(1) What is the maximum resolution of the eye?
— The human eye’s range of vision is about 576 megapixels but only 7 megapixels are highly focused whilst the rest is blurred out.
(2) What is the smallest thing the eye can see?
— Experts believe the smallest objects an unaided naked eye can see are about as small as 0.1mm.
(3) What’s the farthest the eye can see?
— Depending on how many light particles or photons a distant object emits and gets detected by our eye, the farthest object visible to the naked eye is the Andromeda galaxy, located 2.6 million light years from Earth. This galaxy contains about 1 trillion stars that collectively emit a few 1000 photos per square centimetre of Earth every second on a dark night.
(4) How far can we move our eyes laterally?
— Your voluntary eye movements to track objects of interest like Smooth Pursuit, Vergence shifts and Saccades varies depending on your extraocular muscles. It’s known that the outer boundaries of our peripheral vision for a single are:
i. 60 degrees superior (upwards)
ii. 60 degrees nasal (towards the nose)
iii. 70-75 degrees inferior (downwards)
iv. 100-110 degrees temporal (away from the nose and towards the temple)
— The combined field of vision for both eyes is 130-135 degrees vertical and 200-220 degrees horizontal.
(5) What’s the fastest object the human eye can see?
When the human eyes see an object, it takes about 0.1 second for the brain to process that information. Your brain doesn’t think the object is in a position where the eye tells the brain it is. The object is shifted forward in the direction that it’s moving, so we are predicting where objects would be going. This means your brain perceives objects to be farther along in their trajectory than what a person actually sees. A fundamental problem arises because your brain doesn’t work in real-time. By the time that information from the eye is received and processed by the brain and then sent back to the eye, that information is already out of date by the time it gets to the visual cortex, about 0.2 seconds in the past.
There are 2 types of eye movements that are used to track moving objects:
a) Smooth Pursuit
= Slow eye movements that stabilise the projection of the moving target into the Fovea. The upper limit of velocity for these is about 80 - 100 degrees / second. After the target exceeds this velocity, your eye will switch to using ‘catch up saccades’.
b) Saccadic Movements
= A quick, simultaneous movement of both eyes between 2 or phases of fixation in the same direction. In other words, they are fast jumps from 1 eye position to another whereas in smooth pursuit movements, eyes move smoothly instead of in jumps. The upper limit of velocity of a saccade is about 900 degrees / second. This means the eye could be tracking an object at 78.525 m/s only for saccadic movements.
(6) How much force can our bodies resist?
A cubic inch of bone can bear a load of 8,626kg (19,000 lbs) or more which is roughly the weight of 5 pickup trucks ramming at you, making it about 4 times as strong as concrete. However whether or not human bone can withstand immense loads depends on how quickly that force is exerted. Theoretically your bones will shatter above 200 x 10^6 Pascals of compression, or roughly 50 x 10^3 Newtons of Force.
(7) How much electricity can our bodies resist?
The amount of electricity your body can take depends on the current and the length of time the current passes through your body. Under dry conditions, our bodies have a resistance as high as 100,000 Ohms. However, when skin is wet or scarred, the resistance will decrease to 1000 Ohms. If you increase the voltage of electricity your body has to take, this is decrease the resistance even further to about 500 Ohms. The amount of voltage your body can take depends on your body’s resistance using the formula V = IR. What is for certain if that current above 50mA is enough to cause painful shock, paralysis, severe muscle contractions and respiratory arrest. Current above 1 Amp will cause severe conditions like ventricular fibrillation, cardiac arrest, severe burns increasing the risk of death.
(8) How much pressure can our bodies resist?
The lowest atmospheric pressure the human body can withstand is around 6% sea level pressure, or 6.18 KiloPascals. Below that pressure then water and blood in your body will start to boil.
The record for the deepest dive is around 330m deep underwater which implies that our bodies can survive pressures up to about 33 atm. The limits are set by the ability to breathe the Helium Oxygen mixture to work at high pressures which eventually becomes “too thick” to breathe.
(9) What are the hottest and coldest temperatures our bodies can resist?
Human skin burns to varying degrees of severity depending on fat content in your skin, amount of muscles present in a particular body part and structural integrity of your skin. You will feel a burning pain when skin temperature rises to 43.8889°C (32°F). 1st degree burns develop at 47.7778°C (118°F). 2nd degree skin burns occur at 55°C (131°F). If skin temperature continue to rise, your pain receptors will overload, decompose and become numb at 60°C (140°F). Ultimately human tissue is destroyed on contact when skin temperature hits 72.2222°C (162°F).
Your normal body temperature hovers between 36.5 - 37°C (97.7 - 98.6°F) thanks to homeostatic mechanisms that control thermoregulation. As the temperature drops your circulatory system will direct blood away from skin and outer extremities such as fingers, toes and nose, and toward its core. This process is called vasoconstriction and it helps limit the amount of heat you lose to the environment. The next response will be intense shivering when your core temperature starts to drop below homeostatic settings. If your body is soaked, you will lose body heat about 25 times faster than when your body is dry. At 35°C (95°F), you will begin to experience “hypothermia”. At 32.7778°C (91°F), you will experience amnesia which involves a temporary loss of memory. At 27.7778°C (82°F), you will become unconscious. If your body temperature falls below 21.1111°C (70°F), you will have profound hypothermia and death can occur. The world record for the lowest body temperature at which an adult is known to survive is measured at 13.7222°C (56.7°F) after being submerged in cold, icy water.
Frostbite is a condition when your skin or tissues freezes after exposure to cold temperatures. If your skin experiences wind chills below -15°C, your skin will start to become damaged. The severity of frostbite is classified by 4 different stages (degrees). For more information about Frostbite, check the link below:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frostbite
(10) How tall can we get?
The world record for the tallest person or man that have ever known to existed belongs to American Robert Wadlow. On the day he died (27 June 1940), aged 22, his height was measured to be 2.72 m (8ft 11.1 inch) tall. If you compare the height of today’s humans to those who lived 150 years ago, we are on average about 10 cm taller.
(11) How fast can we run on bare feet?
Olympic champion sprinter Usain Bolt ran at a top speed of 45.0616 kph (28 mph) in the 100-metre sprint. However, studies claim humans have potential to run as fast as 64.3738 kph (40 mph). The factors that contribute to our running speed are age, the short time duration to apply force to the ground from every step we take while sprinting, intense rhythmic core training and concentration of fast-twitch fibres in skeletal muscles of the legs. However this is not enough to outrun the cheetah, because its top speed of 112.654 kph (70 mph).
(12) How far can we walk on bare feet without stopping?
That depends on the surface we walk on such as rocky, grassy, wet, muddy, icy, soft, sandy, carpet, etc. and how steep the gradient is. It also depends on the climate, your fitness and health, and how hydrated and energetic you are. The average adult about walks about 3.22 - 4.83 km (2 - 3 miles) every day but they can walk about 4.83 - 6.44km (3 - 4) per hour at a comfortable pace. The world record for the longest distance in 24 hours (1 day) was set by Paul Porthomme in 1984, when he walked 140.693 miles (226.58 km), but it’s not known whether he did this without stopping or with a few breaks.
(13) What’s the maximum number of neurons our brain can contain?
The exact number of neurons the human brain can contain is not known yet. The average human brain contains about 86 billion neurons, despite a myth stating that the human brain has the capacity to store 100 billion neurons or more. Between these neurons there are over 1000 trillion connections which shows that memory and brain function is quite complex.
(14) What’s the maximum amount of data our brain can store?
Each neuron in your brain forms about 1000 connections to other neurons, amounting to more than a 1 trillion connections. If each neuron could only help store a single memory, running out of splice would be a problem. The theoretical memory capacity is about 2.5 Petabytes (2.5 x 10^12), which is enough to hold 3,000,000 hours of your favourite show continuously running on your TV for more than 300 years. However, it is quite difficult to calculate exactly what is the brain’s exact storage capacity for memories, and what process can be used to measure the size of a memory. Certain memories involve more details and thus take up more data space, whilst other memories are forgotten due to degradation of mature neurons, thus freeing up space for novel information.
(15) How many different emotions can we have?
— As early as the 4th century BC, philosopher Aristotle identified 14 irreducible emotions: Fear, Confidence, Anger, Friendship, Calm, Enmity, Shame, Shamelessness, Pity, Kindness, Envy, Indignation, Emulation, and Contempt.
— Robert Plutchik’s Wheel of Emotions identifies 8 basic emotions: Joy, Sadness, Trust, Disgust, Fear, Anger, Surprise, and Anticipation. These basic emotions mix and combine to form a variety of feelings. e.g. Anticipation and Joy combine to form Optimism.
— Eckman’s research reveals that the human face is capable of creating more than 7000 different facial expressions. Emotions, and how we experiences and express them, can be both abundantly apparent and remarkably subtle.
(16) What’s the maximum volume of blood our circulatory system can store?
The average adult (70kg) has about 4.5 - 5.5 L of blood in your circulation right now. It accounts for 8 - 10% of your body weight. Whether a human’s circulatory system can hold more blood depends on the elastic nature, diameter and amount of blood vessels you have. Every cubic metre of human blood contains about 5 million Red Blood Cells, or Erythrocytes; 5,000 to 10,000 White Blood Cells, or Leukocytes, and 200,000 to 300,000 Platelets or Thrombocytes. 45% of your blood is composed of a yellowish fluid called plasma. People living in high altitudes, where the air contains less Oxygen, have about 1.9 L more blood than people who live in low altitude regions.
(17) What’s the maximum magnitude of force can we exert?
Every muscle fibre can generate 0.3 x 10^-6 Newtons of Force. This translates to about 100 Newtons (roughly 10kg) for each square centimetre of cross-sectional area of any muscle. The current record for the hardest punch was landed by boxer Max Baer in 1931 in a fight with Ernie Schaff who unfortunately never recovered and eventually died 6 months later.
(18) How high can we jump?
That depends on the planetary surface you are standing on at the moment. Because each planet has a differential gravitational pull towards its core, the maximum height of our jump will vary. Back on Earth, American Charles Austin set a world record in the 1996 Olympics High Jump event by leaping 7 feet 10 inches, equivalent to 2.38759999… m. The highest jump by a woman is about 6 feet 8 inches, equivalent to 2.032 m. However these jumps occur when a person is running towards a target over a bar, meaning there are jumping with momentum. The highest vertical jump (from a standstill) ever goes to NBA basketball player DJ Stephens at 46 inches or 1.1684 m. How high you jump depends on how you train your muscles in your lower limbs and the amount of motor-neuron nerve endings that stimulate contraction of those muscles, whether it be fast-twitch or slow-twitch.
(19) How high can we climb up vertically?
The higher you climb above sea level, the level of oxygen in the atmosphere decreases. The highest known mountain, Mount Everest, in the Himalayas, Nepal is 8.848 km high. Oxygen levels at the summit are 30% of that at sea level and temperatures would be between -19 degrees (in summer) and -36 degrees Celsius (in winter) which is a certain death wish if you were teleported there immediately. You would suffer from hyperventilation, frostbite, severe vasodilation, hypothermia and hypoxia (lack of oxygen) and you would be dead within minutes. The theoretical “vertical limit” (the highest altitude humans can survived unassisted) is understood to be approximately 5.4864 km (18,000 feet). Any altitude above the vertical limit is “Death Zone” territory and you would require plenty of oxygen tanks, a team of experienced hikers, mountaineering equipment and plenty of food to keep your energy levels up.
(20) What’s the least pressure of oxygen we can survive under?
According the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the optimal range of oxygen in the air for humans runs between 19.5 - 23.5%. When oxygen concentrations drop below 19.5% to about 16%, your cells will start to fail receiving the oxygen it needs to function correctly. Mental functions like decision-making become impaired and respiration intermittent at Oxygen concentrations that drop from 10 - 14%; at these levels, your body becomes exhausted. No human would survive with Oxygen levels at 6% or lower.
(21) How much can we eat before we feel full?
Known as the “satiety” hormone the chemical that makes you feel full is Leptin. The more you consume food, the less of the “Hunger” hormone Ghrelin is secreted into your stomach. More Leptin is secreted by Adipose (Fat) cells as components of food are absorbed into your bloodstream. and your Pancreas secretes Insulin to enable nutrients to access your cells. The cells that receive nutrients are chosen by chance and opportunity depending on the number of Insulin receptors being activated and deactivated. Leptin is delivered to the brain to signal us to suppress eating in response to the expansion of the stomach, our sensory responses and the brain’s responses to the food and drink consumed. After the first bite, it can take between 15 - 20 mins for the full range of satiety signals to reach the brain. Therefore it’s not the calories and the foods you eat that control when you feel full, it’s how quickly your body breaks down food and absorbs the nutrients into your bloodstream, and your voluntary decision whether to continue eating or not when feeling full or start eating when hungry. It’s inferred that emotional states and the social situation around an eating occasion you’re in may influence when you become sate.
(22) What’s the maximum amount of energy the human body has?
Using Einstein’s formula E = m*c^2, c = speed of light ~ 299,792,458 m/s. If the average adult human being is about 70kg, it is calculated that it would contain about 89.6 GigaJoules (89,602,639,569 J).
(23) What’s the maximum metabolic rate of the human body?
Your maximum metabolic rate is determined by the maximal rate that the cardiovascular system can deliver Oxygen to Mitochondria in muscle tissue. Factors that influence your metabolic rate include
— Body Size
— Amount of Lean Muscle Tissue you have
— Amount of Body Fat
— Crash dieting, Starving or Fasting
— Age
— Growth / Development
— Gender
— Genetic Disposition
— Hormonal and Nervous Controls
— Environmental Temperature
— Infection or Illness
— Amount of Physical Activity
— Drugs
— Dietary Deficiencies
https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/conditionsandtreatments/metabolism#lp-h-1
(24) How much energy can we expend?
The average human being, at rest (Basal Metabolic Rate, BMR), produces around 100 Watts of power, which is about 2000 Kilocalories of food energy, which is your recommended daily intake. This means our bodies expend about 8.37 x 10^6 Joules every day in the form of infrared radiation.
(25) How much force is required to pull our limbs apart?
Depending on the body structure, the answer can vary. Also it depends on what kind of force is used (gradual or sudden) and in what direction it is applied. Each joint is stabilised by many strong musculoskeletal tendons and collagen ligaments and a lubricated meniscus. It’s estimated somewhere between 7000N and 30,000 N is required to pull out an arm.
(26) What’s the quickest talking rate?
According to the Guinness World Records, Steve Woodmore is the world’s fastest speaker at 637 words per minute. But to answer this question, it depends on the language you speak because some languages are spoken faster than others. For instance, Russian, Spanish, Polish, Vietnamese and Japanese have low information density which are spoken at more than 7.0 syllables per second compared to English and Chinese Mandarin which have high-density information that are spoken at less than 7.0 syllables per second.
