Plastic Facts - Information, Benefits and Negative Effects

Facts about Plastic

• Every piece of plastic that was ever produced still exists.
• Fathers of the modern plastic industry were chemists Leo Baekeland, Alexander Parkes, Jacques E. Brandenberger, Chemist Roy Plunkett and Daniel Fox.
• First plastic compounds were made by processing naturally created rubber plants. This process was abandoned after chemist managed to create recipes for fully synthetic plastic.
• The word “plastic” was introduced in 1925, approximately 100 years after first chemist started working with natural rubber.
• Before WWII the most popular plastic was Bakelite and its close cousin Catalin. They were used everywhere, from children toys to the parts for large WWII bombers.
• One of the last truly important plastic compounds that were discovered is Kevlar (1965)!
• In 2010, 31 million tons of plastic waste was generated only in United States - 14 million tons in containers and packaging, 11 million tons as durable goods and appliances, and almost 7 million tons as non-durable goods (plates, cups, cheap kitchenware, etc.).
• Eight percent of United States plastic waste is recycled, but category of bags, sacks and wraps has larger recycling rate of almost 12%.
• In the year 2002 only 360 million of bottles was recycled, out of 9.1 billion bottles that were disposed.
• Over 15 million plastic bottles are used in Great Britain every day, but only around 2.5% of European plastic bottles are recycled.
• Plastic bottles are made from two types of plastic – 23% of them are made from Polyethylene terephthalate (PET, also used for food packaging, cosmetics) and 62% of them are made from High-density polyethylene (HDPE, also used for milk, detergents, shampoos, bottled water, juices).
• Buried plastic materials can last for minimum of 700 years.
• Over 4 million plastic bottles is used by American every hour!
• Plastic represents 8% of total American waste weight, and 20% of its volume.
• 1050 milk jugs can be recycled into one 6-foot plastic park bench.
• Standard weight of one PET 2 liter bottle was reduced by 28% between 1970s and now (it went from 67 to 48 grams).
• U.S. annually creates over 9 billion plastic bottles. Around two thirds end up in landfills or incinerators.
• The largest plastic recycling facility in the U.S. is Wellman Inc, located in South Carolina. It annually process over 2.5 billion plastic bottles, turning them into polyester fiber compound known as Fortrel EcoSpun.
• Small plastic cup can take 50 to 80 years to decompose.
• 11% of household waste is plastic, and 40% of it is plastic bottles.
• Plastic bags, bottles, and other garbage that end up in the ocean kill around 1 million sea creatures every year.
• Plastic bags are one of the most common plastic items that are manufactured today – over 300 per person, per year.
• Recycling plastic is much more energy efficient than incinerating it.
• 9-15 billion of plastic shopping bags are used each year in Canada alone. On average, one of those bags is used for five minutes before it is discarded.
• Plastic waste can travel large distances over air and sea. Canadian plastic shopping bags are found as far as Scotland.
• In 2009, 2.45 billion of PET and HDPE bottles were recycled.
• Recycling one single plastic bottle saves enough energy to ring 60-watt light bulb for six hours!

Plastic Benefits - The Advantages of Plastic

Since its inception, plastic enabled countless advances in our industry and way of the life. Created to be light, durable, chemically resistant, non-reactive to outside influences, and easy to manufacture, plastic was a perfect building material for countless articles that are used not only by ordinary users in their daily affairs but also in aeronautics, construction industry, electronics, packaging, transportation, energy conservation, scientific components and other.

Here are some of the most important benefits of using plastic:

Building and construction industry – From the moment famous Bakelite appeared in the first decade of 20th century, plastic became one of the most used building blocks of modern construction industry. This is only surpassed by packaging industry, which uses more plastic than construction industry. The most common uses for plastic in construction is in pipes, valves, bathroom units, flooring, siding, panels, insulation, plumbing fixtures, windows, doors, railings, glazing and gratings. They are used so much because of their awesome abilities to resist corrosion, natural elements and are also very light and easy to handle.

Packaging - Versatile, durable, flexible, rigid, and light plastic was embraced by packaging industry with both hands. By employing various manufacturing techniques plastic can be shaped and molded into any desirable form, have any color, or any physical property. Plastic transport containers are not unly used for household items such as shatterproof bottles and child resistant packages, but also in medicine (biohazard waste disposal, sensitive containers, transport molds that hold their cargo in firm grip), research, and countless other fields.

