Interesting Facts About Body Parts

 July 31, 2009

Interview with Michael Sims author of Adam's Navel: A Natural and Cultural History of the Human Form
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Mike Carruthers:
Being left or right-handed is something you probably think of as being quite human. But apparently not.

Michael Sims:
The technical term is "chirality," and it's the way that there is either a right or left bias in so much of nature, even down to the molecular level.

Michael Sims

 Michael Sims, author of the book Adam's Navel: A Natural and Cultural History of the Human Form ...

Climbing plants have a left-handed or right-handed bias, and in general, it's right. And the human species is eighty five to ninety percent right-handed, and still no one fully understands why.

In his book, Michael uncovers facts about your body you probably didn't know. Your eyelids for example…

The thinnest skin on the body is the eyelid. And it also is the one part of the body where oxygen gets to the body some way other than blood, because the eyes couldn't function if blood washed across them all the time. So how the eye has evolved is getting oxygen to all its various parts dissolved in the saltwater of tears.

And here's something interesting about your big toe. When you walk…

It is the body's last point of contact with the ground and there is a really complicated cultural and natural history of the toes, and they really anchor us, they propel us forward, they guide us, and we overlook them.

Complete interview not available.