(27) How loud can we legibly speak?
So far, the loudest human scream was detected at 129 dB (decibels) performed by Jill Drake. That’s louder than a fired-up jet engine. If your ears detect any sound louder than 140 dB, you could suffer severe hearing damage and possibly become permanently deaf. The volume of sound you make depends on your airflow (lung capacity), vocal cords within your Larynx and articulators such as your Tongue, Palate, Cheeks, Nasal Cavity and Lips.
(28) How many different languages can one person speak fluently?
Unfortunately, there is no Guinness World Record for a person who could speak the most number of languages fluently because there is disagreement on the definition of ‘fluency’. A person who can speak 6 to 7 different languages fluently is a hyperpolyglot or multilingual person. This is no confirmation on who righteously holds the record for the most number of fluently spoken languages. There are claims that German diplomat Emil Krebs (1867-1930) learned the phrase “kiss my ass” in 40 different languages. Another claimed polyglot was Sir John Bowring (1792-1872), the 4th Governor of Hong Kong, who allegedly spoke over 100 different languages. However there seems to be no proof to determine his gifted talent other than peers who knew him personally. It is known that the world’s greatest living polyglot is Alexander Arguelles who has learned and studied over 50 languages. The definition of fluent will always be subjective from competently holding a conversation about various topics to being able to speak confidently with little hesitation or mistakes. You can watch a scene from a Chilean TV chat show featuring Zlad Youssef Fazah who claims to fluently speak 40 different languages. See how it panned out for him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-N_Xl9DyGs
(29) What’s the steepest incline or decline we can trek?
Whether we can conquer a steep incline or decline safely depends on many environmental conditions and the fitness and perseverance of the climber. For instance, is the ground slippery or icy, dry, rocky, sandy, grassy or mossy? This questions the amount of friction on the surface of the incline. The steepest incline in the world is the Johnstown Include Plane in Johnstown, Cambria County in Pennsylvania. It is situated in a valley at the confluence of the Stonycreek and the Little Conemaugh Rivers, to the borough of Westmont on Yoder Hill. This steep incline has a grade of 70.9%. We all know it’s physically impossible to walk upright on a 90 degree angle but with efficient training and the correct climbing gear, fitness and mental stamina people can walk up to 66 degrees.
(30) How long can we go without sleeping?
The longest period anyone has voluntarily stayed awake is 264 hours (about 11 days), a record set by 17 year old Randy Gardner for a high school science fair project in 1965. After the experience he was essentially a vegetable with his droopy eyes open. It’s possible that staying awake for 2 weeks or more straight may cause potential death according to experiments done with rats but no one has successfully attempted to go beyond the current world record.
(31) What are the maximum rotations of our joints? i.e. Wrist, fingers, Shoulders, Hips, Necks (Spine), Knees, Ankles
https://design.tutsplus.com/articles/human-anatomy-fundamentals-flexibility-and-joint-limitations--vector-25401
(1) Neck:
— Flexion = 70-90 degrees, Extension = 55 degrees, Lateral bending = 35 degrees (Neck is not bent), Rotation = 70 degrees
(2) Lower Back:
— Flexion = 75 degrees, Extension = 30 degrees, Lateral Bending = 35 degrees
(3) Shoulder:
— Abduction = 180 degrees, Adduction = 45 degrees, Horizontal Flexion = 130 degrees, Horizontal Extension = 45 degrees, Vertical Flexion = 180 degrees, Vertical Extension = 60 degrees
(4) Elbow:
— Extension = 180 degrees, Flexion = 150 degrees, Supination = 180 degrees, Pronation = 90 degrees
(5) Wrist:
— Extension = 70 degrees, Flexion = 80 - 90 degrees, Radial Deviation = 20 degrees, Ulnar Deviation = 30-50 degrees
(6) Fingers:
— Extension/Flexion ~ 90 degrees
(7) Hip:
— Flexion = 110 - 130 degrees, Extension = 30 degrees, Abduction = 20 - 30 degrees, Internal Rotation = 40 degrees, External Rotation = 45 degrees, Abduction (Toes Forward) = 45 - 50 degrees, Abduction (Toes Outward) = 170 degrees
(8) Knee:
— Flexion = 130 degrees, Extension = 15 degrees, Internal Rotation = 10 degrees
(9) Ankle:
— Flexion = 45 degrees, Extension = 20 degrees, Pronation = 30 degrees, Supination = 20 degrees
(32) How much can we talk in one breath?
That depends on how rapidly we speak and how aggressively we express our thoughts, which influences how long we might be able to talk between breaths. It also depends how much air in your lungs needs to be exhaled mostly comprising of Carbon Dioxide and Water Vapour. An average person speaks about 20 - 50 words every breath. In 2012, a Canadian man named Mike Smith recorded himself counting to 125 in 1 breath. This is equivalent to 288 words.
https://recordsetter.com/world-record/highest-number-counted-breath/17691
(33) What’s the frequency range of our hearing?
Humans can hear sounds at frequencies from about 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz, though we hear sounds best from 1000 Hz to 5000 Hz, where human speech is centred. However there are sound within this frequency range that we can’t hear.
(34) What’s the loudest thing we can hear before our eardrums rupture?
The loudest sound human ears perceive before ripping its eardrums is at 160 dB (decibels).
(35) What’s the softest thing we can hear?
The quietest sound humans can hear is just above 20μPa (MicroPascals) of pressure. Of course, this is for healthy young adults.
(36) How much we can write or type without stopping?
When a person writes continuously for a set period of time without regard to spelling, grammar, or topic, this technique is called “free writing”. Writers often utilise this technique to overcome apathy and self-criticism and collect initial thoughts and ideas on a particular topic. On average, people can write about 700 words per hour but the fastest writers can write more than 2000 words per hour.
(37) What are the ranges of accents, tones, pitches and timbre our voices can make?
Vocal range is the measure of the breadth of pitches that a human voice can phonate. It is mostly used in the context of singing that helps classify singing voices into groups called voice types. The following types range from lowest to highest pitch:
— Soprano = Highest Female Voice (C4 - C6)
— Mezzo-Soprano = Female Voice (A3 - A5)
— Contralto (Alto) = Lowest Female Voice (F3 - E5)
— Tenor = Highest Male Voice (B2 - A4)
— Baritone = Male Voice (G2 - F4)
— Bass = Lowest Male Voice (E2 - E4)
C4 = Middle C
Some men, in Falsetto voice or as a result of a due physiological conditions, can sing in the same range as women. These men don’t fall into the female categories, but instead called Countertenors within classical music.
(38) How flexible can we be?
Flexibility of limberness refers to the absolute range of movement in a joint or a series of joints, and length in muscles that cross the joints to induce a bending movement or motion. Refer to the limitations of the rotations of all anatomical joints. The most flexible person in the world is a Russian gymnast named Julia Günthel aka Zlata. Watch videos of her displaying her mesmerising talent:
http://www.smash.com/get-yoga-lesson-zlata-worlds-flexible-woman/
(39) What’s the heaviest thing we can carry?
The heaviest deadlift ever recorded was by British weightlifter Andy Bolton who lifted 457.5 kg from the floor to this thigh. The record for an overhead lead is 263.5 kg. However the heaviest weight ever lifted was a backlift by Paul Anderson is 2.844 tons on June 12, 1957, in Toccoa, Georgia. That’s equivalent to putting 2 Jeep Chericos on your back.
(40) How small can we get?
The shortest man in the world, named Chandra Bahadur Dangi, has a height of about 0.546 m. He is currently living age 77 and lived most of his life in a remote Nepal village. The world’s shortest woman ever recorded by Guinness, named Jyoti Amge, weighs about 5kg at age 18. There is a claim a woman who died in 1890 was the shortest person ever was 3 inches shorter than Jyoti. This shortage in height is called “dwarfism”, a genetic condition commonly caused by Growth Hormone Deficiency and Achondroplasia.
(41) How much radiation can we absorb?
Every day depending on our occupation and our whereabouts, our bodies are exposed between 0.05 to 40 μSv (Microsieverts). A nuclear meltdown with radiation of 1 Sv would cause negative health effects seen in Acute Radiation Syndrome (ARS). Exposure to radiation at 2 Sv would be fatal including several damage to vital organs and tissues. Without prompt and effective treatment, exposure to more than 4 Sv of radiation would cause instant death. Since the Chernobyl meltdown (50 Sv radiation), those who work in high radiation jobs like nuclear power plants and nuclear medicine haves a recommended limit of less than 0.05 Sv per calendar year.
(42) What’s the largest acceleration or deceleration our bodies can cope with?
g = 9.8 m/s^2; A typical person can handle about 5 g (49 m/s^2). This means you can pass out when riding a high-g rollercoaster before losing consciousness. Those who work in the aviation industry and the Air Force especially fighter pilots are exposed to incredible amounts of g-force. The record for peak experimental horizontal g-force tolerance belongs to John Stapp, in his series of rocket sled deceleration experiments culminating in a 1954 test in which he was clocked in just over a second from a land speed of Mach 0.9. He survived a peak force of 46.2 g, almost popping his eyeballs out, and more than 25 g for 1.1 seconds. Major John Bleeding, an Air Force volunteer, endured a staggering 83 g for 0.4 seconds during the sled’s nearly instantaneous halt. Fortunately he too survived and walked away none worse for wear. Experts estimate that in during Princess Diana’s fatal car accident, her chest experienced about 70g while her head experienced about 100g. That acceleration was enough to tear her Pulmonary Artery in her heart. Had she worn a seatbelt, she would have minimised that G-force to about 35 g.
The limit to “negative” or “downward” g, which drives blood up towards the head is within the -2 to -3g range (-20 to -29 m/s^2).
(43) What are the highest or lowest body temperature we can survive under?
For higher temperatures, the limits at which our bodies can withstand depends on the humidity and time of exposure to the elements. Short term exposure lasts for a few seconds to a few minutes. Long term exposure lasts for hours or even days.
— Dry Air: 120 degrees C (Short term), 70 degrees C (Long term)
— Tropical Air: 60 degrees C (Short term), 47 degrees C (Long term)
— Saturated Air: 48 degrees C (Short term), 35 degrees C (Long Term)
— Water: 46 degrees C (Short term), 41 degrees C (Long term)
Your cells start to die around 41 - 45 degrees C, but with proper training and sustained dehydration we can survive higher temperatures. A healthy person could make a day trip to Death Valley on a 55 degree C day, so long as you avoid dehydration, you have a chance of surviving.
For lower temperatures, when your body becomes too cold, your core body temperature drops below 35 degree C, called Hypothermia. This condition is then further subdivided into levels of seriousness if left untreated or unclothed.
— Mild: 32 - 35 degrees C = Shivering, Vasoconstriction, Liver Failure, Hypo-/
Hyperglycemia
— Moderate: 28 - 32 degrees C = Pronounced shivering, sufficient vasoconstriction, induced shock, cyanoiss in extremities and lips (i.e. turning blue), Muscle mis-coordination
— Severe: 20 - 28 degrees C = Your body starts to rapidly give up. Heart rate, Respiratory rate and Blood pressure fall to dangerous levels (HR of 30 bpm). Multiple organs fail and clinical death (where the heart stops beating and breathing ceases).
(44) Any chemicals we cannot let in our bodies?
Chemicals that are toxic or poisonous to the human body when in contact can kill you almost instantly. Chemicals that can kill you the fastest are:
— Cyanide = Either ingested as Sodium Cyanide (NaCN), or inhaled as Hydrogen Cyanide (HCN), is able to kill a healthy adult human within a minute. It works by preventing blood from carrying Oxygen to the cells in our body and blocking the uptake of any oxygen already in the body by those cells.
— Tetrodotoxin = A complex biochemical found in the blue-ringed octopus, the puffer fish and slugs which is used by those creatures in the act of self-defence. If injected into an adult human after a bite by the octopus or ingested a piece of incorrectly prepared puffer fish (fugu), it can within kill within a minute by blocking nerve responses thus paralysing the body, preventing breathing and stopping the heart. As little as 1 mg of this toxin is enough to kill you within minutes.
Other best known toxic chemicals that can kill you in small concentrations include:
— Botulinum toxins, Snake toxins, Arsenic, Polonium-210, Mercury
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_extremely_hazardous_substances
The best know toxic gases include:
— Hydrogen Monoxide, Chlorine Gas, Nitrogen Dioxide and Phosgene
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highly_toxic_gases
Radioactive substances (or Isotopes) can also cause serious harm to your body in small amounts by emitting harmful ionising radiation as it degrades over time. They can also cause mutations to DNA killing cells via Apoptosis or cause cancer if these mutations are not repaired.
— Uranium, Cobalt-60, Plutonium, Iodine, Caesium.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_radioactive_isotopes_by_half-life
(45) What’s the brightest thing we can see without going blind?
A phenomenon known as “flash blindness” causes visual impairment during and following exposure to a light flash of extremely high intensity, lasting a few seconds to a few minutes. Examples include a camera flash, searchlights, flash grenades and laser dazzlers / pointers . It’s not how bright the stimulus can cause brightness, it’s the contrast of light compared to which the eye is accustomed to. This is why at night the army uses red light in the bush to avoiding flash blindness because your pupil dilates to adapt to the darkness and flash blindness has a greater effect and lasts longer compared to in the daylight.
(46) How much can we spin before we go dizzy?
When you’re spinning, you are experiencing inertia because your body is accelerating towards the centre as you change your velocity. Inertia is when your body resists any change to its state of motion, unless a force is applied to it according to Newton’s First Law of Motion.
Our vestibular system in inner ear is the reason we perceive dizziness. This system is responsible for maintaining balance of our bodies sensing whether your body is upright, lying down or accelerating forwards or backwards or standing still. In the labyrinth structure of the inner ear, there are 3 Semicircular Canals arranged at right angles to one another, such that each of the canals individuals senses movement along the 3 axes. These canals are filled with a fluid called Endolymph, which sloshes around as our bodies move. This endolymph resists changes in motion, and due to inertia of rest, lags behind, which stimulates nerve cells. These nerve cells come in the form of small hairs (about 20,000 fibres), which transmit messages to the brain.
You may have seen ballerinas, figure skaters and ice skaters spin around and around and around many times without showing signs of dizziness. A trick dancers use is keeping their eyes fixed on 1 point, followed by whipping their heads around rapidly when their necks cannot turn anymore. While the rest of their body keeps spinning, their eyes trick their vestibular system into thinking that they are standing still.
Ice skaters, however, spin much faster than those of choreographers. They will instead stare at a fixed point at the end of each spin move, but they don’t whip their heads around continually, as they risk contracting neck injuries due to high rotational speeds. They instead keep their eyes relatively horizontal, so the view only spins around 1 axis, and gradually training oneself to overcome the dizziness over the course of extensive practice.
