20 Amazing and Interesting Facts about Tears | Amazing Facts 4U

1. Everyone starts life with that first cry. As you grow up, you still produce about 200 ml of tears a day, even if you never or rarely cry.
2. Although babies have the same instinct to cry to satisfy their needs, each culture’s socialization processes lead to different ways of crying as an older child or adult.
3. The film of tears on the eye is a complex system, in fact consisting of three layers of oil, water, and mucus. The water layer is the thickest and contains electrolytes like sodium and potassium, proteins (mostly enzymes), glucose, and other substances. Various facts in the outer oil layer slow evaporation.
4. The specific composition of tears may change day today.
5. The lacrimal glands that secrete tears are located on the outer portion of the upper eyes. They are peanut-sized. blinking spreads the tears across the eye surface. Tears drain into the tiny openings in the eyelids, called puncta (one on the inside corner of each lid), and then through ducts to the nasal cavity, where you either swallow them or they become part of nasal fluid.
6. Besides lubricating the eye and flushing away debris, tears also serve the function of delivering oxygen and nutrients and removing waste products. Tears also improve the image that forms on the retina by smoothing any irregularities on the surface of the eyeball.
7. Tears also serve as a defense mechanism. The antibodies, enzymes, and other immune components in tear help protect the eyes against microorganisms.
8. There are three types of tears. Continuous (or basal) tears are produced for basic eye function, such as lubrication. Reflex (or irritant) tears occur when the eye is exposed to excessive light, the cold, wind, a foreign body, or irritating food like cut onions. Psychogenic tears are shed for emotional reasons.
9. Crying is a way to communicate needs and elicit attention from others, at least in early life, and maybe a means of releasing emotional tension. As per research, psychogenic tears differ in composition from other tears, and crying may be a way to rid the body of stress-related chemicals.
10. Boys and girls cry in equal frequency. Women reportedly cry more than men.
11. When a person cries and the first drop of tears comes from the right eye, it’s happiness. But when the first tears come from the left, it’s pain.
12. Emotional tears actually contain leucine encephalin, a natural painkiller.
13. A baby who cries for more than 3 hours a day, more than 3 days a week, for more than 3 weeks may have abdominal colic.
14. The ducts that drain tears from your eyes can become blocked due to aging, infection, inflammation, injury, tumor, or cyst causing symptoms of excessive tearing and watery eyes.
15. In certain neurological conditions, crying along with laughing can be uncontrolled. The condition is called pathological laughing and crying (PLC). Laughter or sobbing can occur at inappropriate times. PLC can appear as a symptom of stroke, Alzheimer’s disease, multiple sclerosis, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis(ALS).
16. All vertebrates i.e. animals with backbones that spend time on land have continuous tears and perhaps reflex tears. Humans are the only animals that also have emotional tears. There are also reports of elephants shedding tears in grief.
17. Syn-propanediol-S-oxide is the chemical released by onions in the air which irritates the eyes making lacrimal glands release more tears. New Zealand researchers have been able to produce tearless onions by inhibiting the gene that makes this chemical.
18. If tear production declines or tears evaporate too quickly, the result is dry eye. Inflammation may play a role. Besides causing burning or grittiness, dry eye syndrome can cause blurry vision and can potentially damage the eye.
19. Tears have the same composition as saliva made up of proteins, salt, and hormones.
20. A woman’s tears amazingly send a particular chemical signal to men which causes a dip in male sexual arousal, which is an involuntary yet interesting means of nonverbal communication between the sexes.