Transportation – Plastic is very popular material that is today part of all transport vehicles on the world. Because of its toughness, durability, lightness, and ease of coloring, plastic can be found in fenders, trunk lids, bumpers, housing for headlights and mirrors, hoods, doors, wheel covers, and many more other places. By introducing plastic, manufacturers were able to significantly reduce the weight of their cars, airplanes and other vehicles, enabling them to be much more power efficient and easier to service. Off course, smaller means of transportations such as bicycles, roller skates, kayaks, canoes, skateboards, snowboards, surfboards, motorcycles have managed to use all that plastic can offer us. In public transportation, plastic is used almost everywhere – seats, handholds, carpeting, interior panels, and sometimes even polycarbonate windows.

Electronic – Thermal and insulation properties of plastic made it ideal to become backbone of the electronic industry. Because modern plastic recipes will not change its form after they are heated, manufacturers use plastic regularly for circuit boards, chips, coffee makers, mixers, microwave ovens, hair dryers and even refrigerators.

Recycling – Recycling plastic saves money and energy, reduces the amount of plastic in the landfills or seas, reduces the amount of greenhouse gas emissions that are created during production of “virgin” plastic, and more.

Plastic Disadvantages - Negative Effects of Plastic

Today, you can hardly look around you and not spot some item that is made entirely from plastic or has some plastic ingredient. This only proves that from its inception up to now plastic has managed to become popular building material of millions of useful items, but it is not perfect. Plastic has several disadvantages that prevent it from becoming universal building block of modern human civilization, and because of that many governments strictly control its use and create complex law that govern its creation, recycling and environmental impact of waste plastic and chemicals that are used in its creation.

Here are some of the biggest disadvantages of plastic:

Durability – Plastic is light, moldable, sturdy, and can have countless forms, but one of the most known features is its durability. Plastic is artificially created polymer compound which can survive many centuries before nature is able to degrade it (some degrade into basic ingredients and some only divide into very small pieces). This troublesome ability of plastic doesn’t have great immediate impact on our environment, but its continuous dumping into seas and land will eventually create problems for future generations. Even with all this durability, plastic products are not indestructible and it cannot be used as a basic building block for everything we need.

Environmental Harm – Ever increasing plastic production since 1950s managed to saturate world with waste plastic product that can cause big effects on our environment. Decomposing of plastic product can last from 400 to 1000 years with newer “degradable” compounds, but before that degradation can happen waste plastic will continue to clog our waterways, oceans, forests, and other natural habitats that are filled with animals who mistake dangerous plastic for food. Chemical dangers are also high, because both creation and recycling of plastic produce toxic materials of many kinds.

Chemical Risk – Not only that creation and recycling of plastic can cause serious environmental risk, but some of the additives that are infused in plastic can cause permanent harm to our metabolism. Chemicals such as phthalates and BPA are widely used as an additive that prevents degrading of plastic structure, but they also interfere with our natural hormone levels which can cause serious problems to both males and females (lower testosterone levels in men, and premature girl puberty).

Choking Hazard – Plastic is one of the most popular building materials for small items. This is most evident in toy industry, where vast majority of children toys is manufactured with plastic. These toys and small plastic objects of many uses can easily get into children’s hands (especially babies and toddlers) that unknowingly put them in their mouth. To prevent these serious accidents, governments have implemented detailed set of rules which force manufacturers to clearly label their plastic products and warn users of the possible chocking potential. Another problematic plastic product that can cause serious injuries or death are plastic bags (grocery or trash bags)who can sometimes end up wrapped around children faces, disrupting their breathing.

Plastic Invention - Inventors of Plastic

Inventors of plastic are without a doubt persons who will always remain remembered in the history of our civilization. Their efforts enabled incredible expansion of industry and caused drastic changes in the way we live and work. Here are their life stories.

Who Invented Plastic?

Plastic products that we use today were created by countless chemists from all around the world, but the initial discoveries can be traced to several innovators who built a basis for modern day plastic industry. This is the story about them.

Alexander Parkes

Alexander Parkes is today remembered as father of plastic and first man who showcased to the world the wonders of this innovative material. Here you can find out more about his life, work and the way he invented plastic.

Leo Baekeland

Leo Baekeland reinvented the modern world by creating first fully synthetic plastic compound that swept across the world and enabled the formation of the modern plastic industry. Here you can learn more about his life, work and the way he invented his highly influential plastic product called Bakelite.

Plastic History - Origin of Plastic

Over the last 150 years, plastic products have managed to revolutionize our science, automobile industry, aerospace, transport, and medicine, enabling us to produce items of countless shapes, sizes and features. History of such influential product can be found on these pages.

History of Plastics

History of plastic started in the mid-1800 when chemist all round the world started experimenting with rubber, striving to eliminate natural ingredients from its recipe (natural latex) and wanting to make it fully synthetic product that can be mass produced all around the world. This exciting period of time soon gave birth to the first plastic compounds, which after decades of perfection finally entered mass production in early years of 20th century.