(47) How much sperm can a man produce over a lifetime?
Every day of abstinence, an average human male produces about 0.4mL of seminal plasma. According to a study, the average ejaculate is about 3.2 mL +/- 1.4 mL. Maximal semen volumes of 10 - 11mL have been recorded. As abstinence continues, seminal volume will be resorbed by the male reproductive tract. Evolution theory suggests the rate at which men produce sperm is infinite but no one really knows what the average man produces over his lifetime. That number could be in the millions if not in the billions.
(48) How many eggs can a woman produce over a lifetime?
Every woman is born with approximately 2 million eggs in their ovaries, but about 11,000 of them die every month prior to puberty. As a teenager, a woman has only 300,000 to 400,000 remaining eggs, and from that point on, approximately 1000 eggs are destined to die each month. This phenomenon happens independently of any hormone production, birth control, pills, pregnancies, nutritional supplements and health or lifestyle. So far, there is nothing that can stop this inexorable death of approximately 1000 eggs every month regardless of ovulation, ovarian inhibition, or stimulation. Whenever the woman runs out of her supply of eggs, her ovaries ceases to make Oestrogen, and then she goes through Menopause.
Population studies have demonstrated over several decades that the average fertile woman becomes infertile in their 40s, and undergoes Menopause by the age of 50.
http://www.infertile.com/beating-biological/
(49) How many babies can a woman deliver over a lifetime?
There is no exact of babies one woman can deliver throughout her lifetime. An average woman experiences menstruation from early teens to early 50s when she experiences menopause. Technically, an woman can get pregnant every 10-11 months while she is still fertile for about 40 years meaning theoretically an average women can go into labour around 40 times but that doesn’t mean she will deliver about 40 children. The world record for most number of naturally-born babies delivered belongs to a Russian woman (name unknown, 1707 - 1782) who was married to Feodor Vassilyev. She gave birth to 69 children, including 16 pairs of twins, 7 sets of triplets and 4 sets of quadruplets.
(50) How many times can a couple have sex over a lifetime?
According to a study conducted on Britain’s population, it is found the average Brit will have sex about 5,778 times over a lifetime. In addition, we will fall in love on average 6.5 times and have about 8 romantic partners. Using the current life expectancy of 83 years, it also means we’ll be dumped about 5.5 times and 6 unrequited loves. Those numbers sound staggering than what you’re normally used to but if you do the mathematics, it actually is true no matter where you live especially in countries ravaged by HIV and AIDS.
(51) How long can we go without water?
We’ve been taught the old saying “we can only survive 3 days without water”. But is this scientifically true? At least 60% of our body is made of water and every living cell needs to stay hydrated to maintain its complex biological functions. For example, water can:
— Act as a lubricant for our joints
— Regulate our body temperature through sweating, respiration
— Expelling waste products through concentrated urine secreted by our nephrons in the kidneys
— Maintaining interstitial fluid concentration of ions crucial for cellular integrity, molecule transport via vesicles
— Generation of action potentials in nerve fibres.
— Formation of saliva for digestion
— Moisten mucosal membranes
— Cellular growth, reproduction and survival
— Manufacture neurotransmitters and hormones in the brain’s neurons and pituitary gland respectively.
— Act as a shock absorber for the brain and spinal cord in the form of Cerebrospinal Fluid
— Convert food to molecules needs for survival.
— Deliver oxygen throughout the body
Theoretically, the longest anyone can go without water is about a week given the right conditions like standard lab conditions, 25 Degrees Celsius and 1 atm (units of atmospheric pressure). This estimate would be shorter in other extreme conditions like high temperatures. The limit is based on observations of people at the end of their lives, when food and water intake is cut off completely.
(52) How heavy can we get?
In March 1978, American Jon Brower Minnoch recorded himself as the heaviest human ever weighing in at 635kg, caused by water accumulation due to congestive heart failure. After being admitted to University Hospital, Seattle, it took a dozen firemen and an improvised stretcher to move him from his home to a boat. After 2 years on a 1200-calories-per-day diet since, he was discharged at 216 kg i.e. Losing a record-breaking 419 kg. Unfortunately he passed away in September 1983 weighing in at 362 kg because his oedema was deemed incurable and difficult to treat. It’s theorised 640 kg may the limit of human weight but we don’t really know the actual answer.
(53) How much pain can we resist?
So far, pain is not yet quantifiable and it still remains subjective. Scientists used a term called 'Pain Tolerance’, which is the maximum level of pain that a person is able to tolerate. Clinical studies have found that men have higher pain tolerance than women, hence higher pain thresholds and lesser pain ratings. Whether you receive something as painful or not depends on the sensitivity, adaptability of your nociceptors in your skin. Regular exposure to painful stimuli may desensitise these nociceptors increasing the ability to handle pain by becoming more conditioned to it. However other studies suggest long-term potentiation may occur through regular painful experiences. Willpower may be a factor to resist pain which is still not well understood.
(54) How much blood can we make over a lifetime?
The process of making blood is called Haematopoiesis. It’s estimated our body produces around 10 mm of new Red Blood Cells every hour in the steady state. i.e. Around 42mL of blood every day. Each new Red Blood Cells lasts about 120 days and a daily turnover of about 0.8-1%. Many factors influence the rate of which new red blood cells are produced like:
— Your current volume of blood relative to its homeostatic setting
— Presence of Erythropoietin (EPO) produced by the kidneys
— Iron (Fe3+) - A limiting factor.
(55) How long can we keep our eyes open without blinking?
A man from the Northern Territory, Australia was recorded to keep his eyes open for 40 mins. Blinking is a semi-autonimic reflexive rapid closing of your eyelid, which helps spread your tears across and remove irritants from the surface of your Cornea and Conjunctiva. Each blink lasts about 100 - 400 ms depending on focused and tired you are. Every adult blinks every 2 to 10 seconds, or about 10 blinks per minute in a normal situation. When you are focused on an object for an extended period of time like reading a novel, your rate of blinking decreases to about 3 - 4 times a minute. This may explain why your eyes dry out and become exhausted during reading.
(56) What’s the sharpest object we can touch without getting lacerated?
When a sharp object like a sword or knife interacts with skin, all the kinetic energy to pierce the skin including dermis, epidermis, muscle, tissue and fat is concentrated onto a miniature point. The required force to puncture your skin depends on a number of parameters like the angle/direction of the force and momentum of the sharp object, width of the blade, the material the blade is made of, and exact configuration of your skin cells. But reports conclude that the median puncture force is about 1.22N, while the range was 0.5 mN - 19.2 N. So far there is no known unit of measurement for sharpness of a blade. When something is really sharp like an obsidian blade, it means they are only a few molecules thick at the tip. There’s a theory that the tip of the knife doesn’t really touch the skin, rather it forces the molecules that make up the phospholipid bilayer aside due to electrostatic repulsion, making its way through the skin.
(57) How long can we stand before we have to sit and vice versa?
The world record for being motionless the longest whilst standing upright belongs to Indian Arkshinthala Seshu Babu who stood for 35 hours and 22 mins in 2015 before it was interrupted due to an insect bite. The record attempt involves no toilet breaks, no facial movements except involuntary blinking, no sitting and no movement of your legs and feet.
The world record for sitting down the longest known as “world’s greatest couch potato” belongs to a Chicago man named Jeff Miller who sat for 72 hours straight in front of the television without getting a wink of sleep. He resorted himself to meaningless sporting events, heaving snacking and heaving drinking between scheduled bathroom breaks.
But the world record for sitting on the toilet bowl belongs to a woman from Kansas who sat on her boyfriend’s home toilet for 2 years because she was stuck. After being finally rescued by police and medics, her legs were wasted away and she became disoriented. I’m surprised after that foul-odoured bummer of a moment, she is still dating the same boyfriend who fed her and kept her hydrated and didn’t help her instantly even if she said she wasn’t ready to come out.
You will hear health experts say that you should stand up for at 2 hours daily at work. No matter what task you’re doing, if you sit for too long not only a sore, flat bottom would result but:
— Muscles in your legs and flutes will atrophy hence weaken, increasing your risk of lower leg injury
— An important enzyme that helps process fat and sugar called Lipoprotein Lipase would be secreted less, increasing your risk of Metabolic Syndrome, and gaining more fat cells across your middle.
— Your Hip Flexors will shorten and you will compromise your back causing pain and bad posture. This can cause compression on your vertebrate discs in your spine which can lead to premature degeneration, resulting in chronic pain.
— Anxiety & Depression
— Stiff shoulders and necks, hunched back
— Increased risk of certain types of cancers like Lung, Uterine, and Colon cancers
— Increased risk of Cardiovascular disease, Diabetes (due to Insulin resistance),
— Cause Varicose veins when blood begins to pool in your legs, which can cause blood clots.
— Deep Vein Thrombosis
On the other hand experts will tell you to not sit in one 1 position for more than 20 mins or stand in one position for more than 8 mins. Prolonged standing can many health complications like:
— Slouching or Kyphosis = Non-neutral spine —> Improper posture
— Varicose Veins = Gravity forces blood to the bottom of your body accumulating in your legs, ankles and feet. Your valves will weaken and eventually fail meaning less blood is returned to the heart.
— Carotid Atherosclerosis
— Joint Compression —> Reduces lubrication and cushioning of Synovial Joints, causing them to tear
— Muscle Fatigue, especially in the lower back, legs, ankles and feet.
(58) How many different words can our brain cite?
In terms of processing language and speech, the average human brain can articulate 120 - 150 words per minute for speech (Broca’s Area) and process around 350 - 500 words per minute your ears hear (Wernicke’s Area).
(59) What’s the largest object we can fit into our mouths?
In an adult, the maximum jaw range of motion (ROM) or maximum mouth opening (MMO) is related to body size and height. Usually taller people can wider mouths than shorter people, men more than women too. MMO for adults has generally been around 50 mm, with a range from 32 mm to 77 mm. Men can open their jaws to about 50 - 60 mm, and women to 45 - 55 mm.
(60) How far can we stretch without tearing out our limbs?
Your upper and lower limbs are held onto their sockets through collagen ligaments and muscle tendons. Depending if your muscles are contracting or not affects the amount of force required to tear out a limb via pulling. Unlike metals, bodily tissues are quite viscoelastic, meaning they can behave like solids and liquids so tendons will continue to stretch when a constant pulling force is applied to it. Therefore there is no finite or measurable amount of force needed to stretch a tendon up to the point of suture tearing, because that depends on the rate at which the stress was applied. Apply the force over a long enough period of time, it will break the tendon at a lower force than if you try to pull a limb off instantly.
— Nonetheless, there are a range of estimates of about 30 - 200 kN required to tear an arm off.
— Strangling someone requires about 3.5 N / cm^2. But rippling out a human head vertically upwards, this requires around 100 N / cm^2. This all depends on the size of the person’s head and the width and muscle strength of the person’s neck.
— Death by hanging involves a vertical force from the noose of a rope ripping your head off your spine. Depending on the weight of the body, and the distance of the “long drop” (between 1 - 3 m), it is estimated to exert 5600 N, fracturing your neck between the 2nd and 5th cervical vertebrate. This is enough to cause decapitation.
(61) How many mutations in our DNA is required to cause cancer?
In general, the mutation rate in a human genome accumulates around 64 new mutations per generation. The mutation rate is the frequency of new mutations in a single gene or organism over a period of time. Most of these new mutations are detected and repaired by DNA repair systems during DNA Mitosis but it’s not perfect. The mutations that matter the most are on Proto-Oncogenes when mutated become Oncogenes, and inhibition or loss-of-function of Tumour Suppressor Genes. These critical mutations have the potential to cause cancerous tumours and metastasise to form cancers. Because these mutations occur randomly and unpredictably, the development of cancer doesn’t depend on a finite number of mutations.
(62) How much sweat, saliva, urine, faeces and other chemicals do we generate over a lifetime?
— The average human produces 125 - 128 grams of faecal matter per day. The average lifetime is about 70 years so on average you will produce 3193.75 kg of poo in your lifetime.
— Every day a human produces on average 1 - 2 L of urine every day of variable concentrations. Over an average lifetime, for instance 80 years, you would produce 43,800 L of urine.
— The average human produces over 23,658.824 L (25,000 Quarts) of Saliva over a lifetime.
— The average human produces about 0.94 L of sweat every day, secreted by Eccrine Sweat glands in your skin. There’s about 2.5 million of these Sweat Glands. How much you sweat depends on the air temperature, humidity, daily exercise, fitness and weight.
(63) How strong can our teeth and jaws be?
The limit of your bite is not determined by your muscles, but by your teeth themselves. Your jaws are like a pair of oversized tongs. Most of the force is applied near the joint, while the work is performed at the opposite extremity of the jaw levers. The average adult would exert 760.646 N (171 pounds) of force through their molars and much less force for their Bicuspids and Incisors. According to a study, some people can exert 1223.26 N (275 pounds) or more through their molars.
(64) How far can we smell?
Smell, or olfaction, is considered to be our oldest sense. Studies have found that humans have around 400 different olfactory receptors in the Olfactory Bulb. According to genetic analyses, of around 1000 known olfactory genes for receptors, about 40% are non-functional “pseudogenes meaning they don’t actually code for odour receptors. This suggests that natural selection in humans may have favoured other senses like vision and taste. However no one really knows how good an average human’s sense of smell actually is. The latest studies have found that each organism regardless of the size of their olfactory bulb have an approximately similar number of neurons (about 10 million) necessary and sufficient to achieve olfactory function.
(65) What can or can’t we smell?
There’s a myth predicted by scientists that humans can distinguish over 1 trillion smells whilst others believe humans can only smell 10,000 different odours. Anosmia is the inability to perceive an odour or lacking function of olfactory, whilst hyperaemia is the antonym of anosmia. What we can or can’t smell depends on the sense we are either describing or recording what the smell is.
— Listing of the chemicals in the smell, and the concentrations of these chemicals e.g. Geranyl Acetate (Rose, Floral),
— Grouping smells into different classes e.g. Sweet, Pungent, Putrid, Floral, Fruity, Woody, Smokey.
— Describing the processes by which odours reacts with receptors in the nose, generating nerve signals to the brain, and the brain combines these olfactory signals with stored information to identify a smell.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aroma_compound#List_of_chemicals_used_as_fragrances
(66) How hairy can we get?
Every hair on your body and head grows 1 cm every 28 days. Without cutting, the hair on your head eventually grows up to 40.6 cm (16 inches) long max. This occurs because each of your follicles goes through 3 phases of growth:
Anagen Phase (Growth Phase)
Catagen Phase (Transitional Phase - Cessation of Melanin production in hair bulb and apoptosis of Follicular Melanocytes)
Telogen Phase (Resting Phase - Follicle remains dormant for 1 - 4 months)
Hairs on your legs, chest, arms and head have different Anagen phase periods which explains why your leg hair doesn’t grow as long as your head hair. Depending on your genetics, different people have different lengths of anagen periods for a given body part to other people. For head hair, the average Anagen phase period is about 2 - 7 years. For arm, leg and eyebrow hair etc., the Anagen phase lasts between 30 - 45 days. At any given time, about 85% of your head hair is in Anagen phase, whilst about 10 - 15% is in Telogen phase.