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~ By Amazing Facts 4U Team

20 Amazing and Interesting Facts about Socrates | Amazing Facts 4U

1. A philosopher by profession, Socrates can rightly be called the father of Western thought. He hailed from ancient Greece.
2. It was around 470 BC when Socrates was born in Athens, Greece. He was executed in 399 BC.
3. Socrates’ father was Sophroniscus, a sculptor and stonemason from Athens and his mother was a midwife by the name of Phaenarete.
4. He received basic Greek education because he did not belong to a noble family and hence, he learned the skills of his father at a very early age.
5. Before turning a philosopher, Socrates took up masonry and sculpting as his profession for several years.
6. Socrates didn’t write anything. No record of his writings exist.
7. Whatever information exists today is a result of some of the records that were kept by his disciples Xenophon and Plato.
8. Xanthippe was Socrates’ wife. The two had three children by the names Menexenus, Sophroniscus, and Lamprocles. She was not happy with the ‘philosopher’ profession of Socrates.
9. Socrates was far more interested in the intellectual upbringing of the young minds of Athens rather than looking after the upbringing of his own sons.
10. Socrates was the teacher of Plato, who in turn was the teacher of Aristotle.
11. The primary emphasis of Socrates was on the importance of the mind and not on physical attractiveness.
12. Socrates always believed that if anything could improve the well-being of society, it was none other than philosophy.
13. His way of thinking led him to believe that attaining true wisdom is the only way to create a government that is neither a democratic government nor a tyrannical government. He always believed that the government required individuals with greater understanding and knowledge.
14. There was no fixed classroom for Socrates as such. He traveled all across Athens and questioned common and elite men alike in order to find out the truth about ethics and politics.
15. He invented a new style of conversation which is now referred to as the “Socratic Method.” This involved asking lots of questions until finally reaching an answer, rather than simply conveying information. This was based on his philosophy that “true wisdom is drawn from knowing that you know nothing” and is why he was accused of corrupting the entire social system.
16. Socrates challenged the conventional wisdom of Greek and adopted a humorous path for the same and in the process had some enemies who hated his philosophy.
17. Socrates was charged for questioning the existence of the gods and he was also charged for corrupting the youth of the city. He was put on trial where he was convicted to death. He lost his case by 280 votes against and 221 votes for him.
18. According to Athenian law, any convicted person could ask for an alternative punishment. Socrates made things worse by asking for honor, rewards, and payments for the services he rendered to the people in an attempt to enlighten them instead of asking for exile.
19. Socrates’ demand forced the jury to sentence him to death by hemlock poisoning.
20. After being sentenced to death, many of Socrates’ friends asked him to flee to exile by offering to bribe the guards but he declined. He instead said that despite the fact that the Athenian law sentenced him to death, he was still a loyal citizen of Athens and would happily accept his death. He drank a hemlock poison mixture without the slightest hint of hesitation.

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30 Amazing and Interesting Facts about Radiation | Amazing Facts 4U

