The why type question on your science read it all 

How much skin does the average human shed in their life?


According to a 2011 study published in the
journal Environmental Science & Technology,
we shed between 0.03- 0.09g of skin every hour
of every day. That sounds like almost
nothing, but over the course of a lifetime it
adds up to about 35kg, or roughly half your
body weight. Most of this is in the form of
tiny flakes, which make up a major constituent
of house dust.
Interestingly, the same study found that
the squalene oil on shed skin reacts with
harmful ozone in houses, offices and
aeroplanes, so dust can actually improve
the air quality.

DOES A HUMAN HEART HAVE A FINITE NUMBER


OF BEATS?



Yes. At an average of 80 beats per

minute, most of us will manage
less than four billion beats in our
lives. But you don’t die because
you run out of heartbeats; you run
out of heartbeats because you die.
Among mammals, the number
of heartbeats over the lifespan of
different species is fairly
constant. So hamsters’ hearts
beat 400 times a minute and they
live for about four years, which
is 840 million beats, while an
elephant manages 35bpm for
35 years, or about 640 million
beats in total. Those numbers are
similar, but that’s just because
animals with faster heart rates
are also smaller and more at risk
from predation and starvation.
Their lifespans have evolved
to compensate for this by
reproducing early and often –
they ‘live fast, die young’.
Heart muscle can only repair
itself very slowly, so eventually
every heart will wear out, but
it won’t do so after a specific
number of beats.

YOUR FINGERPRINTS CHANGE DURING
A LIFETIME?



The pattern of loops and whorls on your

fingerprints was fixed three months
before you were born. You can scar your
fingerprints with a cut, or temporarily
lose them through abrasion, acid or
certain skin conditions, but fingerprints
lost in this way will grow back within
a month. As you age, skin
on your fingertips becomes
less elastic and the ridges
get thicker. This doesn’t
change your fingerprint,
but it’s harder to scan or
take a print from it.


DOES MUSIC AFFECT
OUR HEART RATE?



You don’t need a scientific study to realise that a rousing

tune gets your blood pumping– and lots of studies have
measured a very definite physiological effect. 
Calming classical music lowers blood
pressure and heart rate, while pounding heavy metal raises it.
This effect is more pronounced in professional musicians, but
it affects everyone to some degree, even if you’re listening
to music that you don’t like.
It’s not clear why this happens, but it might be
something we learn in the womb.

 Foetuses can hear from the end of the second trimester
(six months into the pregnancy)
and every baby is exposed to the sound of its mother’s heartbeat.
When a pregnant mother is stressed, her heartbeat rises and
her baby may come to associate that sound with the stressed
sensation. It’s possible that ourreaction to music is a sort of
empathic memory from that
shared time.

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