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Has anybody seen Human Body: Pushing the Limits on the Discovery Channel? I know a couple of you have, mostly because I made you watch it. If you haven’t, you don’t know what you’re missing.
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Squeamish folks: The show is not bloody, gory, disgusting or anything of that nature. All of the skeletons, muscles and tours inside of the body are computer animated. No cadavers were used in the production of this series! All stories are reenacted as well.
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The series has different parts: Strength, Sight, Brain Power and Sensation.
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• Strength: This episode focused on our muscles and bones. It explained how getting hit over the head saved a young man’s life after being sucked up into a tornado and thrown to the ground. They demonstrated the amount of weight our femurs (thigh bones) can really hold. What’s amazing is the amount of weight we put on our knees when climbing and running. The show also covered the use of adrenaline and endorphins while playing sports and how our bodies can ignore an injury.

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• Sight: This episode blew me away! I was practically ignoring everything around me and focusing only on the TV, which is a coincidence because this episode explained how our eyes and minds do just that! They also explained how our eyes are tricked during illusions. In one instance, a magican was performing a card trick. He began with a blue deck and by the end of the trick, the deck would be red. While watching the cards, our eyes were completely oblivious to other changes happening all around. By the end of the trick, the deck changed, but so did the table cloth, back drop and the clothes that the magician was wearing.

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• Brain power: I just can’t wrap my mind around this episode, ha! You really get a sense of just how amazing the brain is while watching this. It’s almost overwhelming. This episode explained how our brains make those split-second decisions that save our life and what sleep deprivation does to us. It also shows us how our brains switch gears when we’re starving or dehydrated. And dreams…oh man! You just have to watch…

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• Sensation: The best part of this episode was watching the Shaolin monks endure extreme pain without even blinking. It showed how our nerves and pain receptors help us. For example, a woman fell from a cliff shattering her knee, dislocating her hip. She couldn’t move her legs. Her brain sent out endorphins to block the pain receptors from feeling it. Once help arrived, and she calmed down, those endorphins quickly went away and pain kicked it. But it kept her alive until that point. She was able to crawl to a trail because of that. On the other end of the spectrum, a man was bitten by one of those recluse spiders. The pain he felt was from his body trying to protect him. If he didn’t feel pain, he wouldn’t have found the wound on the back of his leg and sought treatment. Amazing.

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• Plus! It explains how we can move our fingers faster than we can think and what is going on during a polygraph test.

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Check out the website. There is all sorts of fun things on there from human body puzzles and quizzes to interactive guides. You can also pre-order the DVD!
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Seriously, this is such a great show that provides a unique look into the human body. There will be a special encore on Sunday, March 16th starting at 3PM Central time. One of the best parts of the show is how one minute you’re looking at a human and the next the computer-animated skeleton appears and you can watch the bones and muscles work. The gymnasts are fun to watch.
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