to bones. One end of a muscle is anchored to a bone that the muscle cannot move. This attachment is called the origin of the muscle.…
Continue ReadingOne way to do more work with less power is to use levers. A lever is a device that increases work power or range of motion. The joints are the levers in the human body. They act as levers that increase the power of muscle or increase the distance through w…
Continue ReadingThe muscles that move the skeleton are ones that we can move at will. They are called voluntary muscles. Among them are the ones that move the eyes, tongue, soft plate and the upper part of the gullet. They are muscles in the body that we cannot move at…
Continue ReadingYes, Along with other inherited factors. Take a look at a row of people sitting down. If they are all adults of the same sex, they all look about the same height. But once they stand up, you can clearly see that some people are a few inches taller than oth…
Continue ReadingIt is joints that make our bodies flexible. Joints are places where the bones of the skeleton fit together. The sockets of the joints are linked with a fluid that makes movement easy in most parts of the body. Elbows and knees are examples of movable joint…
Continue ReadingThe bones at movable joints are held together by thick cords of tough, stringy tissue called ligaments. To aid movement, at least one of the two adjoining bones has a small hollow that contains a lubricating fluid. This fluid helps the bones move smoothly …
Continue ReadingThe skull has only one movable joint, and it is the lower jaw. Its movement allows us to open and close our mouths and to chew our food.
Continue ReadingHolding these bones together is a kind of very tough, springy tissues, called cartilage. Cartilage also joins together the bones of the spinal column. The springy nature of cartilage makes it a good shock absorber. If the lower parts of the spine receive a…
Continue ReadingAn infant number may have as many as 350 bones, but as the child grown older, many of these bones grow together to form single bones. A normal adult has 206 bones. Some adults may have a bone or two more, because the bones they had infacts didnot gro…
Continue ReadingYes, many of its bones are still in the forms of cartilage, a flexible, gristly tissue, such as that which makes up your nose, ear, and part of your ribs. Everybody's bony framework (that is the skeleton) starts out as cartilage and hardens gradu…
Continue ReadingEvery bone in the body except one meets with an other bone. The one bone that does not meet another bone the U - shaped thyroid bone in the throat. The meeting places of the bones are called joints. There are two kinds of joints : those about which th…
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