6 things our body does for a reason

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Hiccups, goose bumps and wrinkles on wet fingers have a specific purpose.

1. Reaction to tickling

In the past, eminent scientists such as Charles Darwin and Francis Bacon believed that tickling had something to do with a sense of humor and a person's ability to have fun and build social bonds. However, modern researchers have concluded that this is more of an annoying sensation. Unsurprisingly, tickling was used as a form of torture in the Middle Ages.

Science considers tickling to be a protective reaction that occurs when exposed to the skin. Thanks to her, we can in time shake off all sorts of unpleasant and potentially dangerous creatures - spiders and insects.

When people lived in trees, along which furry eight-legged creatures crawled, capable of knocking an elephant down with one bite, tickling was especially relevant.

That is why, by the way, you cannot tickle yourself: the body understands that you are not a spider.

Although, in principle, with the help of a special robot, which was assembled at University College London, you can deceive your instincts and engage in self-tickling.

Tickling can also help develop fighting skills. According to psychiatrists J. C. Gregory and Donald W. Black, the most ticklish spots on the human body are those that are most vulnerable to attacks.

Psychiatrist Christine Harris argues that when parents or older siblings tickle children, they learn to break free and avoid unpleasant touches. At a time when such touches were initiated by all saber-toothed tigers, the skill was extremely useful.

2. The appearance of goose bumps

Goose bumps (otherwise - goose bumps, or piloerection) came to us from our mammalian ancestors. In those days, when people were slightly hairier than they are now, the pilomotor reflex helped them "fluff up their fur."

When there was danger, excitement or in the cold, the muscles of the hair follicles contracted, which made a person's hair literally stand on end, moreover, all over the body.

This phenomenon has had several useful uses in the past. Firstly, fluffy wool helps to warm up a little.

Secondly, thanks to her, the creature looks larger, which can plant a grain of doubt in the head of the predator: is there such a formidable-looking creature or is it better to look for smaller prey.

And thirdly, fluffy wool helps to please creatures of the opposite sex - perhaps that is why girls with luxurious hair are more popular.

Our primate cousins have furry coats such as chimpanzees and tamarins. To one degree or another, all mammals do this - even your cat.

A person, naturally, does not have enough wool to warm up and scare away predators. So now the pilomotor reflex is just a reminder that we once had fur, like all decent primates.

And yes, some people can get goosebumps of their own accord. Probably, a couple of million years ago, this would have been a very cool skill, but now you can not pay attention to this.

3. Hiccups

A common superstition is that if you hiccup, it means that someone is thinking about you right now. But in fact, hiccups are a reflex designed to remove air trapped in the stomach.

Humans and other mammals hiccup in the womb. This reflex becomes very important when the cub begins to suck milk. Thanks to him, the child can more efficiently absorb food.

Hiccups allow the infant to consume 15-25% more milk, and infants spend 2.5% of their time hiccuping (yes, someone has figured that out as well).

Interestingly, only mammals hiccup, while amphibians, birds or reptiles do not. But at the same time, amphibians have a respiratory reflex similar to hiccups - it helps tadpoles to swallow air with gills, while preventing water from entering the lungs.

There are good reasons to consider hiccups as an evolutionary relic, a variation of this very reflex, inherited by us from our amphibious ancestors. Instead of getting rid of the rudiment, mammals turned it to their advantage. Although due to hiccups sometimes there are troubles.

A man named Charles Osborne, from Iowa, has managed to cry incessantly for 68 years in a row.

He started doing this after trying to raise a pig - Charles worked in a slaughterhouse. During the first decades, Osborne hiccups 40 times a minute, but then the number of hiccups dropped to 20. Otherwise, Charles lived a completely normal life, was married and had children. He died at the age of 96.

And finally, a fun fact: there is experimental evidence that hiccups can be cured with rectal massage. Perhaps Charles would not have had to suffer for so long if he knew about it.

4. Wrinkling of the skin on the fingers

Due to prolonged exposure to water, the skin on the arms and legs becomes wrinkled. And this also has a reason.

Irregularities in the toes help people slip less on wet soil when walking. This is the conclusion reached by Tom Smulders, an evolutionary neuroscientist at the University of Newcastle, and Mark Changizi at 2AI Labs in Boise, Idaho.

In addition, Smulders experimentally proved that wrinkles on the fingers allowed better grip on wet objects. And a 2020 study confirmed this. Scientists at the University of Manchester Metropolitan University have found that, thanks to wrinkled skin, it takes about 20% less effort to grip wet objects.

Previously, it was believed that the skin swells on contact with water as a result of some kind of chemical reaction or osmosis - the penetration of liquid into the pores. However, in 1935, Drs. Lewis and Pickering found out that when some of the nerves in the fingers are damaged, they stop wrinkling. That is, this is not an accidental side effect, but a beneficial reaction of the body that appeared as a result of evolution.

Thanks to her, our ancestors climbed better on wet branches and remained stable, moving in the rain.

5. Yawning

Yawning is contagious. Some individuals are able to start yawning when they see someone else doing it. Or even just by reading this word.

There are many theories as to why people yawn. It used to be thought, that it provides an oxygen flow when the content of carbon dioxide in the blood is increased. However, experts at the University of Maryland conducted an experiment by changing the content of fresh and musty air in the room with the subjects, and realized that the frequency of yawning does not depend on oxygen.

In fact, yawning serves two purposes. First, it is used as a thermoregulatory mechanism for the brain, cooling it down when needed. Therefore, people with a cold compress on their forehead yawn much less often than usual.

Secondly, this reflex causes the person to become more alert. If you are bored, lost in your own thoughts, or dozed off, yawning will force you to come to your senses and pull yourself together. Therefore, parachutists or extreme athletes yawn in stressful situations.

Psychologically "contagious" yawning developed in humans and other collective animals as a way of keeping the group vigilant. It serves as a signal to tired pack members to stay alert.

6. Trembling

Shivering is a thermoregulatory mechanism that helps keep us warm. Skeletal muscle tissue begins to contract from the cold, and this activity helps the body generate more heat.

The command to the skeletal muscles is given by the hypothalamus - the part of the brain that connects the nervous system with the endocrine system.

It is interesting, by the way, that babies do not know how to shiver. Therefore, they suffer more from the cold than adults. The situation is somewhat corrected by the increased amount of brown adipose tissue in them, but still: leaving children in the cold is a bad idea.