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Narrator/Writer: Stephanie Sammann
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References
[1] www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi...
[2] scholar.harvard.edu/ntroach/e...
[3] www.nature.com/articles/s4159...
[4] www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...
[5] www.cell.com/cell/pdf/S0092-8...
[6] onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/a...
[7] www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas...
[8] journals.plos.org/plosone/art...
[9] theaquaticape.org/human-evolu...
[10] www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...
[11] www.science.org/content/artic...
[12] www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...
[13] humgenomics.biomedcentral.com...
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[10] www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0...
[11] www.nature.com/articles/d4158...
[12] www.nature.com/articles/jhg20...
It's so rare nowadays to find content that makes you feel proud of being a human, instead of shaming you for being one
That’s exactly how I felt watching this too! 😂
You should watch/read stories that fall under the "Humans are space Orcs" category. They are fantasy/sci-fi stories that are told about humanity from the perspective of aliens that depict humans as strong or powerful or impressive in some way. They are very cathartic to read. Watch this guy do narrations of those stories: youtube.com/@AgroSquerril
Being proud of shit is probably one reason we messed up so much and are ashamed...
Being proud to be a human is fine, it’s what we’ve chosen to do with it that sucks.
@@CT-vm4gf, every single species in existence will expand and grow and consume until it can't anymore. Whether through a introduction of a predator or lack of food or lack of space. There will always be a check, a counter balance, that will eventually curb a species growth. The problem with humans is that we have evolved to be so outrageously successful and powerful that there is no limit to our growth and expansion. We kill any predators that threaten us, we grow any food that we lack and we build skyscrapers if we lack for space. We are the only species in all of existence that has had to learn the concept of self control and moderation. We have to actively fight against our own nature.
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.
and a lot of people point to the various sacrifices needed for intelligence to just say humans are weak when cheetahs evolved extreme speed and as a result have little fat, thin skin, and dulled claws which make them struggle to get kills and climb trees.
That's the most common misconception about evolution, you aren't necessarily "improving" overall, but specializing into one set of traits for an environment. That's why I find the Africa origin most likely, our long distance running, lack of tree climbing ability compared to other apes, incredible sweating ability, and thick hair only on our head makes the most sense for wide prairies with few trees, while our thumbs still allowed us to climb when needed to escape predators.
Humans have two (maybe more) super powers: big brains, walking erect. An interesting thing that I once learned is that these two are in a critical balance. Our pelvises are widened to the maximum to allow standing up while giving birth the the largest brains. Then, humans cheat, by giving birth BEFORE the brain and skull are fully developed, which is why babies heads develop so much after birth. All humans are born premature, at the last moment they can pass through a bipedal pelvis, dependent on care once they are out. After that, language and community make up for what small naked fragility doesn't provide.
@@thunderspark1536 "Lack of tree climbing ability"... I wouldn't go THAT far. Yes, we are not as good climbers as many apes... but by all means, we aren't bad at it... and humans are also pretty good swimmers as well.
@@michasokoowski6651 Humans are quite superior to apes in general climbing because we have the intelligence to design specific techniques to climb better. No ape is going to climb a sheer rock face that only has a couple vertical cracks as grip points even with their superior abilities.
The greatest human trait is our wonder. " I wonder what happens if I....." That phrase has changed the world.
Yes! We are the only ones who ask why.
I don’t think so. Animals wonder, they just can’t talk about it. Granted it’s on an entirely different level but animals certainly wonder! One person walked up on his dog that was so engrossed in watching the sunset at the beach that he didn’t hear him coming - as well as they can hear! And who hasn’t seen a dog tilt its head left to right trying to comprehend something completely unusual to them?! It’s amazing to watch primates - especially the non violent orangutans as they interact with strange animals that make it into their cage. Chimps would kill and eat those animals of course!
i wonder what was thinking the first guy who milked animals
@@icutyouheadof oh boy.
Curiosity.
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 mean what other advanced technologies are being put in shoes
@@aceyyyyyy laceless shoes
But also foot walking is very unique. Most mammals walk on their toes as that gives more leverage which allows for greater speed and acceleration. Humans also run on their toes but they walk on their feet. It's very noticeable as running makes is far, far more likely to trip and lose balance.
I left my muddy boots outside last night and some bastard of a squirrel filled one of em a 1\3 full with acorns. That's all I got.
@@jer3996😂😂😂😂
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.
my dog didnt have to train for his stamina and agility. why do humans have to?
@@Sephira87 Because we do a lot less running when we're not training. If your dog didn't like to run it wouldn't be very good at it either.