— The world’s longest hair ever belongs to Xie QiuPing from China, growing up to 5.627m measured on 8 May 2004. She had been growing her hair since 1973 from the age of 13.
(67) What are the limits of our immune system?
The limits in which antigens, pathogen and bacteria our immune system can tackle with depends on the number of types of T-Cells which secrete highly specific antibodies and how much memory T-Cells it has. The way antibodies of different specificities are made is done by somatic recombination. Instead of just having a piece of linear DNA encoding each TCR (T-Cell Receptor), there are a series of pieces of DNA that can be combined to make a different TCR. On each antibody, there’s an α-chain and a β-chain. The α-chain has 50 V-segments and 50 J-segments. The β-chain has 20 V-segments, 13 J-segments and 2 segments. So based on that, you can make (50 x 50) = 2500 α-chains and (20 x 13 x 2) = 520 β-chains, and in theory any α-chain can pair with any β-chain. During VDJ recombination, there are enzymes that add a few nucleotide bases in between these DNA segments, further increasing the diversity of TCRs. However not all T-Cells with their TCRs made in the Thymus are secreted into the bloodstream. Only those that are wanting are either killed or die of neglect. TCRs too high of affinity to antigen are a risk of auto reactivity (autoimmune disease), or too low of affinity and they don’t get growth and survival signals it needs to mature. All these complex processes are done quite efficiently and quickly when you’re young but as you get older it slows down. A good estimate of the number of TCRs at any time is about 2.5x10^7 which is a lot, but because of antigenic drift of bacterial species and random mutations in common viruses, there is never enough TCRs to cope with every mutant and every bacterial specimen there is at this moment.
(68) How old can an individual person get?
This question is a mystery but what’s for certain is that our life expectancy for both men and women have substantially increased since the birth of the homo sapien around 200,000 years ago. The world’s oldest person that’s confirmed to have ever lived was Frenchwoman Jeanne Calment, who passed away in 1997 at 122 years old. In fact the top 10 oldest people that are confirmed to have ever lived were all female and were born between 1875 and 1900 with 2 of them still living today. They are Emma Morano from Italy and Violet Brown from Jamaica. According to VSauce, the first person to ever live up to 150 is already born but we don’t know who that person is. Since the 1800s, our curiosity and motivation to protect ourselves against nature’s deadliest epidemics like Influenza, Bubonic Plague and Smallpox have increased our knowledge and understanding of the impact of bacteria and microbes on us on a molecular (microscopic) level. Although we have invented anti-microbial drugs and antibiotics to inhibit the function of currently incurable diseases like HIV, Malaria, AIDS and Cancer, we are still nowhere near closer to unlocking the door to human immortality. The major source of these deadly microbes are from faeces contaminating our water system and atmosphere when the first ever toilets invented were connected to the water system that runs our kitchen and bathroom taps and shower nozzles. Thanks to our modern water sanitising sewage system and flush toilets we use today, residents living in developed countries like Australia, UK, USA and New Zealand have access to clean fresh water and are on the way to living longer lives whilst their waste is transported away in tightly sealed sewage tunnels far away towards sewerage plants in remote wetlands. However developing countries in Africa, Asia and South America are yet to have a water sanitation sewage system installed which is a major concern with cost and political will being the biggest and understandably frustrating obstacles.
(69) How long can we hold onto an object until we have to drop it?
When your hand has a load added it to it, your muscle spindles in your Biceps in your arm are stretched which sends an impulse to the spinal cord. This impulse results in the activation of motor neurons at your spinal cord sending the impulse back to the same muscle. This impulse tells the muscle to contract with greater force in order to decrease the speed at which the muscle is being stretched. This is known as the “stretch reflex” and it kicks in within milliseconds in order to protect yourself from serious injury or muscle tissue damage. How long you can hold onto an object before you have to drop it depends on your willpower and your psychological training to resist the inhibitory nerve signals telling you to drop the load.
(70) How long can we learn something until we get bored?
The answer depends on who you ask this question. Different people get bored at different times. Some take as long as several seconds whilst some take hours and hours of doing the same task before becoming bored. When you’re bored, your mind urgently seeks novelty, distraction and attention in order to satisfy and reward itself with stimulation from Dopamine. How long you take to get bored depends on Noradrenaline secreted by your Locus Coeruleus, which controls your focus and attention span on a particular task at hand. In addition, your ability to self-stimulate with your own thoughts, stimulating brain exercises and general knowledge can also come in handy when handling boredom. Nevertheless this depends on context such as study, work, holiday, relationships etc. Boredom usually comes about when your task is repetitive and easy to handle and you’re habituated to it, then you lose that excitement of novel experiences and are no longer highly stimulated by that experience.
(71) How much water can we continuously drink?
You can drink up to 10 L of water in an hour without diluting your electrolyte levels which may result in having seizures or experiencing death.
(72) What’s the fastest reading rate?
Reading is not just seeing words on a piece of paper, it depends on how quickly you process the information detected from your eyes then is transmitted into your brain’s Frontal Lobe which then deciphers the information decoding the message written on the paper in front of you. The majority of readers on average read at 200 words per minute. The rare fastest readers known as speed-readers have reading rates up to 1000 words per minute with near 90% comprehension. You can train your brain and eyes to speed-read by practising reading work documents, newspapers, magazines or books for at least one hour a day.
(73) What’s the most amount of carbon dioxide our body can cope with?
Hypercapnia is the condition when you have excess CO2 in your bloodstream that decreases physiological pH due to its slight acidic character. If the Pa(CO2) is greater than 10kPa or 75 mmHg, symptoms include arrhythmias, disorientation, panic, hyperventilation, convulsions, unconsciousness and eventually death may occur.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypercapnia
(74) What can or can’t we see with our night vision?
When you turn off the lights to be in the dark, your eyes temporarily goes blind because your rods and cones lack the light stimulus hence all of your Rhodopsin cannot break down into Retinal and Opsin. Over the course of 30 minutes, however, Retinal and Opsin recombine back into Rhodopsin, and you can see again. Your eyes are now in ‘night vision’ mode. We can only see objects that emit photos detectable for our photoreceptors (cones and rods) to change configuration and stimulate our visual system. Found in owls, dogs and cats which can see well in the dark, we don’t have the Tapetum Lucidum, a reflective membrane that acts as a biological mirror to provide light-sensitive Retinal cells with a 2nd opportunity for photon-photoreceptor stimulation, thereby enhancing visual sensitivity at low light levels.
(75) What diseases or pathogens can’t our immune system eliminate?
Currently there are about 27 incurable diseases, most notably Alzheimer’s Disease, Parkinson’s Disease, HIV and ALS, with the possibility of more incurable diseases to arise.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_incurable_diseases
There are some viruses that cleverly and sneakily evade the immune system and don’t cause symptoms until much later in life. This is called “Virus Latency”. The most famous latent viruses include HIV, Herpes (Simplex, Chicken Pox) Virus and Epstein-Barr Virus.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virus_latency
Because of antibiotics, bacteria affected can rapidly acquire mutations that allow them to develop a resistance to the drugs. There are currently 6 strains of the most common Escherichia Coli (E.Coli) and this allows E. Coli to develop resistance to phagocytosis via Macrophage and promote virulence.
(76) How big can our facial expressions be?
All of us show emotions on a daily basis. This common and obvious facial expressions like smiling and frowning is transmitted either consciously or subconsciously and viewed across cultures as a sign of happiness and friendliness especially when greeting someone. There are 43 different muscles in the face, most of which are controlled by the Facial Nerve (VII). This nerve exits the Cerebral Cortex and emerges from your skull just in front of your ears which then splits into 5 primary branches: Temporal, Zygomatic, Buccal, Mandibular and Cervical. These branches innervate different muscles in different areas of the face that allow that twisting and contorting of variety of expressions. However no one really knows how many of facial muscles is required to smile or frown because not everyone has the same number of facial muscles, some have more or less than 43.
(77) What can or can’t we taste?
So far scientists have discovered 5 different types of taste buds in the Papillae of the Tongue which account for 5 basic tastes: Bitter, Sour, Salty, Sweet and Umami. You have about between 2000 - 5000 taste buds located at the back and front of the tongue and with each taste bud containing 50 - 100 taste receptors, so you can have up to 500,000 taste receptors. In addition there are other tastes not generally included in the basic tastes which are detected by the somatosensory system instead of the 3 Cranial Nerves; Facial Nerve (VII), Glossopharyngeal Nerve (IX), and a branch of the Vagus Nerve (X). These other tastes include:
— Pungency (Spiciness, Hotness) i.e. Ethanol, Capsaicin
— Coolness (“Freshy”, “Minty”) e.g. Peppermint, Menthol, Spearmint, Camphor
— Numbness (Numbing-and-hot, Mati Rasa) = 麻辣 (MaLa) i.e. Sichuan Pepper
— Astringency (Puckering) i.e. Tannins, Calcium Oxalate in Tea, Red Wine, Rhubarb, Unripen Bananas and Persimmons.
— Metallicness i.e. Medicines or Amalgam Dental fillings, Blood
— Calcium
— Fattiness (Oleogustus) i.e. Triglycerides, Fatty acids
— Heartiness (Kokumi) i.e. γ-L-Glutamyl peptides
— Temperature
— Starchiness i.e. Starch (Glucose Oligomer)
(78) What’s the most amount of cells we can be made out of?
It’s estimated your human body is made out of 37.2 trillion cells (give or take). This number includes:
— 700 million cells of Trabecular bone tissues
— 1.1 billion cells of cortical bone tissue
— All 80,000 km of capillaries, of average diameter of 0.75 mm, All blood vessels lined by endothelial cells about 60 microns long and 20 microns wide (Micron = 1x10^-6 m). This gives about 2.5 trillion endothelial cells in capillaries.
(79) What’s the fastest speed our body can travel at before disintegrating?
On foot, humans can run at speeds up to 45 kph.
If you’re referring to interstellar travel, theoretically there is no maximum speed a human can travel assisted. We can travel at the speed of light, but accelerating up to that incredible cannot be instantaneous. The average survivable acceleration is about 16g (157 m/s) sustained for 1 minute. That means it will take about 22 days to reach the speed of light without breaking apart.
(80) How long can we go without food?
We know the old saying “we can’t go 3 weeks without food”. But is this scientifically true? Assuming a human is sufficiently hydrated, it is difficult to predict their survival without food. There were cases both in history and in patients under medical supervision who survived for many months to years in concentration camps and famines. What your body does in a time of near-total starvation is moderate your metabolism in order to conserve energy and that individual survival will vary markedly depending on psychological willpower and mental stability. The body’s main fuel is Glucose made from Glycogenolysis of Glycogen. But if there is a lack of Glucose, your body converts fats then amino acids in proteins to replenish the levels of Glucose. These processes are called Glucogenesis.
Around 350 million people experience depression right now. I'm one of them. Depending on the symptoms they can range from Mild, Moderate to Severe. In my situation, I'm experiencing mild to moderate depression. So far there is no cure for depression. Only rehabilitation and antidepressants are the only viable options for those diagnosed and they don't come cheap nor are they perfect. Most of my thoughts are often negative and self-evaluative. It's one of those topics that no one wants to bring up in any conversation; casual, professional, argumentative, or political. It's one of those sensitive topics alongside mental illness, religion, terrorism, extremism, and politics that no one wants to talk about. If depression affects humans so badly, why do people choose to ignore the issue and not acknowledge its effects it has on human society. Like cancer, Depression is an incurable disease but of a person's unconsciousness.
Whenever I vent my thoughts to people who don't mind hearing me out like psychologists and those who have a kind heart to respect me, the response I was always receive involves awe, shock, sympathetic and often simplistic responses. Those who have tried to offer solutions in an attempt to help me drag me out of this hole I;m stuck in haven't helped either. I feel they have never heard of nor experienced a social situation quite like mine compared to the environmental and social circumstances they're been through. I don't blame them for that. Each and everyone's experiences comes randomly. We don't choose what fate we want to experience, the script is already written for each and everyone of us. None of us knows how our role will be panned out on stage before it's already too late. I'll discuss into randomness, probability, chance and fate in another post.
My depression may stem from many social factors:
1) Living under the high expectations, higher than the Burj Al Khalifa building in Dubai, set upon by ambitious Chinese parents, the pressures of trying to realising my parents' dreams puts a huge strain on my mental state. My not-so-outstanding grades illustrates the faults of my parents' expectations. I feel it's unreachable for me. I feel self-doubt and extreme anxiety. I feel conflicted. Should I hide my honest true feelings about my goals or should I reveal it all given a billion to 1 chance of my parents accepting my decisions without any abusive backlash whatsoever. Having seen my parents verbally abuse on previous occasions whenever I performed below expectations in many test or exam regardless of the subject, I fear and worry of experiencing it again. I fear of going through another cycle of disappointment, closure, sadness and isolation. I think my parents are stuck in this 20th century societal mentality that prestigious education leads to a stable high-paying job, which leads to a successful relationship and a fulfilling career, which leads to a happy marriage, ultimately leading to a complete life. I feel this is their mental model of their expectations:
Melbourne High School --> University of Melbourne Biomedicine --> Doctor of Medicine (MD) @ UniMelb --> Doctor Gene Zou --> Chinese-Shanghainese girlfriend and then wife --> Family living in a 2 storey house in a rich suburb like South Yarra, St Kilda, Elwood, Toorak, Armadale and Malvern.
2) I live in the quiet suburbs of Pascoe Vale South in Melbourne's North North West. A majority of my friends situate many a mile from me. I feel this may be critical factor in why I'm always left out or forgotten whenever a friend's birthday is approaching. I don't feel my personality is the main issue because I respect everyone around me and I have a unique sense of humour with quirky gags and stomach-churning one-liners and a strong sense of curiosity.
3) Everyone around me have contrasting interests, views opinions, general knowledge and goals compared to mine. Everyone talks about food, fashion, employment, education, car-pooling, drunken parties, and attending events only with their family, their significant other, best friends or circle of friends. They even take photos of everything to encapsulate their livelihood and then selectively choose the best photos for their audience to see on social media like Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat.
