Toronto, Canada
Clench your fist and look at its size---this is approximately the size of your heart. Our heart works diligently every minute and second to support our life, but don't take it for granted, as the 12 fun facts below will impress you with the diligence of our life source.
1. A healthy heart valve is about half the size of a coin. The heart valve grows between the atrium and the ventricle, between the ventricle and the aorta, acting as a one-way valve to ensure the unidirectional movement of blood flow and the heart's normal function.
2. The world's first pacemaker plugs directly into the wall socket. In 1958, the world's first pacemaker was successfully implanted in Sweden, with a lifespan of 10 years.
3. A happy and outgoing personality can significantly reduce the risk of heart disease. These personalities help reduce stress, enrich imagination, and increase people's willingness to communicate with doctors or others to improve their health.
4. The first heartbeat of people starts at the 4th week of the embryo. The first beat of the heart is driven by the first heart cell.
5. The blue whale has the most enormous heart in the world, weighing 1,500 pounds. Blue whales are thought to be the largest animals known to have ever lived on Earth, reaching up to 33 meters in length and weighing up to 181 tons.
6. The invention of the stethoscope aims entirely at avoiding embarrassment. The stethoscope is mainly composed of a pickup part (chest piece), a conduction part (hose), and a listening part (ear piece). Before that, doctors had to directly auscultate the patient's chest with their ears.
7. The oldest example of heart disease is found in a 3,000-year-old mummy.
8. Our heart is divided into left and right halves. The right heart pumps blood to the lungs, while the left pumps blood to the whole body. More specifically, the heart is made up of the myocardium with four chambers: the left atrium, the left ventricle, the right atrium, and the right ventricle.
9. Our heart is such an industrious organ that it beats about 100,000 times a day. An average adult's heart pumps 1.5 gallons of blood (about 5.7 liters) per minute. If a person's life expectancy is 70 years old, then the heart beats nearly 2.6 billion times in their whole lifetime.
10. Being far worse than cancer, heart disease is the greatest threat to human health. For example, coronary heart disease can lead to sudden cardiac arrest, which can cause death in minutes if left untreated.
11. Heart cancers are rare, mainly because cardiomyocytes are non-regenerating cells that stop dividing early in life.
12. In addition to dietary adjustments and regular exercise, stress management is also vital in maintaining a healthy heart.
For the sake of all the work our heart has done, taking care of it is the least we can do to help. From now on, let us pay a hearty greeting to our hearts by eating healthy, exercising regularly, and dealing with our stress every day!
Always be hearty - check out more amazing events at STEM -E!
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