Since the dawn of modern humanity, people of many civilizations used natural rubber as a means of protecting their equipment and items from water and other natural elements, as well as building blocks of many useful articles. This natural rubber (mixture of organic compounds such as latex and water) was gathered from rubber producing plants, and therefore its production was greatly limited by natural resources. To combat this problem, many scientists started working on fully synthetic alternatives. With the help of the chemist who identified that building block of rubber were polymers, the first man—made plastic was ready to be produced.

First man who managed to produce plastic in a laboratory was Alexander Parkes(1813 - 1890), metallurgist and inventor from England. He spent his entire life working on various techniques of rubberizing items, and in 1950 he finally managed to combine organic material found in cellulose and other substances to form first man-made plastic called Parkesine. He immediately saw that plastic has much better abilities than rubber –it could be industrially produced in large quantities, easily molded when hot, sturdy and durable when cooled. Even though he did not manage to become rich man from his invention (his large scale manufacturing business failed after few short years of work, mostly because high price of plastic and imperfect recipe which caused Parkesine to easily break and be flammable), but his exploits served managed to introduce plastic to the general population and scientists in both Europe and North America.

First notable successor of Parkesine was John Wesley Hyatt‘s Cellulloid plastic, which was derived from cellulose and alcoholized camphor. In the beginning, celluloid was used as a substitute for ivory-made billiard balls in late 1860s, but they quickly went out of the style after initial recipe proved to be very flammable. This setback did not cause destruction of celluloid business because by late 1800s it became foundation and building block of movie and photography industry.

With plastic being mostly used only for specific purposes (film and photography), first years of 20th century finally brought an age of plastic that we know today with the introduction of Cellophane and first fully synthetic plastic compound called Bakelite. Created by the famous inventor Leo Baekeland (born and raised in Belgium, and then moved to United States in 1890s where he remained for the rest of his life), the compound he named Bakelite enabled for the first time true revolution of plastic and the birth of the modern plastic industry. With superior features, durability and ease to use, Bakelite soon found its way into thousands upon thousands of products in Europe and North America (from jewelry, to common items, construction, scientific instruments, packaging, automobiles and airplanes). After Bakelite, new and improved plastic products started appearing in regular schedule (Catalin, Plexiglas, Teflon, Nylon, etc.). The era of Bakelite finally ended after the end of WWII when chemist produced much more stable and durable plastic compounds (most notably ABS, Styrofoam and Lexan), which remained in use even to this day.

In modern society, plastic represents one of the basic building blocks of our industry, construction, common items, transport items, vehicle manufacture and science. No matter where you look you can find at least one plastic item, and because of that, governments all around the world are striving to found solution for plastic waste disposal. Large amount of disposable plastic products (bottles, plastic bags, etc.) are heavily controlled and manufactured in the way that recycling is easier and in some case even biodegradable.

History of Plastic Recycling

Plastic is one of the most popular building materials of modern human culture, but its widespread use brought us many problems and caused environmental dangers of unprecedented scale. Since its mass adoption in the 1950s, discarded plastic products have filled landfills and contained seas and earth with materials that will not break down for centuries and centuries. To combat this problem, governments of many countries around the world formed rules for recycling plastic, established industrial processes for transforming discarded plastic into useful materials, and educated communities to the benefits of recycling all around the world.

One of the largest recycling efforts of the 20th century happened of course during wars when governments demanded of their people to donate their unused metals, tires and even nylon, but the notion of recycling plastic came only after the environmental revolutions of 1960s. During those years people really started noticing the impact of plastic waste on environment, and started laying groundwork for future recycling efforts. First plastic waste recycling mill in the world was created in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania in 1972, marking the beginning for all future recycling plants. As years went by, government programs and eco-friendly communities slowly started to educate regular people into habit of recycling and forcing manufacturers to start producing easier to recycle plastic. Their efforts came to life during 1980s and 1990s with the adoption of PETE and HDPE plastic, which were designed with recycling in mind. These recyclable plastic products were introduced by Plastic Bottle Institute of the Society of the Plastics Industry and clearly marked on their containers by logo of triangle made of arrows.

The process of recycling plastic is not as simple as recycling paper, glass and metals, because the greater number of steps involved for extracting dyes, fillers and other additives that can be found in “virgin” plastic. First step in their recycling is sorting by the type of resin that is in their structure (seven basic types) and in some cases additionally sorted by color. After that, plastic is chopped into small pieces, cleaned to remove debris and small residue, melted down and compressed into pellets named nurdles. These small pellets are then transported to plastic processing plants where they are introduced into manufacturing process.