I, on the other hand, talk about the reasons behind these social trends. In my spare time, I research the Philosophy, Sociology, Psychology, and the relevant Sciences behind these popular trends and habits in real life and on social media. I also research scientific issues, paradoxical concepts, and optimistic postulates about the universe you and I reside in today. Everyone else gets asked about their experiences throughout their childhood, high school and university / college. But no one asks me those questions at all and I feel worthless that no one outside my family home wants to hear my story. I can't remember the last time someone asked me out for a catch-up. I've been invited to 1 or 2 birthday parties occasionally but those are one-off situations. I'm more worried whether these new people will still remember me and would be willing to build upon that friendship when I next meet them. I'm sick and tired of accidentally bumping into them and chat for about 2 mins or less. They are either accompanied by their circle of friends on their way to a restaurant or a party or a friends gathering at an agreed meeting spot, or on their way to an important event like a meeting or a romantic date.
I admit I have a few superstitions that most of you find weird, revolting and sometimes delusional, unattractive and unlovable. In the past I have experienced rejection for friendly catchups more often than romantic dates. Nowadays it's much harder to organise a platonic date out of the blue because of how close we are to one another in society. Whenever someone postpones, cancels or replies with "Sorry, busy, No I can't make it" at any time especially at the last minute, not only will I get frustrated but I will get this sensation of silver bullets piercing my chest. I'm extremely sensitive to the word "no" and I take offence to it. Given with what I've experienced, I have generated this logical pattern that virtually 99% of those I ask out platonically will not commit to my invite. I feel I wasted so much time, effort and energy into organising and preparing myself for this dates. It's like my presence is insignificant, unimportant and a ugly sight better unseen. I wish they would hear me out and understand that I long for face-to-face conversation. If only there was someone out there to say "Yes", like the judges on Britain's Got Talent especially if Simon Cowell says "yes". Not only would I be absolutely thrilled but I would feel loved that I would think positively of you. I would want to reward you for restoring the love and self-confidence and cleansing the toxins clogging my system with me. Text messages won't cut it however. I want to hear your voice besides my family projecting directly into my ears. I want to see your facial expressions so I can subconsciously process your feelings and reactions to my verbose. Phone calls won't cut it either because your voice through the receiver sound to me quite muffled and quite different to your actual voice. And that lack of facial recognition doesn't stimulate my visual and emotional senses of my brain. I long for consistent face-to-face interaction but some people see this as attention-seeking rather than seeking a cure for loneliness. I feel I require at least 30 mins face-to-face conversation to satisfy my brain's appetite for knowledge and human interaction. That to me is the most rewarding experience to me. Just enough to stimulate my Dopaminergic neurons in my Substantia Nigra.
- VTA = Ventral Tegmental Area
- Both Dopamine and Serotonin (5-HT, 5-Hydroxytryptamine) are neurotransmitters
- Amygdala is part of the Ventral Striatum, that is responsible for integrating emotional responses, behaviours and motivation as well as emotionally charged emotions, emotional learning and responding to fear-evoking stimuli.
- Hippocampus is part of the Limbic System that plays a role in memory function, spatial memory and long-term memory.
https://www.sovhealth.com/cognition/brain-awareness-week-addiction-brains-reward-system/
Recently I've been googling psychology pages and psychology tests to self-diagnose myself whether I have contracted a psychiatric disorder, which are often misunderstood by the general public and researchers alike. The results show that I exhibit much of the symptoms of Mild Depressive Disorder and Social Anxiety. It all makes sense to me. I've been hiding these behaviours for many years and I can reveal I will likely experience social anxiety in the follow scenarios:
-- Talking on the phone whose voice I'm not accustomed to even if it's those I personally know.
-- Attending social events whom I know no one around me and everyone is always moving around from room to room selectively chatting to their best friends
-- Hosting my own social events worrying that many or if any will actually attend
-- Choosing a suitable partner to date because I have this fear of experiencing heartbreak like most of us have already experienced. Breaking up with someone already destroys one opportunity to personally know someone, which feels like getting a criminal record on your crime sheet. I worry of being judged insecure, irrational and being a worrier during the relationship because I have seen many breakups turn to violence and possibly murder.
-- Talking in a group who have different interests, hobbies, general knowledge and opinions to mine.I will often have this fear of expressing my own opinion against the majority. I will also fear talking about myself in front of others whom I feel self-conscious about whether they'll judge me negatively for being "different".
I may also display partial avoidance behaviours:
-- Distracting myself by daydreaming and thinking about being on stage sharing my views, ideas and opinions that no one has heard of before like in a Tedx Talk.
-- Avoiding eye-to-eye contact. To me that scares me.
-- Staying in an awkward social situation for a period of time
When I'm really anxious, I try to avoid displaying the following unavoidable traits before I fear you will judge me as peculiar, unorthodox, crazy and out-of-touch:
-- Blushing when you give me a compliment even it's slightly romantic
-- Sweating when I don't know how to respond to a slang term or statement I never heard of before.
-- Stomach Discomfort if you don't respond to my messages within 24 hours or within a few minutes when my phone tells me you are currently active on social media and don't notice my messages at all. This is followed by a racing heart, tightening of the chest wall, and an occasional lump in my throat when I anticipate 99% of the time I invite certain people for a social gathering will say "No, Sorry, Busy, Can't make it".
I don't know how long I could endure this pain any longer. I can't tolerate those words whenever I politely ask someone out even on a friendly, platonic catchup. I don't think I've broken any moral rules but I feel I'm just not interesting enough. Am I? Whenever I get anxious I will always tell myself
- "I'm a misfit"
- "No one considers inviting me consistently to any social event whether casual or noisy"
- "I'm too curious"
- "I'm not dumb enough"
- "I'm not gullible"
- "I don't choose sides or have biased opinions about anything"
- "If I remove myself from the world, none of my friends would notice, not even the news would report my death"
- "I'm not silly enough"
- "I know too much"
- "I have the wrong mentality".
I'm worried that I would enter a mode where I would become psychopathic and lash out at anyone who doesn't accept my call or satisfy my needs for non-familial company. I'm worried I would verbally abuse a friend that I don't intend to and haven't been for years. I'm worried I would kill myself in the process without even planning to do so. I'm worried I would lose my sanity. I'm worried I would become insane. Right now you will start to fear and avoid me and I don't blame you for that. But everything I have confessed to you before and above this paragraph is the thought process that goes on inside a socially anxious and mildly depressed person's mind.
My friends consider training at the gym, shopping for popular brand names and designs (handbags, wallets, purses, watches, shirts, dresses, various heels, sneakers, sandals, birkenstocks, crop tops, bras, makeup, perfume, teeth whiteners, swimwear, hair colour, coloured lenses), brunching, picking on your crushes, food blogging, Tinder conversations, clubbing and drinking at the pub all fun. But I don't.
My friends plan their next steps through the societal system any their next holidays to popular destinations around Earth. However, I lay here bed-ridden with my trusty computer searching up general knowledge in the quizzing circuit, scientific facts and concepts and philosophical ideas and writing down deep, personal essays to satisfy my curiosity living inside my dense brain of mine. I wish I could travel to places of my personal preference without the thought of expenses not just on Earth but to other planets in our Solar System and maybe interstellarly to other stars, Earth-like planets and galaxies like Andromeda, or (if possible) the edge of the our universe.
Back at home, my friends drive to places like hot springs, waterfalls, rain forests, beaches, peninsulas and valleys, I, on the other hand, am not a fan of driving especially when I'm alone. I feel like a waste of road space, wasting fuel and time not searching and typing personal essays like this one. I'd rather ride on trains, trams or buses to places no one not even my family has ever heard of like Korumburra, Wonthaggi, Orbost, Glenelg, Lake Eyre etc.
My friends travel to popular places just for the sake of travelling to be honest. They say they want to find themselves, wind down from stressful loads, and understand who they are as a human being. So I only travel when my parents travel like China and Taiwan, nowhere else. I want to change that and travel to places that have historical significance, and a meaningful purpose that proved to have a major influence on how we live like today. Whenever I brought up the idea of travelling overseas or interstate alone, my parents would immediately lash out at the idea and reject my proposal. I would feel deeply offended by their reaction because this is a lifetime opportunity for me to understand the responsibility and challenges of foreign solo adventure. They moan about "losing my passport, getting killed by terrorists, getting kidnapped or robbed by anonymous criminals" etc. I understand passports and safety are of the utmost importance but forcing this overprotective scheme on me just destroys the purpose of "holiday". My personal preferences include Norway, Switzerland, New Zealand, Japan, Canada, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Sweden, Romania, Holland (The Netherlands), Poland, Vietnam and Czech Republic. Because my parents don't know anyone currently living in those countries this could explain why they lashed out at me. It's possible they are using their friends or relatives as checkpoints just to check me out where I am 24/7 where is virtually impossible and, of course, I'm their one and only son and losing me would be a tragic loss no doubt. I wonder if my parents experienced a situation whether they or one of their friends or someone anonymous couldn't leave a foreign country because they lost their passport? Don't they realise that as Australian citizens we're protected by the Australian Embassy and the Australian Foreign Minister has the powers to prevent foreign immigration from trapping us in a foreign airport for eternity?
My vision of a perfect holiday is all fun and games, exploring scenes that I've never seen with my own eyes, interacting with locals about their language and culture and learning key pieces of information crucial to solving my deep questions. My parents, on the other hand, treat holidays as a Chinese spy war mission. This involves minimising human interaction with strangers besides relatives, forcing a time curfew to return to the hotel in the event of lingering criminals, restricting access to places outside of their mental boundaries and extremely rounded-up time limits thanks to their inaccurate time predictions and finally returning home in one piece with everything they need for their business. That's not fun at all. It's almost like a trading trip. In fact, besides their wedding I've never seen my parents go on a romantic honeymoon and teach me the gimmicks of romance in different stages of a relationship and long-term marriage. I'm their one and only son. It's understandable losing a child after going through menopause is simply unbearable. But why won't they share their experiences about love and sex to me? Don't they realise they and I are human too? Why are they acting like robots trapped in a programmed state of mind like a sanded piece of rail track? They claim it's a huge distraction from my study and work ethic but I like to disagree on that. Nonetheless I really don't know the answer to that and neither do them, which is a pity.
Yo! What’s up motherfuckers! Oh oops I apologise for my rude language. I didn’t mean to offend anyone. "Fucking shit I shouldn’t have said that”. It seems that swearing has become the norm of our evolving verbal English language. I was trained not to swear by my parents but societal pressure to fit in with the norm has forced me to communicate in such a way. This type of socially offensive language is called “profanity”, which is described as bad, strong, coarse, foul, vulgar, lewd. Synonyms of swearing include the use of expletives, cursing or cussing. On average, no matter the language we speak, we cuss roughly 80 - 90 words each day which make up 0.5% - 0.7% of all the words we speak. According to a poll conducted by Angus Reid Public Opinion in 2010, Canadians swear more often than Americans and the British when having conversations with friends, while Britons are more likely to hear strangers swear while eavesdropping a conversation than both Canadians and Americans. I honestly feel bad typing this but here are the most common swear words I have heard people use in online and offline conversations:
— Fuck / Fucker / Fucking (F-Word)
— Shit (S-Word)
— Damn
— Cunt (C-Word)
— Bitch / Son of a Bitch c
— Motherfucker
— Damn
— Gosh
— Crap
— Hell
— Pussy
— Asshole / Ass / Assfuck / Fuckass
— Dumbass
— Cock / Cocksucker
— Whore / Ho
— Slut
— Douche / Douchebag
— Faggot / Fag
— Piss
— Bastard
— Darn
— Dick / Dickhead
— Twat
— Skank
— (Zounds = God’s Wounds / Gadzooks = God’s Hooks)
You will notice in my previous posts I censored all of my curse words until now with symbols we occasionally use like @,#,$,%,&,!. This is called a grawlix, which was first used by American cartoonist Mort Walker in 1964. On television and radio, whenever someone swears in the recording, those words are blocked out by a bleep censor with a 1000 Hz sine wave which sounds like this in the link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKV5O7UKixQ
Even with the bleeping sound, we can still decipher what word was most likely bleeped out by the extrinsic changes in their mouth and the sentence it was used in the relevant context, also better known as lip reading. That’s why bleeps are sometimes accompanied by a digital blur or a black box covering the speaker’s mouth and their middle finger.
The term “profane” originates from the classical Latin term “profanus”, meaning “before (outside) the temple.” It carried the meaning of either “desecrating what is holy”, or “with a secular purpose” as early as the 1450s AD. In modern language, profanity represents secular indifference to religion and religious figures, whilst “blasphemy” is a more offensive attack on religion and religious figures, that are considered sinful, and a direct violation of the 10 Commandments.
In English, all swear or curse words have Germanic roots like “shit" and “fuck”. More technical alternatives like defecate, excrete, fornicate and copulate have Latin origins.
What fascinates me is that the 3 most common curse words are used in many different contexts. For those who are posh English speakers and cannot be bothered to understand the colloquial language of younger generations, there’s no need to feel offended because I’m here to help you translate what these variations actually mean depending on the context. The following definitions are provided courtesy of Urban Dictionary:
(a) F-Word, F-Bomb
Ever since its introduction to the English language, this word was considered to be obscene and vulgar. However this word has become increasingly less vulgar and more publicly acceptable in casual conversations. This is called a “dysphemism treadmill”. Its origin, however, is rather obscure despite its common use in everyday spoken language. Reports from Dr. Paul Booth claimed that its first use was probably during the early 1300s where the f-word was first used to define a sexual connotation. He believed it was used in an English court quoted by man local to Chester who is referred to as “Roger Fuckebythenavale”. In this context Booth says its use referred to either an inexperienced copulator, or someone trying to have sex with the navel, or a rather extravagant way to describe someone who is stupid to think that this is the way to have sex. In 1278, an Englishman named John le Fucker may have provided philologists the inspiration to record earliest instance of the f-word. Variants of the word in other Germanic languages include: German: ficken (to have sex); Dutch: fokken (to breed, to beget); Norwegian: fukka (to copulate) & Swedish: focka (to strike, to copulate) & fock (penis).
What makes this word rather interesting is that we use this word as a verb, adjective, noun and adverb meaning it’s a flexible word linguistically, albeit rudely. Below is a list of the most common uses of the f-word I overhear by people of all traits and races in casual conversations and sometimes on television.
— Let’s Fuck! = Let’s engage in quick and passionate sexual intercourse
— Fuck Me!
= A sing of exasperation which you shouldn’t take literally especially by someone who is not showing an obvious sexual interest.
= During your intimate sessions, it literally means ram the ham harder, faster and deeper hoping your partner experiences orgasm.
= Adds a exclamation to the realisation the full extent of the predicament you have fallen in
— What the fuck?! (WTF, Dafuq)
= An expression of extreme surprise, (incredulous) confusion, disappointment, pain, anger and irony
= An expression of extreme frustration, after a recent chain of bad events that has just been added to by something that just happened
= An emphatic way to say “What?!”
