The Wonder of You

Authour: Sagesse Bezalel

Do you know that the human body is a masterpiece of evolution, a complex and fascinating system that never ceases to amaze? First off, your brain, the ultimate supercomputer, is home to approximately 86 billion neurons. These tiny cells communicate with each other through synapses, creating a vast network that controls everything you do, think, and feel. Amazingly, the number of possible neural connections in your brain exceeds the number of stars in the Milky Way galaxy.

Your brain again, an endless storage, has a capacity for memory storage that is virtually limitless. It’s estimated that the human brain can hold around 2.5 petabytes of data, which is equivalent to about 3 million hours of TV shows. If you started watching them today, you would continue for over 300 years without ever running out of new material.

Let’s all strive to task our brains more critically and creatively; capacity dey! Don’t underutilize your brain. We all can help make Nigeria great again!

We have next up the heart, I mean, your heart; a beating lifeline. Beats around 100,000 times a day, pumping about 2,000 gallons of blood through your body. Over an average lifetime, this amounts to more than 2.5 billion heartbeats. Despite its relentless workload, the heart continues to function tirelessly, illustrating the resilience and efficiency of the human body. Also, as an electrical wonder, the heart generates its electrical impulses, which is why it can continue to beat even when separated from the body, as long as it has an adequate supply of oxygen. This self-regulating electrical system ensures that the heart maintains a consistent rhythm, critical for sustaining life. We sure give our hearts way too much credit for all the emotional drama while we underestimate the actual work the heart does!

More randomly, we have unique prints, such as your fingerprints which are peculiar to you, even if you’re an identical twin. The intricate patterns are formed in the womb and remain unchanged throughout your life. This makes fingerprints an excellent tool for personal identification and security. There is also every person’s tongue print where the distinct arrangement of ridges and bumps on the tongue can serve as a means of personal identification, although it’s not commonly used for this purpose. The human tongue, the multitasking muscle, is covered with about 10,000 taste buds, each containing 50 to 100 receptor cells. These receptors are known to detect five primary tastes: sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and umami.

Then there’s the human bones which are incredibly strong yet lightweight, the body’s framework. Ounce for ounce, bone is stronger than steel. A cubic inch of bone can bear a load of 19,000 pounds which is about the weight of five standard pickup trucks. Despite their strength, bones are composed of a lightweight matrix of mineralized tissue, making them both durable and efficient. Bones are one of the few tissues in the body that can regenerate completely without scarring. When a bone breaks, the body forms new bone cells to repair the fracture, eventually restoring the bone to its original strength and shape.

That’s some self-healing mystery!

Lastly and importantly, the surface area of your lungs is roughly the same size as a tennis court, thanks to the millions of tiny air sacs called alveoli. This vast surface area is crucial for efficiently exchanging oxygen and carbon dioxide, which sustains your body’s cellular functions. On average breath-taking capacity, a person takes about 20,000 breaths a day. During intense exercise, the lungs can move up to 100 litres of air per minute, demonstrating their remarkable capacity to meet the body’s oxygen demands.

On this note, I want to specially thank God for God!

The human body is a marvel of biological engineering, full of astonishing facts that highlight its complexity and resilience. So next time you take a breath, move a finger, or simply look around, remember the extraordinary capabilities hidden within your own body. What a wonder you are!

You are a wonder, don’t give in. Go create more wonders.