Because of the complicated recycling process and unwillingness of people to properly dispose of their unwanted plastic, recycling rates of plastic lag far behind of other items such as paper, glass and metal. In 2008 only 6.5% (2.2 million tons) of post-consumer plastic waste was recycled, 7.7% (2.6 million tons) was burned for energy and 85.5% (28.9 million tons) went to landfills.

Timeline of Plastic History

• 1284 – Oldest surviving historical record of naturally made plastic compounds from horn and tortoiseshell.
• 1823 – Macintosh discovered rubber. He used it to protect cotton from moisture.
• 1845 – Inventor Bewley produces natural rubber from plant gutta percha. This plant became used regularly during 19th century, especially to produce insulation for underwater telegraph cables.
• 1862 – Londoner Alexander Parkes unveiled first man-made plastic compound. He named it "Parkesine”, but it quickly disappeared from public use because of high costs.
• 1869 – Failure of Parkesine led to the creation of Xylonite by the hands of Daniel Spill. His company also went bankrupt after few years.
• 1869 – American inventor John W. Hyatt invented Celluloid, which entered mass production in 1872.This was successful plastic product.
• 1897 – Two German researches developed Galalith, a type of plastic that is still in use today (mostly as plastic buttons).
• 1908 - Jacques E. Brandenberger invented Celophane – light, non-reactive and easy to use plastic compound that become very successful after DuPont made it water-proof in 1927. It remains widely used even today.
• 1909 –New York chemist Leo H. Baekeland created first fully synthetic plastic product called Bakelite. It was received with great enthusiasm, and was used in everything, from jewelry to cars and airplanes. Original pieces of Bakelite plastics are now considered rare and precious.
• 1920s – Jewelry manufacturer Coco Chanel introduced jewelry made from Bakelite.
• 1920 – Creation of Polyvinyl chloride, or PVC. This invention brought to the close tradition of cultivating plants who gave us natural rubber. PVC is most commonly used plastic product of the modern world.
• 1925 – The term “Plastic” was introduced.
• 1927 – After patent for Bakelite expired, Catalin Corporation started producing plastic “Catalin” with the same formula as Bakelite. Their 15 new colors proved to be very successful.
• 1931 – Plexiglas, strong and transparent type of plastic was invented in two different laboratories. It instantly becomes success.
• 1938 – Chemist Roy Plunkett discovered Teflon, very durable and resistant plastic that is today most commonly used in kitchenware.
• 1939 - Nylon was created, to the relief of all women in the world.
• 1946 – After World War II, chemist all around the world improved the formulas of Catalin and Bakelite, making them obsolete.
• 1948 – ABS was made, plastic which is today used in millions of products – from Lego pieces to golf club heads, musical instruments, car parts, and piping.
• 1953 – American chemist Daniel Fox invented a new type of polycarbonate resin thermoplastic that was very durable and almost bulletproof. Named “Lexan”, this plastic became instant hit and is used even today in various modern products, such as iBook, iPod and many others.
• 1954 – Styrofoam becomes available.
• 1965 – Chemist Stephanie Kwolek develops light, extremely resistive and durable plastic compound that is today known under the name of Kevlar. Today, this plastic is used by military and police in bullet resistive protective wear.
• 1998 – Bakelite bracelet under the name of “Philadelphia bracelet" reached the price of 17 thousand dollars at Treadway/Toomey auction.