= Occasionally used in the context when you tire of considering a certain decision but you somehow commit yourself to that particular action whatever the consequences.
— Stupid Fuck! = A vulgar way to emphasise someone’s steer stupidity
— Fuck My Life! (FML) = A common phrase used by those who are experiencing misfortune, grief, humiliation, regret or simply having a bad day. These people may be feeling distressed, pressured or depressed about something.
— Fuck You!
= A expression of contempt, sometimes accompanied by erection of the middle finger.
= It can be used as an offensive gesture with the intention to emotionally hurt another person.
= It can be used as a way to express your sexual desire over someone you like like.
= It can be used, in an amiable accolade, as a way to express unobtrusive jealousy, where it may actually sound friendly.
— Fucking / Fucken… e.g. She is fucking hot!, I will fucking kill you!, I fucking hate / love you!, This fucking guy! Fucking Do it!
= On its own, it describes a man’s erect penis is rapidly thrusting back and forth in a woman’s vagina (or rarely anus).
= Also the name of small town in Austria
= A transitional adverb, to add strong emphasis to the adjective, verb, noun or emotive language.
— Fuck the system! = "When one wants to bring down their enslaving government who’s only will is become more powerful and wealthy at the expense of the common working class, a government that is sending the western world to ‘hell in a hand basket’ yet the so-called ‘retarded white trash inbreeds’ don’t take action into addressing communal issues as long as politically biased CNN reports headlines that approves their actions. These reinforces claims of lying and corrupting by the members of government who are disgruntling activists of all sorts, and the rumour that their society is being bribed by billionaire companies whom are close business allies with politicians in power, in an effort to maintain the status quo and tame the tiger.”
— Got Fucked! = When a person shouts “fuck you!”
— Fuck with me! = Contact me; Get a hold of me; Holler at me; Help me out; Let’s get together!.
— I’m fucked! = In the appropriate context, it predicts someone’s doom or downfall in the near future. It may also describe someone who is drunk and/or under the influence of drugs beyond the point of comprehension, rationally and all responses. They may be vomiting/puking everywhere and/or behaving abnormally, influenced by the effects of alcohol and narcotics within their system.
— Fuck off! = "Go away, Leave Me Alone, Don’t Talk To Me Again, Get out of my Sight!" These angry insults are usually accompanied by the middle finger gesture.
— Fuckwit = A person who is not only lacking in clue but is apparently unable or unwilling to acquire clues even when handed it to them on a plate in generous portions. In other words, it’s a person who lacks intelligence that they cannot grasp the simplest of concepts.
- Fuckboy / Fuckboii = A male, usually in their teens and early 20s who tricks girls into thinking they’re sweethearts and end up having romantic moments with them (hookups). Then over time they turn on you viciously and end the relationship in disgrace leaving the girls in a ripe mess through cheating.
— Fuckgirl = A girl who engages in behaviour similar to a fuckboy, who generally think they are the most beautiful creatures on the planet, more beautiful than any other girl who have the mentality to get whatever she wants. This behaviour is described as narcissistic and misogynistic, summarised by the “power of the pussy". They tend to be incomprehensible and guys are often manipulated to believe these girls intimately like them. They use their so-called beauty with their makeup masks, fake nails and fake eyelashes to get attention, sex and lots of money. They will show no emotion to guys who really care for them which is a pity. They actually fall in love with guys that just want to have sex and make money. Eventually they will make the call when the relationship is over leaving guys of all types devastated, angry and heartbroken.
— Fucknut = A person who is annoying and dumb that they can no longer be classed as an idiot. They are literally have less intelligence than a normal idiot.
— Fucked Up = This depends on the context of the conversation. It’s a level of status typically used in reference to being physically, mentally, morally / aesthetically, performance-wise, or even theoretically damaged in some way. It, in and of itself, has many levels, such as 'slightly fucked up’, or ‘so fucked up’, but all in all they have to do with describing the level of damage.
Physical: “Ouch, I just fucked up my thumb while I was hammering away at the nail.”
Mentally: That chick is SO fucked up, she are a full ounce of magic mushrooms!”
Morally/Aesthetically: See that mural over there? Now THAT is fucked up. Anyone with half a brain wouldn’t draw that!”
Performance-wise: “My grades are fucked up!”
Theoretically: “Man… that would be so fucked up if you did that!”
— Fucked Over = A British Slang phrase used to describe an unfortunate situation which is usually the result of 1 or more people taking advantage of another. Under normal circumstances, the person on the wrong side of the coin is unaware of the situation until it is too late. Being ‘fucked over’ does NOT normally relate to physical violence / assault, but it is more suited to describing a feeling of betrayal you experience when you realise that someone you once trusted has been deceiving and manipulating you for their own personal gain.
— Fuck all of you! / Fuck all y’all! = This term is usually pronounced very loudly to a large audience of haters who have criticised you.
— Fuck all! = You did absolutely nothing! Or the most extreme degree of nothing.
— Fuck the life out of him!
— Fucking Hell (Mate)! = A term used frequently by people native to the UK, which is an exclamation of feelings of frustration or anger.
— Fuck That! = An exaggerated way of saying “No”. In the right context, this term also depicts you telling someone you are completely against an idea they proposed.
— Motherfucker! = Literally, it means engaging in sexual activity with someone else’s or your own mother. A common slang derived most popularly from a form of “yo momma jokes” but it actually dates way back to the 1300s when it was considered the highest sin to sleep with one’s own mother (even above murder). More commonly, it describes a mean, despicable, or vicious person, or any particularly difficult or frustrating situation. Alternatively, it can be a term of admiration, as in “bad ass motherfucker!”, meaning a fearless and confident person.
— Fuck No! = The ultimate of all negative answers. When you say No with feeling and overreaction.
— I don’t give a fuck! = When you’ve had enough and seriously don’t care any less about a person’s business. This is commonly felt among people who have been walked all over for most of their life.
— Fuck Yes! = A different and better way of saying “Hell Yes”. You approve of something without even thinking twice about it which may have repercussions later if you’re not careful.
— Fuck Yeah! = When you experience significant, sudden, good fortune or accomplished something amazing that you never even dreamed would ever happen.
— … As Fuck (…af) = A phrase inserted after any adjective to give it emphasis. It generally means, “extremely”, or “to the utmost degree”.
— Fucker = One who is often rude, obnoxious, or mean…synonymous with asshole, dickhead etc. It can also mean someone who is the bulk of the work in sexual intercourse or a general term for a normal person.
— Fuck This Shit! = When one says when they are frustrated or annoyed to the point that they give up or no longer want to complete the task at hand. This usual results in the task being left incomplete.
— Let’s Fuck the Shit out of this…! = When you have sex with a woman so hard that she either bleeds or cries in pain, and not just on her first time.
— My Fucking God! = A more dramatic way to say “Oh My God” to give an exclamation of shock or surprise, often used repeated by gullible people who are shocked and surprised by almost everything you tell them and they insert this phrase into conversations whenever possible.
— Motherfuckin’ = Casually, it is used before a name or place or something to hype it up and suggest that is is really cool and awesome. As an adjective, it is synonymous with formidable or superior.
— Oh... Fuck! = An exclamation of immune frustration and awe of an overpowering catastrophe that is about to happen.
— Mindfuck = An idea or concept that shakes one’s previously held beliefs or assumptions about the nature of reality. This experience usually leaves the person stunned or speechless while they are wrapped their minds around this new idea.
— Fucking around! = Doing absolutely nothing productive; Wasting time; Not taking a task seriously; Purposefully performing a task poorly.
— For Fuck’s Sake = For Heaven’s Sake — A mixture between WTF and utter confusion, combined with annoyance.
(b) S-Word
As a noun it refers to faeces or faecal matter. As a verb it means ‘to defecate’. This word is likely derived from the Old English; nouns like scite (dung, attested only in place names) & scitte (Diarrhoea), verbs like scītan (to defecate, attested only in bescītan, to cover with excrements). Eventually it somehow morphed into the Middle English schītte (also meaning excrement), schyt (diarrhoea) and shiten (to defecate). These terms were most likely used by German tribes at the time of the Roman Empire.
This word can also be used as a generic mass noun similar to “stuff”. e.g. This meme is funny shit, this test is hard shit, that was stupid shit. e.g. Buy shit, lose shit, find shit, forget shit.
— Shit-faced = Describes someone who has drank too much alcohol, that speaks incoherently, has difficulty remembering the most simple details i.e. your address, your age, your best friends’ names.
— Smoke shit = The act of smoking Methamphetamine, and/or “ice”.
— Eat shit = An expression of extreme dislike or anger when used in the imperative i.e. Go fuck yourself
— Lucky shits, Dumb shits, Crazy shits
— Throw shit, Sling shit, Catch shit, Shoot the shit
— When shit hits the fan = The point at which an already unstable situation devolves into utter chaos, often in spite of a higher authority’s attempt to control it.
— Crock of Shit = Something is overly false, misleading or full of lies.
— Oh Shit! = An loud exclamation when you realise you have forgotten to do something important for you. e.g. Homework, Left your children in the car, You can’t stop your car from crashing or lost control of your car, or you’re about to get killed or injured in a bloody dramatic painful way
— Shithouse = Describes someone who is the epitome of scum, which is the lowest of the low. They have no morals who are just out for themselves and has to regard for anyone else, no matter how close they may be.
— Shit hole = A really bad place or building, especially a place that is undesirable for leisure activities, to live or work.
— Shit happens! = A universal religious concept used to describe something inevitable will happen without the control to circumvent or stop it from happening. It is a term of commiseration and you’re prepared to accept the outcome that lies ahead.
— Taking a shit / Having a shit = Commonly depicting the act of defecating. It can describe something that has almost become non-functioning or is poorly performing.
— Shitty = Of very poor quality, high inferiority, contempt, despicable, unfortunate, unpleasant (depending on the context). You’re in a state of discomfort, unhappiness, misery, incompetence or ineptness. It could also describe something trivial or insignificant.
— Shat = An Old English Past tense version of ‘shit’
— Shithead = A genuine moron. It describes someone committing an act that causes harm or temporary discomfort to another.
— The Shit = The best. Originated as a term to describe a high quality drug substance. Nowadays, this term has evolved to common usage of any item of high quality.
— Get shit done = To accomplish things and completing certain tasks
— Knowing shit = Someone who is very good at what he does, and has a profound knowledge about it.
— Feel like shit = When you feel down about yourself and express disgust. This is when you feel nothing matters to you and you couldn’t care less. You’re in a state of depression. Synonymous to “feel like crap”.
— Sounds like shit / Look like shit = A idiomatic way to denote something bad
— Don’t give a shit (Don’t give a fuck) = You don’t care, even in the slightest bit.
— Get my shit together = Refers to organising a particular set of personal belongings or tools, or to one’s wits, composure, to attention to the task at hand.
— Shit myself = When you perform badly at something
— Shit scared = Scared to the point where you metaphorically (not literally) defecated.
— Shite = A British and fun way of saying ‘shit’. It is also the romaji for the Japanese Hiragana (して), meaning “doing”
— Piece of shit! = Any object, person, or other existing thing that works incorrectly, is too expensive or just doesn’t the job it was assigned to do. It could describe an object or person that is worse than worthless, holding no values nor redeeming qualities whatsoever. They could be a stupid, low-life, self-righteous human being who makes life a living hell for themselves and others.
— Shoot the shit = Having a friendly but pointless conversation
— Pile of Shit! = Literally, it means a mound a faecal matter that is emitting an unpleasant odour. In slang terms, it describes an item or person as unusable, of poor construction, unwanted, unreliable or unacceptable in some fashion.
— Bullshit! = A way to call someone telling a blatant lie, a fragrant untruth, an obvious fallacy.
— Shit ton = A widely adaptable large unit of measure. In numerical terms, it is equivalent to 24 metric tons, or 1/10% of a fuck-ton.
— … and shit. = Used as an ending to a sentence to describe things that usually happen on a daily basis such as watching TV, making love etc.
— Too much shit, not enough shit, right shit, wrong shit, carry shit
— Weird Shit = Describes a situation that is beyond strange or out of the ordinary. No matter how hard you think, you can’t fully understand why and how it happened.
— Shit creek = A metaphor for 'deep trouble'.
— Turns to shit
— In deep shit = In a lot of trouble
— Colder than shit, hotter than shit
— Bucket of shit = When a person gives someone information that is considered useless or meaningless in any way possible.
— Shit his pants! = Someone who has had an accident in their pants and/or describes a retard.
— Shitter = Slang term for a toilet
— Shitting bricks = To be extremely scared or frightened
— Shit-talk = An connotation for bragging or exaggeration or talking in a boastful way about things which are erroneous in nature.
Bitch, literally means a female dog (above). In slang terms, it is one of the most sensitive pejoratives for a person, especially women, who is belligerent, unreasonable, malicious, a control freak, rudely intrusive or aggressive. When applied to a man, it is a derogatory term for a subordinate. Its original use as a vulgarism, dates back to the 14th century, which suggested high sexual desire in a woman, comparable to a dog in heat (canine reproduction). In a feminist context, it can indicate a woman who is morally strong or assertive. The term is believed to be coined in 1150, by the Old English word bicche. It may also have derivatives of the Old Norse word bikkja meaning ‘female dog’.
It is believed the definition of a female dog was derived from the Greek Goddess Artemis. As she is the goddess of hunting, she was often portrayed with a pack of hunting dogs and occasionally transformed into an animal herself, but it is unknown which animal(s) specifically. She was described as free, vigorous, cold, impetuous, unsympathetic and beautiful.
As a derogatory term for women, this definition has been in use since 14th or 15th century but it’s unknown who coined the definition. According to English Language historian Geoffrey Hughes, tts earliest slang meaning mainly referred to sexual behaviour.
— This (lil’) bitch = When you become tired of someone’s actions prompting you to say such. Then is when you feel annoyed of someone’s antics or disgusted by their comments leaving you speechless.
— Son of a Bitch / Sunavabitch! = A form of profanity used to refer to a man who is nasty, rude, or otherwise offensive.
— Bitch ass! (Punk, Scared, Coward)= When one who likes to yell to show their toughness but when someone is then not committed to get back at them, they are labelled as weak.
— Bitching = As an adjective, it describes something that is actually great.
— To bitch = To complain, usually pejorative with intent.
— You’re a bitch! = In modern language, it has different meanings depending largely on the social context and it may vary from offensive to endearing. It can refer to a person or thing that is very difficult to handle.
— Bitch Slap = This term is derived from American slang. In the original sense, it describes a powerful, full-swing slap in the face with the front of the hand, evoking the way an angry pimp might slap a defiant prostitute. This is not to be confused with a pimp slap which uses the back of the hand. However, this term is now frequently used figuratively to describe a humiliating defeat or punishment
— Bitch End = A term used in poker. If you have the “bitch end” of a hand, you have the weaker version of the same hand as another player. The bitch in this context is slang for the Queen of Spades .