1. Radiation is the energy that comes from a source and travels through space. When this energy passes into the body, either by penetrating skin or being swallowed or inhaled, it may be harmful. Whether the radiation is ionizing or non-ionizing will influence the health risks.
2. Sources of ionizing radiation include nuclear weapons handling and detonation, nuclear plants, x-rays, etc.
3. Non-iodizing radiation is low-energy radiation that includes radiation from sources such as sunlight, microwaves, radio frequencies, radar, and sonar.
4. Radium, a radioactive element was discovered by Marie Curie who in fact died from radiation exposure.
5. Millirem is 1/1000 REM, a unit to measure radiation.
6. The loss in life expectancy from a 1 millirem dose is about 1.2 minutes, equivalent to crossing the street three times, taking three puffs on a cigarette, 10 extra Calories for an overweight person.
7. Nuclear power plants are very safe. In fact, the safety limit for exposure is just 5 millirem.
8. The average radiation exposure due to medical diagnostic procedures is about 80 millirem per year.
9. People in America living near coal-fired power stations are exposed to higher radiation doses than those living near nuclear power plants.
10. Chest X-ray gives off about 30 millirems of radiation.
11. The average person absorbs about 300 millirems of radiation per year in total from background sources.
12. 1% of static on an untuned analog TV is from cosmic background radiation from the Big Bang.
13. The thorium-rich sands of Kerala, India give off 380 millirems per year, and similar sands in Guarapari, Brazil give locals an amazing 600 millirems per year.
14. Residents of Denver, Colorado get about four times as much cosmic radiation as those in who live at sea level, giving them an extra 115 millirems of radiation per year.
15. The Manhattan Project secretly tested the effects of radiation on its own citizens, including injecting pregnant women with radioactive mixtures and feeding children radioactive oatmeal. In the end, about 1,400 children died due to these experiments.
16. During the Manhattan Project, a man was injected with Plutonium without his knowledge or consent and he survived it for 20 years, eventually surviving the highest radiation dose known for any human.
17. Bananas are slightly radioactive and eating a banana exposes a person to radiation.
18. Because of the amount of granite used in its construction, the Grand Central Station of New York City produces more radiation than what is allowable at a nuclear power plant.
19. Astronauts on the Apollo missions reported seeing flashes and streaks of light when they closed their eyes. This was later confirmed to be caused by cosmic radiation bombarding their retinas while outside of the Earth’s magnetosphere.
20. All the American flags placed on the moon are now white due to radiation from the sun.
21. In the 1950s, there was a toy called the Gilbert U-238 Atomic Energy Laboratory that came equipped with low-level radiation sources and four Uranium-bearing ore samples. It sold for $49.50. The product stayed on the market for only about a year between 1950 and 1951.
22. The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant disaster was huge. It is still giving off radiation, and that there is a high chance of the containment structure collapsing, causing huge amounts of radiation to spread out.
23. A fireman’s eyes at the Chernobyl disaster are said to have turned from brown to blue because of the intensity of the radiation he received.
24. There is a type fungi inside the Chernobyl reactors that thrives on radiation.
25. Flight crews are classified as radiation workers and some are exposed to more radiation annually than nuclear plant workers. One flight from New York to London is equivalent to one chest X-ray.
26. Smokers receive a radiation dose equivalent to about 300 chest x-rays annually due to the radioactive isotope Polonium-210 contained in tobacco smoke that comes from the ingredients of the fertilizers that are used in farming tobacco.
27. The USA originally denied that atomic bombs caused lingering radioactivity, calling such claims Japanese propaganda
28. A handful of raw uranium ore actually only has about as much radiation as 10 bananas. Banana has radiation due to potassium content.
29. The use of nuclear weapons and testing has resulted in steel contaminated with background radiation in many areas after  1945 making it unusable for many scientific and medical applications and steel made before 1945, often taken from sunken battleships, must be used instead.
30. On December 27, 2004, Earth was hit by the largest blast of radiation in recorded history. It came from a “giant flare” on a magnetar 50,000 light-years away.

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40 Amazing and Interesting Facts about Alcohol | Amazing Facts 4U