Some Important Common Facts of Chemistry

• Age of fossils and archeological excavation is determined by radioactive carbon (C14).
• Diamond has maximum refractive index and due to total internal reflection. It has lustre.
• Chloroform in sunlight forms poisonous gas 'Phosgene' (COCI2).
• To decrease the basicity of soil gypsum is used.
• In the preparation of Talcon powder theophestal mineral is used.
• Potassium chloride is most suitable for the removal of permanent hardness of water.
• To avoid melting of ice gelatine is used.
• When dry ice is heated it is directly converted in to gas.
• Saccharine is prepared from toluene.
• Cream is a type of milk in which amount of fat is increased while amount of water decrease.
• From one kilogram of honeybee 3500 calorie energy is produced.
• N2O is known as laughing gas.
• Bones contain about 58% calcium phosphate.
• Phosphine gas is used in voyage as Holmes signal.
• Chlorine gas bleaches the colour of flower due to oxidation.
• Red phosphorous is used in match industry.
• Urea contain 46% nitrogen.
• In the electroplating of vessel NH4Cl is used.
• Power alcohol is prepared from mixing pure alcohol in benzene which is used as rocket fuel.
• Artificial perfumes are prepared from Ethyl acetate.
• Urea was the first organic compound synthesised in Laboratory.
• Vinegar contains 10% acetic acid.
• Acetylene is used for light production.
• Ferric chloride is used to stop bleeding.
• Barium is responsible for green colour in fireworks.
• Cesium is used in solar cells.
• Yellow phosphorous is kept in water.
• Sea weeds contains iodine.
• During cooking maximum vitamins is lost.
• For the preparation of silver mirror, glucose is used.
• When cream is separated from milk, it's density increases.
• For artificial respiration mixture of oxygen and helium gas cylinder is used.
• In cold places, to decrease the freezing point ethylene glycol is used.
• Hydrogen peroxide is used for oil paintings.
• Sodium is kept in kerosene oil.
• The heaviest element is Osmium (Os).
• The lightest element, least dense and most reductant is lithium (Li).
• Flourine is used the most oxidising agent.
• Silver is the best conductor of electricity.
• Radon is the heaviest gas.
• Polonium has the maximum number of isotopes.
• Sulphuric acid is known as oil of vitriol.
• Noble metals - Ag, Au, Pt, Ir, Hg, Pd, Rh, Ru and Os.
• When methyl alcohol (methanol) is taken even in minute quantities, it acts as poison and serves as a cause for blindness.
• Glass makes a soluble silicate in hydrofloric acid (HF). This is the reason why hydrofloric acid is not stored in glass containers.
• The density of gold is higher than the density of mercury. So, gold drowns in mercury.
• Bisphenol A is a chemical used for progress in food packaging maternal.
• Xenon is also called stranger gas.
• If soluble substance is added to a liquid, the surface tension of that liquid is increased.
• Conversion of force nitrogen in atmosphere into nitrates is known as Nitrogen fixation.
• Picric acid is an organic compound which is used as a reagent in Laboratory.
• Bones are composed of 8% of phosphorous.
• Safety matches are made by using red phosphorous.
• Ammonium chloride is used to electroplate utensils.
• Benzene or Ether is dissolved in pure alcohol to form power alcohol, which is used as a fuel for aeroplanes.
• Milk is an emulsion.
• Platinum is also called 'White Gold'. 

Alkali Metals

Alkali Metals

Enjoy these interesting alkali metals facts and properties. Learn what makes lithium, sodium, potassium, rubidium, caesium and francium different from other metals in the periodic table of elements.

Lithium (Li)

Atomic number 3

Under normal conditions lithium is the lightest of all metals. Lithium only appears naturally as part of a compound.

Sodium (Na)

Atomic number 11

Sodium is a silvery white metal that is soft enough to be cut with a knife at room temperature.

Potassium (K)

Atomic number 19

Potassium only occurs in nature as ionic salt. It is found as part of minerals and dissolved in sea water.

Rubidium (Rb)

Atomic number 37

Rubidium was discovered in 1861. It gives a reddish violet color when burned in a a flame.

Caesium (Cs)

Atomic number 55

Caesium has a melting point of 28 °C (83 °F), is one of only five metals that are liquid at or near room temperature (the others being mercury, francium, gallium and rubidium).

Francium (Fr)

Atomic number 87

Francium was the last element discovered in nature and it is extremely rare, scientists predict that only 20 to 30 grams of it exists on Earth.

Metal Facts

Enjoy these fascinating metal facts. Metals are chemical elements that are used in a number of different ways. Read on and learn some interesting facts about metals.

• Metals are usually solid, good conductors of electricity and heat, shiny when clean, strong and malleable (meaning they can be bent and shaped).
• Gold is shiny and doesn’t corrode, this means it is a great metal for making jewelry. 
• The chemical symbol used for silver is Ag, this comes from the Latin word for silver, argentum.

• While aluminum is the most common metal found in the Earth's crust, the most common metal found on Earth is iron, mostly because it makes up such a large part of the Earth's core.

• Copper is a good conductor of electricity and is often used for making wires.

• At room temperature, mercury is the only metal that is in liquid form.

• Aluminum is a good conductor of heat and is often used to make cooking pots.

• Alkali metals such as sodium, potassium, rubidium, ceasium and francium are extremely reactive elements, just putting them in water can result in an explosion! They are carefully stored in oil to prevent this happening.
• Tungsten has a very high melting point, after carbon it has the second highest melting point of all elements.

• Metals are strong and are useful for making tools, buildings, bridges and other structures where strength is important.

• Steel is an important alloy (combination of metals) that is created from a mixture of metals, mostly iron. There are many different types of steel including stainless steel, galvanized steel and carbon steel. Steel is commonly used to make a number of products including knives, machines, train rails, cars, motors and wires.

• Bronze is a metal alloy made from copper and tin. Copper makes up the larger amount, usually between 80 to 95%.

40 Amazing Facts About the Human Body

How long does a human hair live for? What's the strongest muscle in the body? These questions and many other bizarre quandaries will be answered in this extra fascinating list of 40 amazing facts about the body you call your home!