@@Sephira87 your dog's ancestors for the last thousands of years had only one job to do to get food...ie run fast and catch prey. Any dog /wolf who couldn't do that just died. Humans on the other hand diversified the work they could do to get food....so even if a person was disabled they could do simpler but essential work. Due to a lot of different jobs people's bodies adapted to work for specific jobs. Farmers evolved to have high baseline testosterone since they had to work for long hours in the sun tirelessly, hunters developed keen senses to hunt animals more efficiently, blacksmiths developed a degree of heat resistance, divers and people who lived in high altitudes evolved above average red blood cell count which helped them survive there. Since the jobs our ancestors did greatly varied/changed from generation to generation we all gained adaptations that work to solve problems in general. So unless you won a genetic lottery or several generations of your family engaged in a specific sport you wont have an edge compared to 8 billion humans who are genetically similar to you. There are people who's immediate family (mother's parents and or father's parents) and parents engaged in a specific sport and they look like genetic freaks compared to the average person.
Tell that to my balls...those two flap around annoyingly in my pants whenever I move faster than 4KPH
@@Sephira87 well it's been thousands of years since we stopped being hunter gatherers. hubter gatherers are the "natural" state of humans and they can take full advabtage of their stamina
"It is a shame for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength which his body is capable of." ~ Socrates
I believe it was Plato the one who said that
@@katzea.a7880 I believe a quick google search can prove you wrong
@@onotario4329 I don't know what to think now, I read in a book that it was Plato but searching for the answer on google it says that the quote is from Socrates, the discrepancy doesn't surprise me since one was the student of the other a very long time ago
Wrong person and butchered the quote. Socrates was afraid that people who are physically weak can be enslaved, at this point being physically weak or strong doesn't really decide the whole battle. This was also actually really written by Plato who talked about an encounter Socrates had with a physically inferior man.
@Bladetron That shit doesn't exist, I simply do not know or remember who actually said the quote
Humans are such fascinating creatures, i wonder what it must feel like to be one
Aww what a cute dog, you’re so cute, aren’t you? You’re such a smart dog! So cute, awww!
Don't know because i'm out of human
As a mermaid princess I wanna be where the people are I wanna see, Wanna see 'em dancing
if you think humans are fascinating, you should see modern machines! They can travel thousands of times faster than homo sapiens, think billions of times faster, etc... they can lift thousands of times and survive almost anywhere including in space or on mars, the moon, etc...
Yet they needed us to even exist@@Danuxsy
People severely underestimate how massive an evolutionary advantage sweating actually is and how persistent and industrious it allows us to be.
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.
I didnt think I was much of a runner. Had never actively ran before, no official training, poor form etc. First week of going to the gym [1 day on, 1 day off] my personal goal was 2k in under 10 minutes. I smashed it by the 2nd time I went. 2nd goal: 8 minutes. Smashed it again a week later. 3rd goal: sub 8 minutes. I got down to 7 minutes 30s. On a whim i decided to try some LDR. 5k, 25 minutes ish. Next session? 10k. Didnt think I had it in me to run 10k, did it in one session in 40m. Then covid hit. Now I'm not super in shape, never have been but the fact that I was able to go from never running to a 10k in the span of 3 weeks to a month is insane. What's even more surprising is that I was heel striking when i ran, this means I was losing energy constantly as I ran. If I had better form [running on toes/front foot] at the time who knows what time I could have finished these runs in.
@@rasmachris94 Sorry I don't believe you went from 25 minutes for 5k to 40 minutes for 10k.
Agree. Last week, I can’t barely run for 5 mins. Now, I can do it for 10 mins straight.
@@rasmachris94 side note: I think heel-striking also causes injuries to your knees or something like that.
@@rasmachris94 heel striking is fine on a treadmill, but something you want to train out of for running on solid ground, you do a lot more damage
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.
So happy you were ok!! I have had nightmares where I was drowning and it was completely terrifying I can only imagine what it was like in real life 😵
It’s fascinating how long we can last without oxygen, it’s the buildup of c02 that makes you panic LONG before you run out of oxygen, a fun game of trust you played with yourself haha I’ve done the same when a waterfall pushed me to the bottom of a deep well 😬😭
damn. happy for you that im typing to react to this comment now.
I tried to touch the bottom of blue hole too but realized I wouldn't make it when I was 3/4 down. Even then I was out of breath at the top. I was on my high school swim team and swam every day; it really is deceptively deep. What a beautiful place though.
"Never tried that again"... the very best part of this comment.
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 seems impossible walking 45 miles a day on the Appalachian trail. That would take minimum 12 hours at 15 mins a mile. On a trail you would be walking slower than a road though. It might be 20-25 mins a mile. Especially in steep elevations, sight seeing, and taking breaks. You wouldn't have enough light in the day either. I've walked a ton too long distances in the woods and on trails. It takes longer than you're acting like unless you're sprinting through the woods. I don't see anyone sprinting up and down the rugged mountain ranges. You're not walking fast either because that's not how you walk if you're going for distance.
