The Insane Biology of: Humans

People don't believe me when I say humans are 'designed' to run. We are amazing runners, and everyone has the ability to if they trained. Humans were able to catch prey due to our endurance and ability to span difficult terrain.

I live in Colorado at 6,000 ft above sea level, where the oxygen is just 16 percent but I've never felt physically strained or short of breath because of it. I only realized how different it was when my friends from Missouri couldn't keep up when we went running the first day before they adjusted. It just goes to show how incredibly adaptable our bodies are for different environments!

The greatest human trait is our wonder. " I wonder what happens if I....." That phrase has changed the world.

One of the greatest Canadian heroes was Terry Fox. He tried to run across Canada to raise money for cancer research after cancer took his leg. He averaged almost a marathon a day for 143 days on one leg, before his cancer came back and he was forced to quit halfway. Truly a legend.

Almost drowned twice in my life. Once I jumped into a place called Blue Hole in a local river. It was a large deep clear spot in an otherwise dry river. I decided to go to the bottom as it looked close. It wasn't. I was fit then too and could hold my breath underwater across a large public pool at the time. But this was deeper than it looked and near the bottom I realized my breath was gone and started up. On the way I was forced to release my breath and I was only half way up. I wanted SO bad to breath in and almost did but would have drowned so I just kept going and calmed myself and started a better faster yet easier non panic way of swimming up. Made it ...barely. Scared the crap out of me. Never tried that again.

It's so rare nowadays to find content that makes you feel proud of being a human, instead of shaming you for being one

People severely underestimate how massive an evolutionary advantage sweating actually is and how persistent and industrious it allows us to be.

As a long distance hiker I've always been amazed at what my fellow hikers and I can do. I've done 63 miles in 21 hours (100 km), I have one friend who managed 72 in 24 hrs. Two other friends who completed a Triple Crown ( Appalachian Trail, Continental Divide Trail, and Pacific Crest Trail) in 8 months. They averaged 45 miles a day on trail. It's pretty incredible what the human body can do.

"It is a shame for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength which his body is capable of." ~ Socrates

I work at a lithium mining project in the Andes at 4500 m of altitude. I've been doing it for years and still get some headaches the first day when I get there. It's amazing all the hard work the locals can do without even sweating, when I try doing half of what they do I end up panting like a race dog in a heat wave. But if I go to Buenos Aires at sea level and play a football game felt like I had the endurance of a semi pro. That's neat.

Humans are such fascinating creatures, i wonder what it must feel like to be one

I remember listening to an NPR broadcast that covered human perspiration being our most powerful physiological advantage over ALL other animals. Our sweat system allows us to be capable of running for hours, and scientists believe that early humans would literally chase prey until it became so exhausted it couldn't flee or fight anymore. Healthy human athletes can run for greater distances without stopping than horses. Indigenous Americans of the Hope tribe cover over 100 miles per day on foot.

We think of animals that have freakishly extreme adaptations; like cheetahs and giraffes; but we've taken brains to that extreme level of adaptation. One of the reasons human childbirth is so difficult is the size of babies brains. And they're still born so early they are utterly helpless. We literally have 'bet the farm' on brains.

As a person that walks all day for their job (15,000+ steps a day) I can attest that human endurance is incredibly efficient, and so easy? Like I went from 1,000 steps a day to 15,000, and after only two weeks of my feet hurting I got used to it. Humans are incredible!!

One thing people often overlook about humans when comparing to other animals is our acrobatic ability. While there are some animals that obviously have much more power in their jump, good luck finding an animal that can do a 60 foot gainer off a cliff into perfect water entry, to say nothing of gymnastics routines on springboard floors, or a precision side flip onto a 10 inch ledge. Peak human aerial prowess is undefeated.

It's massively underrated how important the human foot is to our entire body and mechanics. The most advanced piece of technology ever put in a shoe, is the human foot. It's a dense complex of different connective tissues, muscles, and nerves with an incredible amount of articulation, sensitivity, and reactivity. The way our entire body works is like a house of cards balanced on top of the functions that our feet perform, severing our foot's connection to the ground and letting it atrophy and degenerate inside the shoes most people use are a massive reason we start losing mobility and getting pains.

I'm surprised you didn't mention the benefits (especially as they pertain to our origins in Africa) of humans' ability to sweat! We are perhaps the best sweaters of the animal kingdom–if I remember correctly, horses are the closest competitors to us in this field. It's sweating that truly makes us elite runners (although obviously bipedalism, foot shape/joint setup, and other factors contribute). The ability of a human to run 26.2 miles in under two hours is perhaps one of the greatest distance feats in natural history!

Run everyday for two weeks. The first 5 days, you'll feel like you're dying. It'll get easier after that. By the two week point, you'll likely be able to do the same run that made your lungs burn while just straining above resting heart rate. It's an amazing feeling.

And yet by far the most impressive fact about humans is how good we are at endurance running. It's just insane that we can run for days on end and still be fine. Endurance hunting was a big part of our evolution, you run after your prey until it can't walk anymore and then kill it. Some tribe in Africa still do it

The thing about humans is that while we may not be the BEST at a lot of things, we're GOOD at just about everything. We're the ultimate generalists. No other animal has the broad physical skill set, sensory reception, environmental tolerances and overall adaptability that we do.