“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as if nothing were a miracle. The other is as if everything were a miracle.“-Albert Einstein
At this time of year, many of us meditate on miracles. Hanukah and Christmas are winter holidays that focus on ancient miraculous events, while for some, the solstice itself (the long night that signifies the transition from the end of the year to the beginning of a new year cycle) is the only miracle that we must recognize. . In that sense, I want to recognize the many miracles that we all have within us. It’s time to focus on your wonders.
The miraculous intelligence of the body.
The human body is made up of between 37 and 100 trillion cells; Even the lowest number suggests that there are 75 times more cells in the human body than there are stars in the Milky Way. Every second billions of chemical reactions occur in the body, all coordinated with each other. Many cells can produce more than 1,000 reactions per second, and each cell knows what the others are doing.
As an individual, I can barely walk and chew gum at the same time, but my incredible body effortlessly coordinates trillions of actions and interactions every second. My body has the ability to simultaneously turn a hamburger into blood and bones, wage war against infections, produce billions of new cells, create an entirely new human being, track the phase of the moon, and maybe even imagine a world happier. This is multitasking on a grand scale!
If I could be as strong as my bones
When human bones are healthy, they are among the strongest structures imaginable:
– Your bones are twice as hard as granite.
– Your bones are 4 times stronger than concrete when stretched.
– Despite this incredible strength, your bones are approximately 5 times lighter than steel.
Wonders about you: your amazing insight
Our body’s sensitivity to its environment is also something amazing to behold. Here are some surprising facts about our senses:
– The human eye can process 36,000 data per hour and distinguish 10 million different colors and 500 shades of gray. The eye is so sensitive that if the Earth were flat, you could see a flickering candle 30 kilometers away.
– The human ear can distinguish half a million different tones between frequencies from 20 to 20,000 Hz.
– Human beings have 5 to 6 million odor-detecting cells, which allows us to detect more than a billion different odors. Approximately 75% of human emotions are triggered by smell.
– The skin contains more than 4 million sensory receptors and science has determined that a human finger can distinguish textures as small as 13 nanometers in width. This means that on a smooth surface, humans can feel large molecules and single-celled organisms.
– Human beings have up to 10,000 taste buds and our mouth is home to up to 200 different species of bacteria.
Be amazed at the body’s capabilities.
Sometimes I wish I could fix things as efficiently as my body does. Every day, our DNA experiences up to 100,000 breaks per cell, the vast majority of which are corrected spontaneously. Within the skeleton, there are 42 billion living cells buried in the bone that communicate with each other, known as “osteocytes.” Osteocytes detect where weak bone needs to be repaired and where new bone needs to be laid down. Right now, there are 2 million skeletal zones where pieces of old bone are broken down and new ones are created.
The body also does a better job of communicating and developing relationships than I do. Bone cells communicate with each other through a network of small vessels the same magnitude as the neural network of the brain, which contains 23 trillion connections that, placed end to end, are equivalent to 175,000 kilometers in length, a distance more than half the way to the moon! And these connections are by no means limited to the body’s own cells: the vast majority of cells in the human body are not human cells, they are bacterial cells, and we get along quite well with these 100 trillion or so neighbors.
And there are more wonders from you because, essentially, everything in the universe, including you, is recycled stardust dating back 13 billion years. The way I look at it, it took billions of years to create my magnificent body, so I pray to all the Divine forces that I use it well in the new year and in all the years that follow.
“The cosmos is within us. We are made of star stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.-Carl Sagan