1. The production of alcohol has been traced back at least 12,000 years.
2. There are 13 minerals that are essential for human life, and all of them can be found in alcohol.
3. Most vegetables and almost all fruits contain a small amount of alcohol in them.
4. The world’s oldest known recipe is for beer.
5. The amazing fact is that the human body produces its own supply of alcohol naturally, 24 hours a day.
6. The fact is all spirits (unlike beer and wine) are originally clear and colorless. The golden brown and other colors are achieved due to the aging process.
7. Alcohol kills one person every 10 seconds worldwide.
8. At any given time, 0.7% of the world’s population is drunk. It means 50 million people are drunk right now.
9. It only takes 6 minutes for brain cells to react to alcohol. Alcohol is not digested; it gets absorbed directly into the bloodstream.
10. Alcohol doesn’t make you forget anything. In fact, when you get blackout drunk, the brain temporarily loses the ability to create memories.
11. Amazingly about half the world’s population older than 15 have never consumed alcohol.
12. Per capita, alcohol consumption is high in Russia where there are over 500,000 alcohol-related deaths each year. In fact, beer was not considered an alcoholic beverage in Russia until 2013.
13. Vodka is the world’s most popular liquor by a huge margin, with about 5 billion liters consumed every year.
14. The word brandy is derived from the Dutch word brandewijn; it means burnt wine.
15. Distilled spirits such as brandy, gin, rum, etc. contain no carbohydrates, no fats, and no cholesterol of any kind.
16. In order to make a bottle of wine, you will need to have approximately 600 grapes on hand.
17. White wine gets darker as it ages while red wine gets lighter.
18. The most beer-drinking country in the world is the Czech Republic with an amazing per capita beer consumption of almost 40 gallons a year.  Next in ranks are Germany and Ireland.
19. Heavy drinking will lead to hepatitis and the resulting irreversible liver damage will result in liver cirrhosis which could be fatal.
20. Amazingly the soil of one of the vineyards in France is considered so precious that it is mandatory for workers to scrape the soil off their shoes before they leave.
21. The pressure in a champagne bottle is amazing 90 pounds per square inch, which is 3 times the automobile tire pressure. In fact, a bottle of Champagne contains about 49 million bubbles. The popped cork from a champagne bottle can travel as fast as 60 miles per hour.
22. Japanese doctors have observed patients with “auto-brewery syndrome,” in which high levels of candida yeast in the intestines churn out so much alcohol that they can cause drunkenness.
23. People with blue eyes have been found to have higher alcohol tolerance.
24. Amsterdam pays alcoholics in beer to clean streets: 5 cans of beer for a day’s work, plus 10 Euro.
25. Alcohol is prohibited in the UK Parliament with one exception: the chancellor can drink while delivering the annual budget statement.
26. Sir Winston Churchill was one of the world’s heaviest drinkers while  Adolf Hitler was one of the world’s best-known abstainers from alcohol.
27. Abraham Lincoln held a liquor license and operated several taverns.
28. The amazing fact is that the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous demanded alcohol during the last few days of his life.
29. Alexander the Great once held a drinking contest among his soldiers. When it was over, amazingly 42 people had died from alcohol poisoning.
30. In the 1600’s thermometer used to be filled with brandy instead of mercury.
31. In 1985 there were fewer than 50 beer brewers in the US. Today there are nearly 30000.
32. The word “toast,” which means wishing good health originated in ancient Rome. A piece of toasted bread was literally dropped into wine back then.
33. Drinking a banana milkshake is a perfect cure for hangovers.
34. The phrase mind your p’s and q’s can also trace its roots back to alcohol. In England, pubs serve liquor in pint and quart sizes. If a customer became unruly, it used to be common for a bartender to tell that customer to mind their own pints and quarts. Over time, the saying was shortened and usage expanded.
35. In outer space, there exists a gigantic cloud of alcohol that can be used to produce 400 trillion pints of beer. Amazingly it extends nearly 300 billion miles across.
36. The world record for alcohol consumption is by Andre the Giant, who drank 156 beers in one sitting (over 73 liters/16 gallons).
37. As part of an advertising campaign, Molson, a Canadian beer company, strategically placed ‘beer fridges’ around Europe that only Canadian passports could unlock.
38. The amazing fact is that if an ant is drunk, a fellow comrade will carry him back to the nest to sleep off the alcohol.
39. Scientist Niels Bohr was “given a house next door to the Carlsberg brewing company, and had a pipeline running from the brewery into the house so that he could have a never-ending supply of fresh beer on tap”.
40. Amazingly even a small amount of alcohol placed on a scorpion will make it go crazy and sting itself to death.

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50 Facts About New Zealand | Amazing Facts 4U

Land &  Geography

• New Zealand is located in the south-western Pacific Ocean and features two main islands, the North Island and the South Island.
• The population of New Zealand is about 4.5 million. The capital city of New Zealand is Wellington while the largest city is Auckland. Wellington is in fact the southernmost capital city in the world.
• Amazingly a kiwi is not a fruit. It is New Zealand’s native flightless national bird and a slang term for a New Zealander. Kiwis call the fruit “kiwifruit”. They are also known as Chinese Gooseberries.
• Amazingly no part of the country is more than 128 km (79 miles) from the sea.
• Blue Lake, in Nelson Lakes National Park, has the clearest water in the world.
• There are amazingly no land snakes, native or introduced, in NZ. In fact unlike Australia, New Zealand does not have any dangerous or poisonous animals with the one tiny exception of the Katipo Spider.
• About one third of the country is protected national park.
• The kiwi, a bird native to NZ, is known for pulling windscreen wipers off cars and eating the strips of rubber from windows.
• There is a giant albino snail in New Zealand in South Island that is carnivorous.
• NZ is home to more species of penguins than any other country.
• The Hector’s Dolphin, the world’s smallest marine dolphin, which grows to a maximum length of 1.5 metres, is found nowhere else in the world but in New Zealand waters.
• A dolphin named Pelorus Jack regularly guided ships in New Zealand through treacherous waters until his disappearance in 1912.
• Amazing fact is in 2008, Henry the tuatara , reptile native to New Zealand became a father for the first time at the age of 111.
• New Zealand is in fact home to the giant weta, the heaviest insect in the world. It is heavier than a sparrow and looks like a giant cockroach.