1. The brain is more active at night than during the day. Scientists don't know yet why this is. 2. The higher your IQ, the more you supposedly dream. 3. Facial hair grows faster than any other hair on the body. 4. The nail on the middle finger grows faster than the other fingernails. 5. Fingernails grow nearly four times faster than toenails. 6. The lifespan of a human hair is 3 to 7 years on average. 7. The acid in your stomach is strong enough to dissolve zinc. It doesn't destroy the stomach because the stomach walls constantly renews itself. 8. Women's hearts beat faster than men's. 9. Women blink twice as many times as men do. 10. Women are born better smellers than men and remain better smellers over life. 11. Men burn fat faster than women by a rate of about 50 calories a day. 12. Men get hiccups more often than women. 13. A man has approximately 6.8 liters of blood in the body while women have approximately 5 liters. 14. The largest cell in the body is the female egg and the smallest is the male sperm. 15. During your lifetime, you will produce enough saliva to fill two swimming pools. 16. Babies are born with blue eyes more than any other color. The melanin in their eyes needs time to be fully deposited or to be darkened by ultraviolet light to reveal the baby's true eye color. 17. Men have erections every hour to hour and a half during sleep. This is because the combination of blood circulation and testosterone production can cause erections during sleep and are a necessary part of REM sleep. 18. After eating too much, your hearing is less sharp. 19. If your saliva cannot dissolve or mix with food, you will not be able to taste that food (try tasting something after drying off your tongue). 20. Noise causes the pupils of your eyes to dilate. Even very small noises can do this. 21. Everyone has a unique smell, unique fingerprint and unique tongue print. 22. By age 60, most people will have lost half their taste buds. 23. Your eyes remain the same size after birth but your nose and ears never stop growing. 24. A simple, moderately severe sunburn burns the blood vessels extensively. 25. We are about 1cm taller in the mornings than in the evenings. 26. The strongest muscle in the body is the human tongue. 27. The hardest bone in the human body is the jawbone. 28. The hands and feet contain almost half of the total bones in the human body. 29. About 32 million bacteria call every inch of your skin home, but they are mostly harmless and some of them are even helpful. 30. Humans shed and regrow outer skin every 27 days. 31. Three hundred million cells die in the human body every minute. Every day an adult produces 300 billion new cells. 32. The colder the room you sleep, the higher the chances are that you would get a nightmare. 33. Humans are the only species that produce emotional tears. 34. All babies are color blind at birth, they see only black and white. 35. The only part of your body that has no blood supply is the cornea in the eye. It gets its oxygen directly from air. 36. A normal human being can survive 20 days without eating but can survive only 2 days without drinking. 37. It is impossible to kill yourself by choking yourself with your hands. 38. Everybody has one strong eye and one weak eye. 39. Your skeleton keeps renewing itself every ten years which means that every ten years you get a new skeleton. 40. The human feet have 500,000 sweat glands and can produce more than a pint of sweat a day.

The Female Body

The Reproductive System

The female body is incredible. The following list describes the events in a female's body that enable her to bear children.

• At birth, a girl baby has about 400,000 immature eggs, or ova, in her ovaries.
• During puberty the eggs begin to mature. Each month one egg ripens and leaves the ovary. It passes through a fallopian tube where, if not fertilized by a sperm, it disintegrates. The uterus, which has built up tissue and blood to make a nourishing nest for the egg, sheds its lining about a week after the egg disintegrates. This is the event known as menstruation, or the menstrual period.
• Gestation begins when an egg that has been released from the ovary is fertilized by a sperm. The result is pregnancy and the eventual birth of a child.
• Lactation is the production of milk in a woman's breasts to feed her newborn child.
• Menopause is when a woman's ovaries gradually stop functioning. Menstruation ceases, and this marks the end of the years that she can bear children.

From Girl To Woman: How Your Body Changes

The passage from girl to woman is called puberty. It begins for girls anywhere from age 8 to 16; the average age is 11. What happens to your body during puberty?

• You experience a growth spurt. Sometimes your arms, hands, legs, and feet may seem to grow faster than the rest of your body. (But don't worry-that clumsy feeling will pass.)
• Your internal reproductive system matures: your ovaries and uterus grow larger.
• Secondary sex characteristics appear: budding breasts and the growth of pubic hair. It's common for one breast to begin developing before the other.
• The shape of your body begins to change, typically becoming softer and more rounded. Your fat-to-muscle ratio increases. You will probably notice some more fat around your hips, bottom, stomach, and legs.
• Hormonal changes bring an increase in perspiration and oily skin. That's why pimples can start occurring at this time.
• You begin your menstrual periods. The first menstrual periods are often light and irregular. You may menstruate once, then not again for several months. A menstrual period occurs every 25 to 35 days (the average is 28 days). Bleeding lasts 3 to 7 days. Menstruation is a sign that you are able to get pregnant.

