Your Body, Explained
Why metal feels colder than wood, why your voice sounds wrong on tape, and what really causes dizziness, scars, and next-day soreness. 50 questions on the machine you live in.
Try 3 questions
1. When you feel dizzy after spinning in circles and stopping, what is actually happening inside your head?
- Fluid in the inner ear canals keeps moving after the head has stopped
- The eye muscles cramp briefly and cannot lock onto a fixed point
- Blood drains from the brain and takes a moment to be restored by the heart
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Answer: Fluid in the inner ear canals keeps moving after the head has stopped
The semicircular canals sense rotation via moving endolymph fluid; its inertia keeps it swirling after you stop, so the brain receives a signal of rotation that conflicts with your eyes.
2. Why does a deep cut in the skin often leave a scar while a scrape usually does not?
- Deep wounds are repaired with disorganised collagen rather than regenerated skin structure
- Deep wounds bleed more, and dried blood pigment permanently stains the tissue
- Deep wounds heal more slowly, so dirt becomes sealed under the new surface
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Answer: Deep wounds are repaired with disorganised collagen rather than regenerated skin structure
When injury passes through the dermis, the body patches it with rapidly laid, randomly aligned collagen instead of rebuilding the original lattice, hair follicles and glands.
3. A person breathes rapidly and deeply from panic and starts to feel tingling and lightheaded. The main cause is:
- Lactic acid building up because muscles are working the chest hard
- Too much oxygen in the blood overstimulating nerve endings
- Too little carbon dioxide, which narrows blood vessels to the brain
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Answer: Too little carbon dioxide, which narrows blood vessels to the brain
Hyperventilation blows off CO2, raising blood pH; the resulting alkalosis constricts cerebral vessels and alters nerve excitability, causing dizziness and tingling.
The whole quiz comes before your apps
BrainTok asks a few questions like these before the apps you choose open, so your screen time turns into learning. For iPhone.
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