History

• New Zealand was first discovered by Europeans in 1642 when Dutch sailor Abel Tasman arrived. He left New Zealand after several of his crew were killed by Maoris, and it was not until 1769 that English Captain James Cook arrived and mapped the land.
• The Treaty of Waitangi was in fact signed in 1840 between the British and Maori, making New Zealand a colony of the British Empire.
• Captain James Cook, the man who navigated New Zealand, is said to have discovered a cure for scurvy, a disease that results from Vitamin C deficiency, when he played around with medicines.

Places

• Lake Taupo extending to 616 square kilometres (or 238 sq miles) was formed by a super volcanic eruption 26,000 years ago which has been the largest known volcanic eruption in the world in the last 70 thousand years. It is one of the most popular tourist destinations.
• Baldwin Street, in Dunedin, is the world’s steepest street. The road has a gradient of 1 in 2.86 at its steepest section, an amazing  38 per cent grade.
• Amazing fact is Gisborne airport has train tracks running across the middle of the runway. Quite often, trains and planes have to stop until one moves out of the way.
• Ninety Mile Beach is actually only 90 km long.
• The Te Waikoropupu Springs in Golden Bay push out more fresh water than any other springs in the world, producing one to two billion litres of water a day amazing enough to supply drinking water to supply the entire population of New Zealand. Also the spring waters are the clearest natural water in the world outside of Antarctica. You can see an average of 63 metres when you look down through the water.
• Waitomo Caves in New Zealand’s Waikato region provide spectacular view of the fireflies. The Waitomo River runs underground through the caves where natural light cannot reach. Fireflies high above creates a night-sky effect with groups of fireflies looking like stars.
• The world’s first commercial bungee jump was a 43 metre leap off the Kawarau Bridge in Queenstown in 1988.
• There is a clock in Dunedin which has been amazingly running since 1864, despite never having been wound since it was made.

People Customs & Culture

• Maori are the indigenous Polynesian people of New Zealand. Only 15% of NZ’s population are Maori.
• Sign Language is amazingly one of three official languages of New Zealand.
• New Zealand is in fact a plastic nation. Almost all personal financial transactions are made with a card including taxis. Cash is very rarely used.
• NZ is the least corrupt nation in the world tied with Denmark according to the Corruptions Perception Index.
• Amazing fact is one in three Auckland households own a boat.
• It is illegal for drug companies to advertise to consumers almost everywhere in the world. The only exceptions are the US and New Zealand.
• Amazing fact is in New Zealand , students on their exams are allowed to use text-messaging language. Teachers must treat these abbreviations as standard English and may not penalize students.
• 3 dogs in New Zealand were taught to drive a modified car around a race track in an effort to show the intelligence of shelter dogs.

Politics/ Legal

• Queen Elizabeth II is officially Queen of New Zealand. She is represented in New Zealand by a Governor General, who ratifies all laws put before him or her by the elected parliament of New Zealand.
• New Zealand is one of only three countries that have two official national anthems of equal standing. The first is God Save the Queen (the English National Anthem) and the other is God Defend New Zealand. The other two countries with Royal and state anthems are Denmark and Canada.
• In 1893 New Zealand in fact became the first country in the world to give all women the right to vote.
• Amazing fact is New Zealand was the first country to have all its top positions of power held simultaneously by women in 2006: The Prime Minister (Helen Clark), the Governor General (Dame Silvia Cartwright), and the Chief Justice (Sian Elias), the Queen and the Speaker of the House of Representatives.
• It’s amazing that New Zealand was forced out of the ANZUS (Australia, New Zealand, United States) alliance in the 1980’s when it outlawed nuclear arms and power. Even today there are no nuclear power stations in New Zealand.
• New Zealand may in fact deny people residency visas if they have too much weight.
• The logo of the Royal New Zealand Air Force is the kiwi, a flightless bird which is national bird.
• There is a law that states every high school in New Zealand may hold 1 pound of uranium and 1 pound of thorium, for conducting nuclear experiments, and will be fined $1,000,000 in case of a nuclear explosion.
• New Zealand was once governed as a part of the territory of New South Wales later a part of Australia. When Australia federated in 1901, New Zealand was offered a place as one of their states. New Zealand refused. New Zealand is still listed as a state of Australia in the Australian constitution, and can join the Australian confederation if they choose to.
• NZ has banned all television advertising on Good Friday, Easter Sunday, ANZAC Day, and Christmas Day.

