September 11th, 2007

We are all made of flesh and bones. Our bodies are held together by the skeleton, which is a piece of wonder in itself. Let’s talk about them fascinating bones, shall we. There are quite a few biology facts on human body at sciensational.



Let’s begin with this one:

The smallest bone in the human body is the stapes or stirrup bone located in the middle ear. It is approximately .11 inches (.28 cm) long.

We may owe all our hearing to this wonderful little bone shaped like a stirrup, because it transmits sound vibrations through our hearing system!

There are about 206 bones in a grown-up’s body. But more than half of them are located just in our hands and feet! In fact, one quarter of our bones are in the feet alone. It’s hardly surprising, isn’t it, since most of our lives are spent using these body parts more often than any other.

Another remarkable thing is that when we’re born, we have somewhere around 300 to 350 bones to begin our little lives with. So where do the rest go as we grow up? Well, they don’t go anywhere, except that sometime around the age between 12 and 14, some of our smaller bones, kind of, get together and blend into larger, big and stronger bones!

Speaking of stronger bones, here’s another sciensational biology fact:



Human thigh bones are stronger than concrete.

Yup, that’s the thigh bone, or the Femur bone as it is called – the biggest and strongest bone in our body. It is easily capable of lifting or supporting 30 times its own volume and weight! Now that’s got to be stronger than concrete, eh?

Apart from having more bones as infants, another interesting baby fact is that the little small ones don’t have kneecaps! Well, actually they do but their kneecaps have not yet turned into hard bones, and are still soft cartilage (remember a previous post about that?). These softie kneecaps gradually harden into bones (the process is called ossification.)

So, as we fill our brains with these bone facts, let’s remember that our brain is so generously protected by our skull, which itself is made of no less than 30 bones! So much for calling someone a bone-head!