@@ericbogar9665 I have a Triple Crown, and have done 6 other Thru-Hikes around the world, and there is no way I could manage 45 a day on the AT. However, I am not talking about normal hikers. I hiked the CDT with those two, and they are machines. And they look like they are taking a leasurely stroll while I am struggling up a climb. They do in fact run down hills, though more like skipping but more graceful.
It's impressive if they can do that, but what they do sounds more like extreme cross country racing than hiking. 😂@@toocleanpappas5397
a missile can do 63 miles in under 3 min
Hiking is dumb
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.
Hello fellow humans.
Hello 👋
Hi monke
Hoo-mans? I am hoo-man. I like Sweet Baby Rays BBQ sauce, just like all hoo-mans. Do you hoo-mans like Sweet Baby Rays? I like Sweet Baby Rays.
@@markzuckergecko621 Cringe af
Hello
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!
Not only did we develop the ability to sweat, but we lost most of our hair. The hair we have left on our arms is actually more specialized than normal “fur”. It is more efficient at evaporating water, which for us means we get rid of sweat as well as extra cooling as it evaporates.
So it's even more horrifying than that. Let's say you are a gazelle. I hear they're tasty. Anyways you see these diseased animals coming at you. You run away you don't see them you don't smell them see you take a little bit to rest. Then you hear it a crackle snap and there are those hairless disease animals. But one of them as far as something it barely misses. See you immediately get up and start running and running. Eventually you don't see them or hear them anymore so you relax let's say this happens like five or six more times. At this point you are really tired one of them might have managed to actually hit you. So you're completely exhausted. You're in pain with your week and you got this thing sticking out if you. And then you hear it once more the diseased animals are on you again. But this time they succeed blah blah whatever. Cuz you got to remember most animals look and see a diseased animal. As for many animals missing fur is typically a disease which means you want absolutely nothing to do with that. Even less so then you want to deal with normal predators. Basically it's going to feel really bad just this animal that seems to be completely disease beyond recognition get it completely hunted your Healthy self mercilessly.
Hippie guess our ability to sweat is what has made our endurance completely broken. Since it is quite literally we can walk animals to death. Dogs are high speed Pursuit hunters and humans are also Pursuit Hunters. But we just are nowhere near as fast. There is some differences humans will typically rely more on tracking and stuff like that to climb the animal each time if they're going through a more densely vegetated area um, rather than literally trying to harass the animal until it messes up. That's how wolves hunt. So we do hunt in a very similar method because running an animal till it is so exhausted it doesn't care takes a long time. So if we can we will do it earlier and bleeding an animal out is one of the easiest ways and along with give erecting the animal to exactly where we want it. Another drawback of are immense stamina and intelligence. Basically sweat bipedalism endurance stamina regeneration along with intelligence is basically what made us Apex Predators necessarily say that we are the apex predator. But ultimately I think we probably are as we will pretty much eat any animal we desire
D
Ok , it's not quite as unmatched : Recent studies on T.REX of all organisms , Show that it could walk for hours at 12mph , Wich is also a great feat of endurance : the way they found out was by observing the stride lenght from fossil tracks and by simulating muscles to find the optimal stride frequency of t.rex ... This gave a top walking speed of 12mph , And it was found that while the legs wheren't optimized for fast running they where adapted for efficiency , That togheter with t.rex being huuge (9-10 tons , largest land carnivore of all times ) and large animals being able to cross longer distances than smaller animals means that t.rex could cruise for days behind his preys ...
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.
Not just that, but our sweat is extremely resource "cheap". Our sweat is basically just water and a bit of salt. Horse sweat on the other hand contains a protein called latherin, which acts as a detergent, increasing the evaporation rate due to the formation of air bubbles in its sweat or "lather". The production of latherin is a complete resource loss for the horse though, since it can't recycle the amino acids it uses. I think it displays just how much humans have evolved to run. Because we've evolved to run slower but more often than horses, then we spend more time in our day sweating. This means that our sweat needs to be cheaper to produce, even if it's less efficient at evaporation and cooling. Horses meanwhile fall into the same pattern as most other quadrupeds; they sprint in short bursts and spend most of their day walking or resting, so when they *do* need to sweat, they benefit from resource-intensive, high-efficiency evaporation.
Not only that...I am South African and we have the oldest living tribes. Literally no peoples on the Earth are older and in these tribes, like Khoi and San, which have mixed with my Xhosa DNA...we have hunting practices that completely depend on chasing antelope to exhaustion. You can Google it...😂😂and as your ancestor I'm telling you we are not to be messed with. If you are interested some other strategies include taking meat from lions who have just made a kill. Our tribes do not take the whole thing though we cut just enough, since we can supplement it.