Rites Of Passage

Getting your period is a sign of maturity or coming-of-age-a cause for celebration! In America, coming-of-age ceremonies are rare because many girls are raised to think that they should talk about their periods only in private. Recently, some American families have tried to change this by honoring a girl's first period with a special dinner, a card of congratulations, or even a candlelit ceremony. But for hundreds of years, many cultures have publicly celebrated menstruation, acknowledging it as an important sign of female maturity and fertility-without which human life would come to an end!

Native American Ceremonies

• Among the Navajo there is a coming-of-age ceremony called kinaalda. Young girls run footraces to show their strength. They also bake a huge cornmeal pudding for the whole community to taste. During the ceremony girls wear special clothing and arrange their hair to imitate the goddess Changing Woman.
• The Nootka Indians of the Pacific Northwest consider a girl's first period a time to test her physical endurance. She is taken way out to sea and left there. She must then swim back to shore on her own, where she is greeted and cheered by the whole village.
• The Mescalero Apaches consider the female puberty ceremony a most important celebration in their tribe. Each year an eight-day event honors all girls who started their period that year. It begins with four days of feasting and dancing. Boy singers recount the tribe's history with songs each night. A four-day private ceremony follows, in which the girls reflect on the changes in their bodies and their passage into womanhood.

Australia

Among the Aborigines of Australia, a girl is treated to the tradition of "love magic" when she gets her first period. The women of the tribe sing and teach her about the female powers and the physical changes that mark womanhood.

Japan

When a Japanese girl gets her first period, her family throws a big party. Family and friends are invited but are not told why they are celebrating. When the girl's family brings out a tray bearing a decorated pear, a candied apple, or red-colored rice and beans, the secret reason for the party is revealed.

Micronesia

The tribe of Ulithi calls a girl's rite of passage kufar. When a girl begins her first period, she must go to a menstrual house. She is joined by women of the village, who bathe her and recite magic spells. She will always return to the menstrual house during her period.

Nigeria

The Tiv tribe literally mark a girl at the time of her first period. Four lines are cut into her abdomen. The remaining scars represent her womanhood and are thought to make her more fertile.

Sri Lanka

When a girl gets her first period in Sri Lanka, the exact time and day are noted. An astrologer is consulted who predicts many things about the girl's future based on the time and the alignment of the stars. The family then prepares their house for a ritual bathing, in which the women of the family wash the girl's hair and scrub her all over. She then puts on new white clothes from her underwear to her shoes. Printed invitations are sent for a party where gifts and money are presented to the girl.

7 Truly F*cked Up Things About Sex You Probably Didn’t Know About

Sex is fascinating. It can also be gross, weird, pleasurable, awful, or just straight-up boring. You never know what you’re going to get until you’re in it. That’s why we love it so much. Oh, and orgasms, too. We love the orgasms.

But twisted in all the good, and sometimes bad stuff is the weird stuff. Like the stuff that when you find out about it you can’t help but shrink into your seat and mumble, “What the effing eff?” You jerk back from whatever source has informed you of this news and cringe in both disgust and wonder, all at the same time.

For example, did you know your nose is affected by nookie? Your nose is probably the last thing you think about when you’re getting it on, but just like your vagina and his penis, your nose also swells in size. Because of this, an orgasm can clear out any congestion you might have thanks to those open nasal passageways.

And, did you know sex can actually be lifesaving? Just ask female ferrets. When she doesn’t have sex when she’s in heat, she can actually die.

If you’re not sure what I’m talking about, then here are seven examples of WTF sex things that you need to know.

1. Female ejaculation is just pee after all.

The actual “stuff” that comes out of a woman when she ejaculates, or “squirts,” as they say, has long been a mystery. Is it pee? Is it a discharge from an internal river that runs deep in the female uterus, but has yet to be detected by doctors? Whatever could it be?! Well, as scientists announced last week, it is pee.

The study of “squirters” found that all the female participants had empty bladders before they reached arousal, but then “urine collected just before squirting showed that the bladder was filling up.” After the women had squirted, their bladders were empty again and urine samples proved that there is no longer a mystery behind this whole squirting thing. It is urine.

2. Your nose is affected when you have sex.

Your nose is probably the last thing you think about when you’re getting it on, but just like your vagina and his penis, your nose also swells in size. Because of this, an orgasm can clear out any congestion you might have thanks to those open nasal passageways.

3. Different things arouse women’s brains and vaginas.

Although you may think that Channing Tatum is turning you on, your vagina might not agree. In fact, your vagina might be thinking Seth Rogen is the man of the hour. Yikes.