— Bitchin’ = Describes something that is cool or rad
— Bad Bitch = Since its reappropriation in hip hop culture, rappers define this term as an independent, confident, attraction woman. This is a way to show their desire for a woman. If you have listened to the songs “Da Baddest Bitch” by Trina, “Bad Bitch” by Rihanna ft. Beyoncé & “Starships” by Nicki Minaj before, the definition of bitch has been reappropriated to show that women are positive and empowering.
It’s evident that swearing is quite flexible linguistically in online and offline conversations no matter what language you speak. It can be quite difficult to discern the tone and, quite often, you would sometimes elicit the wrong response which would be quite embarrassing to say the least. This would raise a few eyebrows and leave a bad impression in front of your friends.
According to Canadian-born British cognitive scientist, psychologist, linguist and popular science author Steve Pinker’s book “The Stuff of Thought, he believes there are 5 functions of swearing:
(a) Abusive = Verbally abusing or intimidating or insulting of others stigmatising emotion and retaliation within others. This is intended to humiliate, objectify those you like to pick a fight with because of the biases taught to you by those around you (e.g You motherfucking son of a bitch!)
(b) Cathartic = When something bad or unfortunate happens to you like spilling coffee on your new coat, you would let out a personal expletive. One evolutionary theory suggests that it is meant to alert your audience that you are undergoing a negative emotion or having a tough time of recent. (e.g. Awww fuck! Damn this coffee!)
(c) Dysphemistic = Dysphemism is an antonym of euphemism. You are forcing the listener to think about negative or provocative matter. Using the wrong euphemism can have a dysphemistic effect (e.g. He fucks her!)
(d) Emphatic = When you want to emphasise something to ensure we understand what you’re talking about. (e.g. It was fucking huge!)
(e) Idiomatic = When you swear without referring to the matter at all. You are just using those words to arouse interest, to show off, and express to peers that the setting is informal. (e.g. Fuck, man!)
What boggles my mind is why do we confine to swearing. Once we start swearing, why do we enjoy it so much we swear even more? Why do these so-called bad words sound so bad and offensive to the human ear? We swear when we feel pain, outraged, disgusted, emotionally charged or excited. It is believed what swearing can help you relieve stress and improve focus on the tasks at hand. It is also seen to reduce the pain and suffering of a serious injury and improve our resistance to the over-stimulation of our pain receptors. But I wonder why swearing can improve our mood and health mentally and physiologically? It seems that evolution gave us this special gift whenever our body needs to rapidly release energy and stigma caused by the release of Adrenaline, Cortical and Noradrenaline from our adrenal glands to our heart, muscles and the brain. Swearing is an important way to alarm those around you how you are actually feeling such as when there is danger lurking like when a pack of deers gets attacked by a hungry, frisky tiger. Swearing can also be a test of communication and understanding of your peers. If you can mentally translate those swear words into the actual message they’re conveying to you, you have proven yourself to be a trustworthy and emphatic person to your friend. Swear words can also signify how powerful, superior and dominant you want to prove to the others. Your language has the power to insult, intimidate, degrade, objectify and satirically mock your peers. This type communication can lead to a few best friends but also worst enemies. But what does swear words look like as a sound wave compared to other euphemistic substitutes like defecate, intercourse or screw you? So far no one seems to know which is disappointing to say the least.
Amongst asian people, I feel Vietnamese and Korean people swear the most, more often than Chinese, Japanese, Malaysian and Singaporean. Since I’m not a linguist, I’ll do some further research into the swearing amongst different cultures around the world. There is this Vietnamese word that can be often confused for a swear word whilst translated it isn’t. Phuc = A given male name. In fact it reminds me a famous story a few years ago. Do you know which I’m referring to? Click and link and enjoy reading it.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/nov/25/man-says-he-made-up-vietnamese-name-hoax-to-fool-news-media-and-facebook
If you’re wondering why I have not been posting on my blog lately, it’s because life as a university student has never been so stressful. Recently, I have been inundated with test after test after test after test. But there’s worse to come with end-of-semester exams. This is a life cycle of every university student each passing semester and every primary and high school student every passing school term. On social media, I see memes being uploaded by stressed-out, sometimes introverted students who are not coping well with the pressure of maximising their performance for their upcoming standardised tests. The common memes I’ve noticed involve clips of facial expressions that imitate our feelings regarding assignments, cramming, procrastinating, listening to boring lectures, difficulty memorising examinable material and recklessness during intense study sessions. They thought that fishing for likes on Facebook would improve their mood and self-esteem, hence focus and performance on academia, but this is a university or college myth that is yet to be proven. These Facebook pages are commonly caused Stalkerspaces or Confessions. Since I study in Melbourne, my favourite Facebook pages are Unimelb Confessions and Monash Stalkerspace where each confession or overheard conversation and viral meme compiles 1000s of reactions including likes, laughter, depression and fury. Although these posts have some degree of hilarity, I find these posts quite distracting and it doesn’t help improve the situation in terms of study progress. Here is one of the most popular study memes:
https://www.memecenter.com/search/study
Ever since I left high school I thought life would get easier and studying would be more laid-back. This is partially true with uniform being non-compulsory and casual fashion being the order of the day every day. Most lecture class attendance is not compulsory because they are so many of us in one theatre. The only exceptions are lecture classes that require the use of a clicker to mark attendance such as the physiology subjects. Most lectures are recorded which is a luxury for the majority of students who cannot awake from bed to attend every 8am lecture whether they live a great distance from their university or within walking distance of the campus. So far I heard most mathematics subjects are not recorded in lectures which is peculiar and inexplicable. There are those who work late or attend late-night parties, clubs or any social events and a good night’s sleep of about 7 - 8 hours is of utmost importance to the health of our human body. I wish my parents could understand that. Graduating from a selective boys-only high school called Melbourne High School, entering an cohesive academic environment was something I wasn’t accustomed to. The last time I was surrounded by female students was back in year 8 when I attended Strathmore Secondary College which only a few of my friends knew existed. Being surrounded by so many girls of different ages, cultures, backgrounds, professions, interests, passions, personalities, fashion tastes was like heaven to me. I did not know who to initiate conversations first. I wanted to hug them all and know all of their names and their personal profiles. Most didn’t mind being hugged or have their hand shaken, whilst others detested physical contact and preferred their own private personal space. This type of behavioural response from the minority has got me curious. Why do some people avoid physical contact despite the hugger not intent to cause harm? What is this so-called personal space? Why do some people require a certain private space? I’ll try to answer these questions in another post.
Nevertheless there are endless opportunities to meet people you never dreamed of meeting before such as BBQs, camps, club meetings, boat cruises, cocktail parties, balls and end-of-year parties. The most prominent period is during the first 2 weeks of every semester where your friends bring their friends from other popular high schools who attend other universities like Monash Clayton/Parkville, Deakin, ANU, RMIT, La Trobe, Federation and Victoria. There’s a possibility these people have heard about you through your mutual friends before you have even met them, which may enhance the experience of making new social connections. Compared to high school, there is no need to sign all attendance forms by our parents to confirm our attendance with our teachers and the responsibility of organising these events is shared mostly amongst university students who undertake certain in a general committee. These student organisations include the Australasian Association, International Student’s Society (UMISS), The Student Union (UMSU) and student society’s of respective faculties and majors like Biomedicine, Arts, Science, Commerce (Accounting), Engineering, Design etc. Interstate and overseas (International) students from different countries also attend these universities such as England, USA, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, South Korea, China and Vietnamese. Although these events welcomes newcomers and outsiders, how come I feel this sense of awkwardness loitering around the attendees? For instance, a biomedical student such as myself would be assumed to have extended knowledge in biology and chemistry, plus additional knowledge (if necessary) in mathematics and physics. An ordinary arts student, on the other hand, have tasks that assess their ability to generate arguments with sufficient sophisticated vocabulary. Most of them would not hold back from an argument whether it’s political, logical, ethical or sociological. They treat even the most casual conversations like a political debate at the national party conference, Question Time in Parliament or a 60 minutes interview. They form the majority of protests against almost any political movement like Marxism, conservatism, democracy or freedom of speech, cultural aberrations such as Muslims, and recent political decisions by the federal and international government from USA and UK such as increase in university fees, reduced funding for several universities and closing of TAFE schools. However what is likeable about them is how they are willing to recount their crazy experiences through their childhood and high school which may have almost killed them or got them into serious trouble forming both enemies and allies along the way. I do feel sorry for them because they are always on the wrong end of study and personality clichés and this illustrates an inaccurate and factually wrong impression of what arts students really are. They may cuss a lot, waste themselves after a few shots, shout unwanted remarks or make awkward gestures, but they are just as approachable and interesting as those around me and it’s worth tuning in to their exhilarating stories.
Inevitably every student will say this dreaded 5-letter s-word: “study”. In fact I hear students say this word almost every few minutes during the semester especially when they have lectures to catch up on or have approaching tests and exams. According to http://www.wordcount.org/main.php , study is ranked 416th in terms of frequency in any texts and conversations, whilst student is ranked 1341st. Here’s a fun fact, gene is ranked 3957th. I learnt about this website from VSauce’s video “The Zipf Mystery”. He describes how Zipf’s Law is applicable in every print involving language like newspaper articles, medical studies, novels, wikipedia pages, and verbal conversations. It states that given a large sample of words used, the frequency of any word is inversely proportional to its rank in the frequency table. So a word number N has a frequency of 1/N. The most frequent word “the” will occur about twice as often as the 2nd most frequent word “of”, 3 times as often as the 3rd most frequency word “and” and so on. We don’t know why Zipf’s Law miraculously works for every language ever spoken on the planet. But it poses an interesting question on how language works regardless of its variations and who speaks it.
Speaking of study, I should be studying right now but I feel blogging is more enjoyable and interesting than memorising every keyword, definition, and picture on 100s of lecture slides. Lecturers call it “learning, understanding and integrating concepts and principles using the example case studies to justify these concepts”. As a student, I call it “overworking your Hippocampi to generate short-term memories in an effort to survive the hardships of tertiary education”, which I feel is not the same as learning. The type of learning I’m concerned about is stimulated by self-curiosity making it interesting, enjoyable and more importantly memorable. Most of us don’t learn the same way which is the major flaw of today’s education system. Currently the standardised tests you do today relies on your short-term retention of information and knowledge regardless of understanding. Learning basically is the act of acquiring new, or modifying and reinforcing existing, knowledge, behaviours, skills, values or preferences that lead to a potential change in synthesising information, depth of the knowledge, attitude or behaviour relative to the type and range of experience. The word "learn" may have originated from the Old English leornian meaning "to acquire knowledge by reading and pondering", the Germanic lernen or the Middle English lore. It was hypothesised this word was first used before the year 900 but we don't know who specifically was the first to say this word and where this person was and it what context. Humans are not the only creatures that can learn, but animals, plants and machines also learn too. There is still controversy regarding the actions and definitions of learning. The progress over time tends to follow a so-called learning curve shown below:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_curve
The term “steep learning curve” describes the difficulty of an initial learning process. This common English use is due to metaphorical interpretation of the curve as a steep hill to climb. Theoretically, a steeper hill represents something hard, while a gentle slope is less strenuous.
As you may have noticed, the name of my blog is Live and Learn. This is borrowed from one of my favourite quotes by Terry Pratchett “We live and learn, or more importantly we learn and live.” It means you attain more knowledge the more you experience different life situations. Your brain is a vessel thirsty for information with the knowledge of nature on Earth and the universe refilling the daily knowledge cocktail glass to quench its thirst. Life around you provides your brain endless information through your 5 senses for it to process. However, we all perceive this information differently, meaning all of us who learn about different things perceive it in a different manner. There is a theory that learning does NOT happen all at once, but rather built upon and shaped by prerequisite knowledge acquired from previous classes. It suggests that learning may be viewed as a process, rather than a stressful recollection of factual and procedural knowledge, also more commonly known as cramming. So far scientists have described several different types of learning, but it’s possible there could be more.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning
= A relatively permanent change in the strength of response to a single stimulus due to repeated exposure to that stimulus. Changes due to such factors as sensory adaptation, fatigue or injury do NOT qualify as non-associative learning.
— Habituation = Strength or probability of a response diminishes when the response is repeated. It is a typical reflex or unconditioned response.
— Sensitisation = Progressive amplification of a response follows repeated administrations of a stimulus.
(b) Active Learning
= Occurs when a person takes control of their learning experience. Since understanding the information attained is one of the key aspects of learning, learners recognise what they do or do NOT understand. These are called known knowns and known unknowns. By doing so, they can monitor their own mastery of subjects. This encourages learners to have an internal dialogue in which they verbalise their understandings. In addition, they will have an incentive to learn when they have control over not only how they will learn it but also what they learn. This type of learning is a key characteristic in student-centred learning.
(c) Associative Learning
= A process by which someone learns an association between 2 stimuli, or a behaviour and a stimulus.
— Operant Conditioning = The use of consequences to modify the occurrence and form of behaviour.
— Classical Conditioning = Involves repeatedly pairing an unconditioned stimulus (which unfailingly evokes a reflexive response) with another previously neutral stimulus (which does NOT normally evoke the response). Following conditioning, the response now occurs both to the unconditioned stimulus and to the other unrelated stimulus (which is not referred to as the “conditioned stimulus”).
— Imprinting = A kind of learning that occurs at a particular life stage that is rapid and apparently independent of the consequences of those behaviours.
(d) Play
= Describes behaviour that has no end it itself, but it improves performance in similar future situations. e.g. Cats playing with a ball of yarn when young helps give them experience with catching prey.
Nonetheless, play involves deadly risks by animals, such as a increased vulnerability to predators and the risk of serious injury and infection.
When young children play, they seek to learn social skills such as sharing and collaboration, and emotional skills such as learning to deal with emotions like anger. As a form of learning, play facilitates the development of thinking and language skills in children. There are 5 types of play:
— Sensorimotor Play = Functional play — Repetition of Activity
— Role Play
— Rule-Based Play - Authoritative prescribed codes of conduct are primarily used
— Construction Play - Experimentation and building
— Movement Play - Physical Play
These 5 types of play often intersect, but they all generate thinking and problem solving skills in children. This is a way to help children learn to think creatively when they learn through play. Specific activities involved in each type of play change over time as humans progress through their lifespan. Play as a form of learning, can occur solitarily, or involve interaction with others.
(e) Enculturation
= A process by which people learn values and behaviours that are appropriate or necessary in their surrounding culture. Your parents, and other adults, and peers (friends) currently shape your understanding of these values. This results in competence in the language such as the slang, values and rituals of the culture. Whereas in acculturation, a person adopts the values and societal rules of a culture different from their native one.