@@shotarokaneda7525 That's amazing how you have such respect for the nature that's around you. You only take enough because you know you can more food elsewhere and don't want to deprive the lion from its share. I've seen a documentary about a hunter gatherer tribe in Northern Tanzania (Hadza Tribe) that uses birds to locate beehives. The birds themselves can't get to the honey because the bees defend it too vigorously. In that area, the human that's looking for honey makes a specific clicking sound that alerts the bird they're going on a beehive "hunt". The bird then locates and shows the human where it is. The human retrieves the honey from the beehive and gives the bird its "commission", a generous slice of the beehive and honey, to reward it for helping them. This tradition has effectively created an ongoing relationship with the birds in the area that all recognize that human clicking sound. The birds know they'll have honey if they hear it.
sweat system, our multiple types of muscles, but most importantly; Mitochondria and their ability to switch fuels, i bet it's a culmination of those things. Humans are born fat burners, not sugar like everyone is today, and healthy human body can switch between these fuels fast. Once you are burning fat, as long as your body has some fat, you have boundless limitless energy. It's insane. I've myself by accident spent 4-5 days without eating multiple occasions when i started doing keto. Yea, those were pure accidents, i simply forgot.
Correct, a healthy human can run any horse or wolf into the ground, just by sheer persistence.
I got a chuckle out of the academics thinking that early spears were too heavy to be thrown effectively, then being corrected by javelin throwers throwing them 50+ meters
To be fair if you asked a academic to throw one they would probably struggle
I think that is holding human resarch back a bit, they tend to think, “oh if I can’t do it then no one can” comparing weakass sedentary humans with ancient hunter gatherers, and thinking they couldn’t beat animals with hand to hand weapons because today average humans are too weak and fragile for that
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.
I live in Bogota Colombia at 2600m of altitude that is a little bit more than half that, but as an asmathic kid it was quite hard, endurance tests at physical education were my nightmare, I was out of breath easier than the other kids. For years doctors told my parents to move to a lower altitude city, but we didn't. With time and a lot of swimming, I got better but yeah.
@@patax144 you probably shouldn’t be pregnant at that altitude. Europeans have piss poor altitude adaptations and even the local genetic adaptations of South America are very brute force and don’t work super well during pregnancies. The Tibetans, on the other hand, have astonishingly good altitude adaptations.
@@peterfireflylund interesting, but hey south american countries choosing to have big cities at high altitudes huh, and in a country traversed by 3 branches from the Andes, my entire family comes from towns in the mountain region
@@patax144 yes, but how far back? Do you have lots of Amerindian genes or are you more (Southern) European?
@@peterfireflylund That didn't sound well to me. Like "no one should get pregnant here in Bogotá". We all probably have lots of Amerindian genes, since we were all mixed during the Spanish colonisation. So, probably, the 7 million plus habitants born in Bogotá who live here do know it is very feasible for women to get pregnant here. Also, there are amazing cyclists due to the altitude of this region.
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!
Same here, friend! Although I haven't had anyone from lower elevations come to visit.
I live in Colorado Springs and every time I go to lower elevations I feel like a superhero for about a week. I've got a ton of energy and I only sleep about 3-4 hours a night. Coming home is like a bad case of the flu for about 2 days though.
I live in a high altitude place, went down the California... lots of oxygen and humidity, the air felt thicker there. So yeah, it’s weird how that works doesn’t it?
@@vonnie0_0 Yeah, like it's sticky.
As an Andean, Denver is fine at 5200' but in Vail I felt like I could breathe full lungs, which makes sense as it's a few hundred feet under my city at 8000' ish. Uyuni salt flats at 1200' was starting uncomfortable range, which I guess means I took more from my mother's side as born Potosi lived in 1350'ish. That's uncomfortable if hiking up streets and definitely the steps to the Colored Lake at 1400' I could feel. Living at sea level in Cali I breathe really shallow, nearly always mildly squeezing my abdomen especially when resting. I can't do breathing exercises with full lung capacity following groups as I start to get light headed. Apparently it's normal for us to have larger than average hearts as well.
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.
Have you met my cat? She’s one heck of an acrobat.
@@allisond.46yeah, cats are another of those critters that you look at and you just _know_ that God plays favorites
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
Some guy recently did like 400+ miles over like 2.5 days (could be off on numbers). It was one of those backyard ultra marathons where they do a 4.2 or so mile loop once every hour without stopping. So this guy maintained a solid pace with no real breaks for at least 2 full days.
That would be true if humans physiology was like that of a meat eater which it is not absolutely nothing about us points to eating meat not our teeth not our stomach acid not our stomach size nor our intestines literally nothing. We can run long distances but that’s does not mean that we were running after prey when humans did decide they needed to hunt because they were starving they would trap animals not run for 500 miles a lot of this crap is non intentional propaganda. Like yes we found stone weapons but that could very easily been for self defense not for hunting.
@@lawrencetrujillo7365 That's the most clown comment statement I've ever read about humans, after the ones claiming humans beat chimps 1v1 without weapons.