A 2009 study found that what women want and what they think they want, don’t always overlap. Queen’s University psychology professor, Meredith Chivers, took a large group of both men and women, attached their genitals to plethysmographs (it measures internal arousal) and showed them a bunch of different porn to see which ones got women all hot and bothered. Straight women reported no arousal during gay porn scenes or even scenes of chimps having intercourse, however, their vaginas, on the other hand, responded in the affirmative. Of course, this doesn’t mean women want to have sex with chimps, but is does mean that female sexuality is comprised of two separate systems: physiological and the subjective.

4. Sex can actually be lifesaving.

Although this may not pertain to you, specifically, studies have found that if a female ferret doesn’t have sex when she’s in heat, she can actually die. So, the next time you yell out, “If I don’t get laid soon, I’m going to die!” know that for some this is totally a very true statement.

5. Fat men last longer.

In 2010 some Turkish researchers found that the way to get men to last longer in bed is to pump them full of greasy pizza and fries. According to the study, men with some extra love on them could last an average of 7.3 minutes, whereas thin guys had an average time of 108 seconds – less than two minutes. So don’t just eat half the pie of pizza, eat the whole pie, boys.

6. Sex makes your boobs bigger.

If you’re self-conscious about your breasts being on the small side (and you shouldn’t be!), you should take solace in the fact that during sex they can grow up to 25% in size. Between the increase in your heart rate and blood pressure, your breasts swell right up, making what’s usually a handful more than that.

7. More sex means more income.

A 2013 study of Greek households found that those who were having sex more than four times a week were making bank at work compared to those who weren’t getting it on so often. While having sex may seem like the best way to secure that next promotion, it should be noted that happier people have more sex… and money helps to make them happy, and vice versa; it all goes hand-in-hand.

21 Weird Things Men Don’t Know About The Female Body

1. One breast is always larger than the other. It’s usually a small enough difference to not be noticeable. But no woman has equal-sized breasts.

2. According to some scientific research, the attractiveness of a woman’s child is heavily dependent on what she eats during pregnancy. (So don’t use pregnancy as an excuse to eat whatever you want ladies!)

3. The part of the brain that shows arousal during sex also shows a similar arousal in some women while they’re thinking about food. Especially when they have food cravings.

4. Contrary to popular belief women may experience multiple orgasms, while men always need time between orgasms.

5. Some women are born with two uterus or two vaginas. It may not be easily noticeable at first but if weird menstrual cycles or excessive bleeding occurs it may be a sign.

6. If you’re wondering why your girlfriend always brings things up from the past, it’s because women’s brains have been shown to have greater recall and memory than men’s.

7. Evolutionary biologists claim that it is natural for women to seek men because of attractiveness and resources. (While men mostly seek youth and attractiveness.)

8. You might know that women live longer than men, on average. But do you know why? Some studies suggest that women are generally more likely to lead a healthier lifestyle. But there have also been studies suggesting that women’s bodies are naturally better at fighting disease. And some even suggest this is especially true for women who have been child bearers.

9. A man who smells good is perceived as more attractive by women. Something about our hormones kicking in, and our senses going crazy over it.

10. Women more easily trust a person who hugs them for more than 15 seconds. You can’t make this stuff up but does anybody else think that is an extra long time for a hug?

11. Women over 40 are generally quicker at achieving orgasm than women under 40.

12. For up to 75 percent of women, clitoris stimulation is actually what makes them achieve an orgasm.

13. The only purpose of the clitoris is to bring women pleasure. It has no other functional value for the female body.

14. Women crave sex in the summer more than they do in any other seasons due to the season’s scents! (Weird because I always thought winter, being cold and all, would be the best time to mate.)

15. A woman’s egg is fertile between 24 and 48 hours and sperm can live up to 48 hours or longer in the a woman’s body. Yes, you read that right.

16. Because men are especially attracted to fertile women, women who take birth control can actually be perceived as less attractive. Studies suggest that men’s biology picks up on this due to changes in a woman’s odor and changes in pitch.

17. Whether the hymen is present in a woman has little do with virginity. There are many ways it can be broken, including something as innocent as horseback riding!

18. A woman’s clitoris grows all throughout at her life and when she hits menopause it actually becomes almost 3 times as large as when she was a teenager. Maybe that explains why women over 40 experience more orgasms?

19. Some studies suggest that orgasms may actually cause women to experience less menstrual cramping. So I guess there’s one reason to have period sex?

20. Women need to go easy on the razors downstairs because shaving the pubic area completely has been correlated to increased chances of spreading an STI.

21. Studies show that unlike men, who only listen with the left side of their brain, women listen with both sides of their brain. Well, this explains a lot. #amiright ladies?