Incredible possibilities of the human body

Amazing Human Capabilities

Although it is said that a person is just a fragile vessel, the human body can cope with incredible loads. But be careful, some of the following is definitely not worth repeating!

  • In 2011, Swiss Peter Kolat held his breath underwater for 21 minutes and 33 seconds.
  • In 1977, Maureen Weston, a British woman, managed to stay awake for 18 days and 17 hours.
  • The human body can withstand 150°C for a short time in dry air.
  • 170 km / h reaches the speed of air when sneezing.
  • An untrained person recognizes about 4,000 smells, a trained person – up to 10,000.
  • 1350 kg is the load that the tibia can withstand.

The coldest, the hungriest, the most volatile

  • The unwitting record holder with the lowest recorded body temperature to survive hypothermia is Sweden’s Anna Johansson Bogenholm – in 1999, she was trapped in an air pocket in water under ice for 80 minutes. Her body temperature dropped to 13.7 degrees C.
  • A healthy person with sufficient fluid intake can live without food for about 50 days. In a dry and warm place, it can be without water for 7-10 days. The American Charles Robert McNabb, who went on a hunger strike for 123 days in prison in 2004, lasted the longest without food. He drank only water and sometimes a little coffee.
  • Austrian Felix Baumgartner exceeded the speed of sound in free fall in 2012. He reached a speed of over 1357.64 km/h 40 seconds after jumping from a balloon at an altitude of 39 km.
  • Briton Gary Connery in a special jumpsuit jumped without a parachute from a height of about 730 meters and without injury fell into a pile of prepared boxes. During the flight, he accelerated to almost 130 km / h.
Amazing Human Capabilities

Oldest, youngest, most prolific

  • It is believed that Christian Jacobsen Drakenberg, who was born in 1626 and died at 146, reached the greatest age.
  • Jeanne Louise Calment (1875-1997) is considered to be the oldest woman in the world. She lived 122 years and 164 days.
  • The oldest mother, Indian Omkari Panwar, was 70 years old when she gave birth to twins by artificial insemination in 2008.
  • The eldest father, Indian Ramajit Raghav, was 96 years old when his 52-year-old wife gave birth to a boy.
  • The youngest mother, Peruvian Lina Medina, was 5 years, 7 months and 21 days old when she gave birth to a healthy boy in May 1939. The father was probably her own father.
  • Valentina Vasilyeva, the wife of a Russian peasant, gave birth to 69 children in the years 1725-1765 (16 times she gave birth to twins, 7 times to triplets and 4 times to quadruplets).
  • The largest documented number of children born at one birth – 10 (1946, Brazil).
  • American Nadia Suleman gave birth to 8 children in 2009 through artificial insemination. The “octomamy” (mother of eight children) already had six kids at home.
  • Australian Allan Stewart became the oldest graduate student in the world. At the age of 97, he received his fourth university degree, this time an M.Sc.

Most Valuable Liquid

  • With a loss of 40-50% of blood, the heart begins to fail. Without problems, one sixth of the blood supply can be lost.
  • The recorded rate of blood loss in human survival is 75%.
  • Australian James Harrison provided a record 1,000 plasma samples from 1954-2011.
  • In 1982, doctors in California measured 15 ppm of alcohol in the blood of one woman. About a third of this amount is considered a lethal dose.

The highest and heaviest

  • Sultan Kesen (31 years old), Turk, now the tallest man in the world – 251 cm. At the same time, he is the owner of the title “the man with the biggest arms and the biggest legs.”
  • The tallest man in the world in history was the American Robert Wadlow (1918-1940), whose height was 272 cm.
  • The historically tallest woman in the world of all time was Zheng Jin-Lin, a Chinese woman with a height of 248 cm. She died at the age of 17 in 1982.
  • American John Minnoch weighed 634 kg. He died in 1983 at the age of 42.
  • American Carol Yager weighed 544 kg on the day of her death (1994). Her record weight was allegedly 727 kg.