@@Carpatouille let me go ahead and state some facts and then you can state your own proving why we are similar to omnivores/carnivores if it’s really a clown statement you should have more then me. 1: humans have IDENTICAL teeth to great apes actually humans are smaller and duller. All known great apes eat less than 3% meat look up the percentages before you say I’m lying… other great apes have even sharper larger canines and molars than humans and they don’t eat meat because canines are meant for self defense. 2: carnivores and omnivores fully digest meat in 4 to 8 hours, in contrast humans fully digest meat in 2 to 3 days. 3: Carnivores and omnivores do not have digestive enzymes in their saliva, while herbivores and humans both have carbohydrate digestive enzymes. 4: Consider cats (carnivores) and dogs (omnivores) at meal time. They swallow their food whole, without chewing. But watch a rabbit or a deer (herbivore) eat, and it’s evident that extensive chewing takes place before swallowing, as with humans. 5: Stomach acidity in carnivores and omnivores has a pH of 1 or less, strong enough to kill pathogens in raw flesh. In contrast, stomach acidity of herbivores has a pH between 4 and 5 humans have a resting ph of 1.5 but when food is ingested it raises to 4.5. 6: Carnivores and omnivores stomachs make up 65 per cent of their digestive tract volume. In contrast, herbivores have a stomach size of less than 30 per cent. Human stomach capacity is even lower at 25 per cent. 7: The length of the small intestines in carnivores and omnivores is only three to six times their body length; in herbivores, it’s 10 to 12 times their body length to allow for adequate absorption of nutrients. Similarly, our intestinal length is 10 to 11 times. 8: In carnivores and omnivores, the colon is simple, short, and smooth. In herbivores, the colon is long, complex, and may be sacculated. Our colon is long and sacculated. 9: Carnivores and omnivores can detoxify vitamin A in their livers, while herbivores cannot. Neither can humans. I could keep going but I think I’ll stop there.
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!!
what do you work as?
@@littleyulang a janitor at a large airport, most of my job is just walking from gate 1 to gate 23 and back again.
A cheetah may be fast but it cant run a marathon
@@InsidiousClouds I do around 35,000-42,000 steps @ work, my feet still hurt after 2 years 😂😂
@@shaneoshea6216 that IS 2-3x as many steps 😭💀
What staggered me about Peruvians was that while we were hiking and acclimatising along the Inca Trail, they were clearing up everything; packing our gear; striking camp; flying past us, carrying all the gear; getting to camp, setting up and preparing meals and then, while they were waiting for us, they were playing football! Different breed of people altogether! Superhuman!
Munching on leaves certainly helps them lol
@@KingTFD For the unaware, those are coca leaves.
@@redare7 for the unaware still, that's where Cocaine comes from. It's not particularly harmful in those concentrations just as drinking coffee is safe but snorting pure caffeine is not
@@redare7 coca leaves are freaking great munching them not only helps you cope with low levels of O2 in your blood, but the infusion also helps with stomach problems im from around there, but i got to say, i've seen bolivian people doing it more often, specially the ones living in the highlands (La Paz, Oruro and around there)
Yup, practice makes perfect! And they pretty much are practicing and training how to carry heavy loads under big strain at high altitudes up a steep ass mountain. If they came to wherever you live I'm sure they would be amazed at how skillful people can get in their professional careers and whatnot. Or how good athletes get at their respective sports. But ya, I saw the same thing in Nepal with the Sherpas. Incredible people.
One thing that blew my mind was reading about what happens to the human body in space, with blood pressure dropping because it no longer needs to compensate for gravity. Just think about that--we can adapt to conditions that no creature on Earth has ever experienced!
Don’t forget the greatest adaptation, a beautiful singing voice. Music is the heart and soul of being human.
the soul do not exist.
0 proofs lol, I'm materialistic as well but don't be cocky we just assume so because it's more practical
One of the biggest takeaways I got from my studies of the human body are that we are the single greatest organism for exploring, adapting to, and manipulating the environment around us. If you are ever feeling down, just know that you are the pinnacle of evolution. Go humans!
Unless there’s a close to extinction level disaster worldwide (that current technology couldn’t solve) or if we explore other planets I don’t know if there will be another version/improvement since we have adapted to environment/changes using our brain.
@@johnl.7754 even if we cant think of it we can build things that can like AIs
The pinnacle SO FAR. I'd keep an eye on the octopus, give it a few hundred million years and they could be a real competitor.
@@shanecoleman5952 Problem is building things or using fire underwater is a lot more difficult
So what ur saying is... humans were just built different
I honestly love hearing about humans so much. They way human bodies are so well suited to so many variations in the environment in the world makes them so impressive to me. Truly fascinating. I love it every time humans are discussed and talked about in a positive way, it reminds me that not everything about humans is like they portray in media.