(f) Episodic Learning
= A change in behaviour that occurs as a result of an event. e.g. Developing a fear for dogs after being bitten by a dog. Episodic learning is so named because events are recorded into our episodic memory, which is one of 3 forms of explicit learning and retrieval, along with perceptual memory and semantic memory.
(g) Multimedia Learning
= A person uses both visual and auditory stimuli to learn information. This type of learning relies on dual-coding theory.
(h) Electronic and Augmented Learning
= E-Learning — A general term used to refer to computer-enhanced learning. When you interacts with e-learning, it’s called augmented learning. By adapting to the needs of you (the individual), the context-driven instructions can be dynamically tailed to your natural environment. Augmented digital content includes text, images, video, audio (music and voice). By personalising instruction, augmented learning has been shown to improve performance for a lifetime.
(i) Rote Learning
= Memorising information so that it can be recalled by the learner exactly the way it was read or heard. The most common technique used is learning by repetition, based on the idea that a learner can recall the material exactly (but not its meaning) if the information is repeatedly processed. However many lecturers and tutors criticise this technique of learning as meaningless and highly strenuous and the answers on the actual test aren’t guaranteed to be worded similarly like what they recall.
(j) Meaningful Learning
= The concept that learned knowledge is fully understood to the extent that it relates to other knowledge. This contrasts with rote learning. There is an implication there is a comprehensive knowledge of the context of the facts learned.
(k) Informal Learning
= Occurs through the experience of everyday situations e.g. Looking straight ahead while walking because of the danger inherent in not paying attention to where one is going. You certainly do not want to bump into a pole, fall down a crevice, crash into a person or get hit by a vehicle.
(l) Formal Learning
= Learning that takes place within a teacher-student relationship, such as in a school system. This has nothing to do with the formality of the learning type, but rather the way it is directed and organised. Therefore, the learning or training departments set out the goals and objectives of the learning.
(m) Non-formal Learning
= Organised learning outside the formal learning system. e.g. Learning by coming together with people with similar interests and exchanging viewpoints, in clubs or in (international) youth organisations, workshops.
(n) Tangential Learning
= A process by which people self-educate if a topic is exposed to them in context that they already enjoy. e.g. After playing a music-based video game, some people may be motivated to learn how to play a real musical instrument such as piano or guitar.
(o) Dialogic Learning
= A type of learning based on the dialogue
(p) Incidental Learning
= This type of learning is NOT planned by the instructor or the student, but occurs as a by-product of another activity such as a particular experience, observation, and outcomes assessment. This occurs in part as a product of social interaction and active involvement in both online and onsite courses.
(q) Multi-level Learning
= According to a theory of Practopoiesis, all biological systems learn at 2 different levels: fast and slow. Slow learning corresponds to long-term memory, whilst fast learning is impactful in storing information into working information, to direct attention or to make a decision. Most importantly the rules by which fast learning mechanisms are executed stems from learning by the slow processes over a lifetime. Therefore, according to practopoiesis, the main function of long-term memory is to store knowledge on how rapidly your brain reorganises its own neural networks at a second-by-second pace.
It’s obvious all of us have a different style of learning and our education system doesn’t support all of these learning styles. This may explain the complaints from parents regarding the discrepancy of their children’s academic potential and actual performance on the test. Below is a list of learning styles that have been identified according to Neil Fleming’s VAK / VARK model:
1) Auditory
= A style is which a person learns through listening via their ears. They depend on hearing and speaking as their main way of learning. Therefore they must have an ability to audibly comprehend something in order to understand it, but this may cause difficulty with instructions that are drawn unless it is written in a logical order. They have a knack for ascertaining the true meaning of a person’s words by listening to audible cues like changes in tone, pitch, tempo and volume. E.g. Phone Numbers - They will say it out loud and then remember how it sounded to recall it.
They perform best at written responses to lecture they’ve heard and oral exams which is effectively listening to information delivered orally to them. It is suggested that during intense study sessions auditory learners require sound(s) in the background in order to enhance their reading and learning skills such as music, TV and chatter in the background.
Being natural storytellers, they solve problems by talking them through by themselves.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auditory_learning
2) Kinesthetic / Tactile
= A style which learning takes place by the the students carrying out physical activities, rather than listening or watching demonstrations. These type of learners are commonly called “do-ers”. There are different types of kinaesthetic learners including body learners, hands-on learners, doodlers, or learning through emotion experiences. They generate memories associated with emotions learning facilitated through dance, debating, drama, role-play, charades, sports, gymnastics and laboratory demonstrations. This leads to long-term memory since it associates with emotions like excitement, curiosity, anger, disappointment and success.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinesthetic_learning
3) Visual
= A style in which a learner utilises graphs, charts, maps and diagrams. These learners develop and use graphic organisers, also known as concept maps, knowledge maps, story maps or concept diagrams to facilitate their learning. According to a study, these graphic organisers are found to enhance retention, reading comprehension, student achievement (with or without disabilities) and critical thinking skills.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_learning
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphic_organizer
4) Read-White
Literally these learners utilise their reading and writing skills to learn concepts built upon words, sentences and literal devices. This is typical of a traditional learner in schools and universities that feature written notes for each lecture powerpoint. An example of a literal device they use is Mnemonic.
Mnemonic = Memory Device — A learning technique that utilises elaborative encoding, retrieval cures, and imagery as special tools to encode any information in a way that allows for efficient retention.
e.g. ROYGBIV = Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet (Order of colours in a rainbow)
Try this at home. If you want to remember the months of the year, clench your hands into fists and place them next to each other in front of your eyes. Starting from left to right, each knuckle (hump) will represent a month that has 31 days & each trough will represent a month that has 30 days (or less i.e. February).
What type of learner are you and what is your most suitable learning style? Feel free to comment in the box below.
No one likes standardised tests. Not even the highest performing students enjoys sitting down completing exams under a time limit. Exams are one of the most lowliest, dreadful and stressful tasks we experience all the time. Standardised tests consists of either or a combination of multiple-choice, true-false questions, short-answer questions or extended questions requiring essay style responses. By definition, a standardised test is any form of test that requires all test takers to answer identical questions, or a selection of questions from a common bank of questions, in the same way and under the same time limit. Scores derived from the performance of these tests are conducted in a “standard” or consistent manner, theoretically making it relatively possible to compare the relative performance or intelligence of individual students or groups of students. In the modern era of education, you will see standardised tests used for large-scale students populations. On average, throughout your schooling life you will take part in as many as 112 standardised tests, starting as early as pre-kindergarten to your final year at university or college. The earliest known use of standardised testing was in China, during the Han Dynasty, where imperial examinations covering the 6 Arts: Music, Archery, Horsemanship, Arithmetic, Writing and Knowledge of the Rituals and Ceremonies of both public and private sectors, were used to select suitable employees for the state bureaucracy. Over time, Military Strategies, Civil Law, Revenue & Taxation, Agriculture and Geography were also tested. These intense and complex exams were institutionalised for more than a millennium. The standardised testing that you and I take today widely used around the world in the modern education system, more famously known as GaoKao (高考) system. In the past, all tests were scored by independent (human) examiners which created certain obstacles regarding hire cost and often variable range of scores. This is why computer scoring for multiple-choice and true-false question sets is preferred. Every dot you fill in the multiple choice letter bubble is scanned and read by a computer (a process known as computer-adaptive testing. Other types of standardised tests that involve essay writing, short written answers require independent markers to assign scores with the assistance of rubrics (rules or guidelines) and benchmark papers (examples of papers for each score). The scores given in these written assessments can vary due to the fact that humans are the markers and whatever mark you’re given depends on the teacher’s experience and knowledge of the subject, and interpretation of your work whilst comparing to the rubric and their expectations for what is an outstanding piece of work to them. If the hired scorers do not come to an agreement with the scores that have allocated, illustrated by a huge discrepancy (one has given 65%, another has given 85% for the same test), then this paper is passed to a master examiner and their allocated score will always have the final say for the paper’s assessment. There are 2 types of standardised test score interpretations:
(A) Norm-Referenced
= Compares test-takes to a sample of peers. If students perform better than those peers they pass the test, but if students perform worse than those peers they fail the test.
(B) Criterion-Refereced
= Compares test-takers to a criterion (formal definition of content), regardless of the scores of other examinees. They may also be described as standards-based assessments, as they are aligned with the standards-based education reform movement. They are concerned solely with whether or nor this student’s answer is correct AND complete. Therefore it is possible for all student students to pass or fail the test. Below is example of how different standardised test score interpretations work:
Once an administrator has collected every student’s scores for a particular subject they analyse the statistics of the performances overall and for each question. They check each question’s overall performance in terms of percentages. For instance the average (mean) score awarded for each question, the percentage of students who chose the right answer or other wrong answers. They illustrate the data onto a histogram, also known as a frequency distribution. Then they compile all overall test scores onto a graph to form a normal curve. This is where I start to sound mathematically boring, and I know everyone hates statistics, but bear with me.
Above is a bell-shaped curve that represents a standard normal distribution. A standard score (Z) is the signed number of standard deviations (σ) by which the test score is above or below the mean value. Values greater than the mean have positive standard scores, while values lesser than the mean have negative standard scores. The standard score is a dimensionless quantity obtained by subtracting the population mean from an individual raw score and then dividing this difference by the population standard deviation. This conversation process is called standardising or normalising.
μ = Mean of the population
σ = Standard deviation of the population.
z = The distance between the raw score and the population mean in units of the standard deviation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_score
The symmetry of the bell-shape curves gives an illustration on how difficult the test was according the students. If the curve is skewed to the left, it means the test was quite difficult, and if the curve is skewed to the right, the test was found to be easy. This is where scaling of scores come into play.
Raw scores are test scores that are not adjusted or transformed such as the number of multiple-choice questions you answered correctly. Scaled scores are the results of transformed or adjusted raw scores. Depending on how skewed the distribution is relative to the population mean of a normal bell-shaped curve, raw scores can be increased or decreased in order to achieve “consistency" and “fairness” across the entire student population. This is where I’m tempted to scrutinise and criticise the validity of these statistics and standardised testing in general. For a given multiple choice, if someone chose the right answer they either guessed it or evaluated their way to the correct answer. If someone chose the wrong answer, they either guessed incorrectly or made an error in their evaluation towards the correct answer. That means a person who has studied vigorously can achieve the same score as one who has not studied at all. Although the chances are slim (e.g. (0.25)^n) to be exact depending on the number of multiple choice questions, guessing your way to 100% is possible. They would achieve the same result as the top scorers of the test who perform consistently well on their tests. This is one of the major flaws of standardised testing. It’s all about choosing the right answer regardless of whether you can explain your answer or understand the question. It’s too bad for those who study hard don’t get credit for explaining your way to the answer in these type of tests and this may cause serious mental distress and suffering. It’s clear to me that standardised testing statistically does not illustrate how intelligent you are and elicit fairness amongst the student populations. My definition of fairness in the context of academia is quite complex and it’s not as simple as saying “they get the scores that they deserve”.
Intelligence is an individual issue not a cohort issue. Everyone is different. Everyone’s neural networks in the brain is wired differently. I cannot name any 2 brains that are wired exactly the same. Because of these differential learning styles, each and every one of us perform at our peak differently depending on the type of exam material and questions we interact with on our exams. Not everyone can learn and retain the same factual knowledge and concepts in the same amount of time. I, personally, am a slow learner therefore my short-term memory is not that great and I consistent achieve average scores in my intra-semester tests. Even though our education system provides assistance for those with mental and intellectual disabilities that prove to hinder their performance in exams like severe mental illness, infections, social and environment factors like loss of a friend or family member, the skills required to conquer these tests remain virtually the same. Traditionally, those who are fast read-write learners that have an active learning style will theoretically perform the best in today’s standardised testing schemes. 12 weeks is not enough time for me to digest and integrate the facts, ideas and concepts of different biological diseases. I feel it would take me about a year to do so. This does not mean I am stupid, it means the way my brain processes information is different to everyone else. I, personally, am a visual and auditory learner who utilises a meaningful learning style to understand and memorise certain concepts. Blindly learning facts and concepts doesn’t bode well for me. If I want to learn something I have to research the history of it, the etymology of the name, the discoverers and their process of discovering it, why they chose to research it rather than why is this discovery important for the relevant faculties and society. Although my lecturers tell me to not overthink, for some reason i cannot resist the temptation to do so. “There is no point learning something if I’m not going to use it in the real world.” That is my philosophy to life. Some people especially my parents think I’m dimwitted to think so, but they don’t realise the amount of brain space we are wasting on principles and concepts that we may never use in society just to pass our standardised tests, the demon of human education. These tests don’t prove how well you understand something because that is not why college or university exists in the first place. They exist to find the next generation of workers to supply the competitive job market in a range of different fields. This is why the words career, specialisation, masters, postgraduate, life after uni, employment keep emanating as you live through your 20s. These tests are a way of disciplining you to prepare for life’s relenting challenges and an indicator of how well you deal with mental pressure. It seems that those who have high expectations set upon them by their parents and peers and are uncertain of what role they want to partake in society’s job market will experience the most stress, which may be a sign they will experience an episodic moment of depression. Why do we learn? Or in that case, why are we forced to learn? Aren’t we already learning everyday? What’s the purpose of learning something that may be useless to us? Obviously these questions are quite difficult to answer and it can cause fierce debate and controversy.
Based on what I know about how our society runs, because humans are the most dominant organism on planet Earth and with over 7 billion of us loitering together, our curiosity to attain knowledge to eliminate threats and obstacles that may hinder our progress towards longevity, fulfilment and survival of the fittest. You and I are born as a human in a society where your life is scripted out for you without your knowledge. You would have no idea about your existence as a human on a fast-moving floating celestial rock named by humans, Earth, until your brain develops your ability of awareness and curiosity at a later age. Because there are so many of us around, those who have the superior mindset of manipulation and domination want to keep us occupied in a certain space by filling in a role that allows us to contract our muscles and perform basic tasks repetitively just to curb our ensuing boredom and curiosity. If national governments want to show how intelligent their country is, why not propose an assessment that analyses the type of natural learner each person is and the type of learning style each and every one of them utilises? Why not tweak our exams and generate tests containing different stimuli but testing the same concepts that are most suited to specific types of learners? Some may think these proposals may sound weird, ambitious, overly expensive and preposterous, but do you have a better idea? This may come down to how humans and animals react to competition and the thought of being the best that no one ever was is the ultimate reward in fulfilling life to our absolute potential. Obviously society is complex. Everyone around me including pets think it's too complex, broad and cryptic to contemplate. But that doesn't mean it's impossible to think so. I believe I could generate adequate neuronal connections to visualise and illustrate the most accurate model of human and animal society of the past, present and future. But my starting point is coming up with simple questions that require a detailed and philosophical response like "what is society?". I'll try to answer those questions in another post.