Economy

• Sheep outnumber humans in New Zealand 10 to 1. In fact only 5% of NZ’s population is human. The rest are animals. Dairy products are New Zealand’s highest earning exports.
• New Zealand amazingly produces 100 kg of butter and 65 kg of cheese each year per capita.
• It’s amazing that the filming of the Lord of the Rings trilogy pumped around $200 million into the country’s economy. The New Zealand government even created a Minister for Lord of the Rings, to ensure the most money could be made from the films.

Famous People

• New Zealander and Nobel Prize Winner, Ernest Rutherford is known as the father of nuclear physics.
• Sir Edmund Hillary , a New Zealander was the first man to reach the peak of Mount Everest was and his face is on the New Zealand $5 bill.

Sport

• Golf is the most popular participation sport, with more golf courses in New Zealand per capita of population than any other country in the world.
• New Zealand has won more Olympic gold medals per capita, than any other country.

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~ By Amazing Facts 4U Team

30 Amazing and Interesting Facts about Drowning | Amazing Facts 4U

1. About 1 million people around the world die by drowning every year, that is more than two persons per minute. Among them 50 % are children.
2. There are about 8 to 10 times that many who experience a drowning process but who reach safety alone or are rescued by others.
3. Every day about 10 people die due to drowning in the US. Nearly 80% of people who die from drowning are male.
4. Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) performed by bystanders has been shown to save lives and improve outcomes in drowning victims. The more quickly CPR is started, the better the chance of improved outcomes. CPR should be learned by everybody.
5. If you are caught in a rip current, swim parallel to shore. Once free of the current, swim diagonally toward shore.
6. One does not need an enormous depth of water to drown. Drowning can actually happen in as little as 12 inches (30 mm) of water.
7. Children can drown in toilets, buckets, baths, etc. An adult will usually not drown in a bucket or a toilet unless they are under the influence of alcohol or drugs.
8. Besides water people can drown in other liquids also especially in industrial establishments.
9. “Wet drowning” is a type of drowning in which the water manages to enter the lungs. In fact, the air tube is sealed the moment water enters airways preventing water from entering lungs. This is due to vocal cord and larynx constrictions. As air tube is blocked, even air cannot enter lungs making person unconscious. Once unconscious, the air tube opens and water rushes into the lungs causing death.
10. In “dry drowning” the air tube will stay shut and cause cardiac arrest and hence, death. In this case the person will die before water enters lungs. Amazingly once the person is dead, water fails to enter lungs.
11. In “secondary drowning”, a person actually inhales a small amount of liquid or water into lungs which irritate lungs, impairs gas exchange leading to pulmonary edema and eventually causes death by respiratory failure. This can happen even due to poison gases or chemical and even vomit getting inhaled!
12. Deepwater blackout is yet another type of drowning. When someone dives into water, the oxygen present in lungs is capable of producing enough pressure to keep the person conscious. But this pressure starts falling as the person ascends from the depths of water and causes latent hypoxia causing deep water blackout when the person reaches surface. The moment the person loses consciousness, he or she sinks! This is usually not a common occurrence and happens rarely usually to strong and fit swimmers.
13. We also have shallow water blackout. Just before diving or swimming, a person feels a strong urge to breathe, especially exhale. As a person exhales, CO2 level falls. Once in water, a person will not feel the strong urge to breathe in or inhale because the CO2 level is low but he or she will not realize that the brain is deprived of oxygen. He or she continues to swim only to faint all of a sudden and then sink. Most cases of shallow water blackout occur in swimming pools or shallow water bodies.
14. Drowning in saltwater usually takes longer. When a drowning person inhales salt water, the salt concentration in the lungs increases. Water from blood rushes into the lungs to dilute the saltwater. As a result, the blood thickens. When the blood thickens, the heart comes under pressure and causes cardiac arrest. This takes about 8-10 minutes.