Our biology is amazing. Our way of seeing things, is not always good.
It sounds like an alien commented this
@@ullerivas2755I was about to post the same comment 👽
Humanity first!
Spoken like an alien spectator
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.
I was acquaintances with a member of the Sherpa people who moved to my part of America, which is at sea level. He once mentioned that the elevation change gave him headaches for some time, because there was *too much* available oxygen in the air! He was always a happy, motivated man. Polite too! I recall fondly the time he explained to me and some of my fellows that his first name was the same as many of his people because in Sherpa culture you're named based on the day of the week you were born on. And it's funny, looking at the footage of the Sherpa man that aided the first Everest climbers, what stands out to me is that he looked strikingly similar to the man I knew, closer to family resemblance than "ethnic features" of large demographics. We stopped interacting much when I changed jobs, but I still see him around sometimes, and I'm happy to've known him. Now I can appreciate that brief bond even more, knowing the man was a bonafide evolutionary marvel on top of just being a cool dude from a cool culture!
one more thing to note about the swimming thing is that, out of most of the sports humans engage in, swimming seems to be the one least likely to cause injury. throwing, running, jumping, shot putting, weight lifting and so on all put strain on the body in ways it doesn't seem to be built to handle, often leading to injuries if performed incorrectly and even with proper technique, the risks persist. the act of swimming however almost never puts stresses on our bodies that we are not built to handle, so much so that swimming is often recommended as an exercise to people who are recovering from injuries, suffering from chronic ailments and the elderly, once someone has learned how to swim on even the most basic level, and they avoid exhaustion and hypothermia, there is almost no way to injure yourself doing it.
That is a fascinating angle! One would reason that whichever activity comes to a creature most naturally and therefore leads to less strain to the body is also one that it evolved to be good at. And while probably not universally true, since for example throwing is such a major part of our species history but can still lead to a lot of wear on the body, it is definitely an indicator that we are very well adapted to a semi-aquatic lifestyle. Although the conditions in water, that it is almost like a cushion, definitely play a role it is still noteworthy.
its probably because swimming has a large margine for error generally speaking. Running and move your foot down to hard/10 cm off? You just slammed your foot at high speed toward a piece of rock. Throwing something and put too much force behind it/moved your spine a bit too forward? Enjoy faceplanting to the ground and brekaing your nose at best,might even die. Moved your leg in a wrong way in water? You just missed and your foot is still in,soft,liquid,water so nothing happens. A bit extreme,but that's probably why swimming is comperativly safe. You can drown tho so idk.
Drowning
Interesting point though I imagine it's mostly to do with activites on land requiring the body to additionally support its own weight, this is what puts extra strain on our joints etc on top of whatever activity we're doing. In water this isn't the case and so naturally there's less strain on our bodies and you're less likely to cause an injury
Swimming will cause neck and shoulder injuries
The very concept is what got me obsessed with HFY stories. 'Humanity, F*ck Yeah!' stories are generally about aliens or some extraterrestrial species (sometimes fantasy one's) meeting humanity and coming to terms with our strange physiologies. Throwing, sweating, multi-tasking, even that strange thing where we can feel something looking at us. If you like Sci-Fi I highly recommend checking them out.
Can you recommend a good one? I was actually thinking of writing something like that but I didn't know it was a genre. My story was about a continent of fantasy monster who had humans like this mythical creature of destruction and after surviving a invasion of humans to the continent the protagonist had to raise a human child.
@@drakesacrum8445 sounds Interesting
There's bound to be a bunch of HFY stories about how humans, though physically weak, are the ultimate soldiers. It's not just that we can throw harder than chimps; no other animal comes close in terms of accuracy. And we have good vision (for mammals). I'm imagining a story where most aliens are as physically powerful as grizzly bears. But humans are the best marksmen, can survive injuries that outright kill most animals, and have exceptional physical endurance. Those traits are far more important in a soldier than large claws when guns exist
@@Xhalph Oh, most definitelyl. Many such stories involve aliens attempting to genocide or enslave us and having a very rude awakening.
@@drakesacrum8445 The story that started it all IIRC is narrated on youtube. If you type Deathworlder Serieis it should be the first playlist to pop up. The channel name is Zren. Other channels I know of are Agro Squirrel Narrates and Net Narrator. Also, I would 100% read that
Check out the Tour de France. Sure the speed is multiplied by the bicycle but if you listen to Mohoric who won stage 19, you get the idea we are totally overpowered when it comes to endurance. The ability to suffer this kind of cardiovascular intensity will make any prey give up and beg us to bludgeon and eat it.
This was a really well put together video. Well done and Thank You.