15. Since the cardiac arrest in seawater drowning happens after 8-10 minutes, it is easier to rescue people drowning in saltwater.
16. In contrast to saltwater, drowning in freshwater gives you little time to rescue. If freshwater is inhaled, the water becomes hypotonic compared to tissues in the lungs. So, the water rushes into the cells to dilute the cells’ salt concentration. The red blood cells then burst, releasing hemoglobin which gets accumulated in kidneys, leading to acute renal failure. Freshwater is also absorbed into blood thereby diluting it and cooling the heart sufficient enough to cause hypothermia-induced cardiac arrest. This happens in just 2-3 minutes. Thus, rescuers do not get enough time to save the victims.
17. In fact, 90% of the drowning cases occur in freshwater.
18. It is a myth that a drowning person shouts and yells and calls for help. In fact, our respiratory system is designed to first breathe and then generate speech. When a person drowns, his or her mouth usually sinks below the water surface and then resurfaces in very short successions. This gives the respiratory system just enough time to concentrate on its primary function, i.e. breathing. A person tries to quickly inhale and exhale. Yelling becomes literally impossible.
19. It is also a myth that a drowning person throws out arms and legs in all possible directions. In fact, out of instinct, a drowning person will extend his or her arms laterally trying to press down on water surface and keep their mouth out of water to continue breathing. This arm movement is completely involuntary and happens on its own. So waving or throwing arms at get the attention of rescuers is literally impossible.
20. In case of true drowning, people really cannot help themselves even by reaching out for a rope or a ring thrown at them. Drowning is a very silent process contrary to what we see in movies.
21. A drowning person will usually show a few signs which most of us fail to recognize. Usually the head of the person will be low in water with mouth at the level of water and occasionally sinking in and coming out of water. Eyes will become empty and glassy and will usually lose focus. Eyes will mostly be open and the face will reflect fear. He or she will usually be gasping with hands stretched laterally. It will appear as if he or she is trying to climb up a ladder that is invisible. Legs and arms will be mostly under water.
22. Children are more susceptible to drowning. They can drown even in presence of adults right next to them! So, it is important to keep an eye on them always and look for any signs of drowning.
23. You have to be vigilant. A person next to you in water may be drowning and drown silently. Take special care when children are in water.
24. At home it is a good precaution to empty all tubs, buckets, containers and wading pools immediately after use. Store them upside down and out of children’s reach.
25. Keep toilet lids closed and use toilet seat locks to prevent drowning. It’s also a good idea to keep doors to bathrooms and laundry rooms closed.
26. We’re relatively poor swimmers when compared to other animals but we have the mammalian diving reflex. When a human’s face touches water, the airway closes, the heart rate slows, and the capillaries in the skin and extremities constrict, sending blood toward the vital organs. This serves a dual purpose of keeping the organs oxygenated and insulated from increasing water pressure. It also saps strength from the limbs for swimming. This reflex is most frequently seen in drowning children giving them a better chance of recovery than adults.
27. Due to above reflex action, the bodies of children who have been submerged for many minutes have been resuscitated with no neurological damage.
28. At a 1985 bash in New Orleans, Louisiana, party was being held to celebrate a summer where no one had drowned at any of the city’s pools. There were some 200 people in attendance, over half of which were certified, lifeguards. A further four lifeguards were also on active duty. Yet a 31-year-old Jerome Moody died in pool and nobody noticed.
29. The Dead Sea located between Israel and Jordan has so much salty water that it is too dense for a person to drown.
30. In fact, most sharks actually need to continue swimming to be able to survive. If they don’t swim all the time, then they will end up drowning.

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~ By Amazing Facts 4U Team