It's not only the power of human throws, but also their accuracy. While a lot of apes and monkeys can throw and hit at a short distance, it is far more "hit or miss" than humans. Even small children can be pretty accurate in their throws. Human hand-eye-coordination (is this how you say it in English?) is incredibly good and basically necessary for crafting early tools, too. Another point humans excel in - compared to other mammals at least - is communication. We are on par with (or even better than) song birds, with accurate means to give knowledge to other people around us. Humans do have an incredible voice range, both in tone and sound, but we almost never think about it. And given we've lost a lot of non-verbal communication (fur, tails, ears) we have evolved more nuanced facial expressions in turn - as dogs did, to, interestingly enough.
It is written as "hand-eye coordination." And yes, our communication is really cool. Our success in making words that can explain abstract concepts (like "abstract" and "concept") one of the things that has impressed me.
You ever see video on apes throwing poop? They are deadly accurate kzhead.infoAvp_sOWJ07M
Guess we can say we are the superior race.
I have seen a lot of accurate feces throwing from apes and monkeys. Those were all single shots though.
@@jotcw81 nevermind we aren't the superior race..
Glory to Mankind
Bless you brother 😎🫡
Excellent video! As a nature lover, I love learning about the incredible capacities of non-human animals, but it’s refreshing to hear about our own incredible capacities from an evolutionary standpoint.
Body: "Hey Brain, here are all the amazing tools (organs) at your disposal to do stuff". Brain: "Thank you. Rest them all well, I think I will do all the work myself and I have this computer thing to help me."
Ok but the brain isn’t the only thing functioning without your other organs you wouldn’t be here
@@jayure1346 There are voluntary functions and involuntary functions. I am talking about the voluntary ones. I. Fairy sure limbs, eyes, etc. come under this.
@@jayure1346 I think he meant that we don't use our body to its full limit, at least not as much as our brain.
A pretty interesting and unique feature of us Humans (as well as most primates) is our ability to sweat. While our early ancestors hunted, they surely couldn't keep up with their prey in speed, but as their prey grew tired from miles and miles of continuous evasion, our early ancestors would be seen still giving chase, their sweat keeping them cool and allowing them to simply keep running as their prey fell to exhaustion.
Yes! Also, our ability to desynchronize our breath with our run! Most animals lungs are compressed with every step but since we are bipedal we can take longer, deeper breaths every few steps. This maximizes endurance running
This, and the fact that we invented clothing. Other mammals aren't able to just take off their fur when they get too hot. Our ability to add and remove layers gives us even MORE control over our thermoregulation, and it's also what's allowed us to adapt to a wider range of climates.
I never knew just being human is simply cool
That's far from settled. It may well be that that's an exception and most humans hunted (if they did) via stealth and projective weapons. Endurance has benefits outside of hunting.
@@vulcanhumor all of the above plus our ability to cook. Cooking gives you access to way more nutrients than simply eating raw meat, and it kills a ton of harmful bacteria in the food as well. but when cooking, humans don’t just sit around and wait for the food to cook. No, we tell stories. Stories require language. Cooking is literally one of the keys to what makes us human.
actually cows have only one stomach split into four separate compartments :)
Super awesome info...thanks for sharing such valuable knowledge :)
a group of humans with a couple tools is probably the most terrifying thing to encounter as another animal.
to a bear, a human only needs a stick to go from being a helpless piggy to a potential fatal encounter
@@megalonoobiacinc4863Nowadays the bear doesn’t see the human or hear the loud BANG noise the human’s funny looking pipe made because the pointy metal ball that came out was going faster than sound.
@@megalonoobiacinc4863 If you have gun with 1 bullet and polar bear is hunting you the best course of action is to end your suffering. Because you're killing the bear even with a bullet. Go ahead, try to kill bear with a stick maybe you will be nominated to Darwin awards
@@realdragon people have killed bears with their bare hands fyi and a knife in self defense. A swedish hunter shoved the whole hand down its throat...
@@megalonoobiacinc4863 It reminds me of instructions how to defeat a bear: 1. Wait for bear to make a move 2. When it attacks duck and shoot in 3. Take its' back 4. It won't be able to reach you 5. Go for a choke. 6. Now snap out of your fantasy and realize you died around step 2
I’m actually so excited they made one on humans. I just started picking up languages, learning new hobbies, mastering and discovering myself, so I’m excited to watch this.
The way you worded this makes you sound inhuman. Fantastic stuff though, good work.
I learn new stuff to communicate more with other people and share knowledge and also utilize the internet to the capacity that I can use it
I always watched videos on other animals and their amazing abilities but not on humans. It surprised me to see how much we are capable!
I wonder if some early humans committed suicide, many do it these era, will ancient humans be elated about that
@@hi-ft8er I haven't laughed this hard in a while damn🤣 god bless you!
Loved the narration and visuals.
Really enjoyed this one!! ⭐️ Nice Work!
Love the username lol :)
You guys come up with the biggest of surprises. Wasn’t expecting to see an Insane Biology outlook on us. Kudos to you!
I think the biggest thing that drives humans forwards is our intelligence. It gives us the capability to not only work together but everyone can come up with their own unique ideas. Other animals work together, but not nearly at the same level of coordination that humans have managed to do it. If you really think about it society is just a massive ant hill where everyone does their part to make it work.
It’s also the thing that keeps us back
Also we store our knowledge
@@kissit012I would say the recent lack of intelligence is what’s holding us back fr fr🤣
Yes. If there is a lazier way to do it, we’ll use our brains to invent it, thus promoting health problems in many.
@@kissit012 intelligence never keeps anything back. it only pushes forward.
I love those videos. Thank you Stephanie !
My favorite adaptation is the evolution of the 40hr white collar work week
I always tell people long long treks to not be afraid of the woods. "You are a human, you are one of the biggest and scariest animals walking on the planet right now. Unless there is a bear around, in which case you got to just lie a bit and make the bear think you are bigger."
Most animals will avoid us, prey are naturally skittish, and predators do some risk/reward math and as long as you look scarier than the calories on your bones they will leave you alone. A couple times while 4wheeling in the Adirondacks my family has come across bears, and black bears will always run unless you are between a momma and her cub in which case you are dead. (Of course we also vacated the area, i can also do risk/reward math and bears are not worth the dopamine for that area vs moving on to somewhere else for a very similar experience) PS: the bull moose is way scarier than the bear, large herbivores don't do risk/reward math, they just throw their weight around to try and kill/injure/scare off all threats that they can't immediately run from. (And in the rut they are extra stupid & agressive) All the predators have enough brains to try and guess if you will/can hurt them or not. (The average joe probably can't do serious counter damage, but the coyotes don't know that.)
@@jasonreed7522 Oh yeah, I am speaking more to my own knowledge. I live south of Appalachia so Black Bears and Cougs are about as big as they get. If I lived in Moose, Grizzly country, or frankly any part of Africa I'd be singing a different tune for sure. But for most of the surface of Earth, we are some of the last big and dangerous critters around.
@@attemptedunkindness3632 fortunately my area, the ADKs in NY only has black bears to worry about. Sure we have moose, lynx, bobcats, and cougers but they are so rare that its unlikely you will see them. (And my previous statements apply) My family does have a rule though, never go into the woods without a gun. Its mainly that you never know if a sick/rabid animal will show up, but more importantly if you get lost they are very loud making them excellent signaling devices. (Most relevant when hunting in a group, as your party can recognize a "I'm lost" signal pattern and "shoot you out" by responding with gunfire of their own to head towards.)
@@jasonreed7522 Bobcat and lynx are only a problem if you have ducks and chicken, so yes, they can be a problem. And yeah, it's good to bring a gun not so much because of the animals, but incase you break your leg and you're in a bad service area. But that is more of a "dipshit preventative action" than "predator-prey" action... In truth the most dangerous thing that comes on our lands are hunters kitted out in war gear because they played too much CoD and have too much money. I will always thank them for the free trail cameras, though.
LOL ya, the only thing I'm ever really conscious of is grizzly bears cuz if you see one you're kind of fucked no matter what you do. And I've seen a grizzly from an uncomfortably close distance while hiking before.
The whole thing about breathing is fascinating to me because I have a GSD V. I always thought I was weak due to short breath and muscle pain in almost any activity. And yeah, in my teenage years and in consequence my rebellion period. I was walking a lot outside of my house. Yes, it was exhausting at the begging but I realised that my muscles weren't all shrunken and didn't coused me pain. So I pushed with it... A lot. Like 10 kilometers daily. Day by day I was less and less exhausted by just walking, then i started running, and my god. Was this trully terryfing. I couldn't just run from the house like 20 meters before my organism stared choking like I was underwater. And thank to God my father is a musician because somewhere during that time he started to teach me play on brass instruments. For those who are unaware - they require both great breathing habit and using diaphragm instead of lungs. Basically lower part of your body instead of upper part. It was so weird that I could play like 3 hours without a sweat, but not run. I couldn't hold my lungs in place, but I could use my diaphragm. I was breathing slowly, like one breath per 20 meters. I pushed to the point where I could spend much more time doing slow exhales and being breathless that inhaling. I'm 27 right now and both this desease and constant fatigue are almost not existing to me because of this. Just breathing. Yeah, my doctor was shocked as well when he found out that I'm just going out in kilemeters long walks and runs like it's nothing, working 8 hours like normal person without fainting and just living a normal life. For anyone having it as well, I hope you will find strength to push through this
What a push! I'm grateful to be light on my feet, but I guess I forgot that not everybody enjoys the same blessing. Great job! I know it's ambitious, but I'd set a goal to eventually run a marathon if I were you.
how tall is you because I feel like height does play a little factor into lung capacity and air quality, for me being 6 foot 5 because I feel like my feet will shatter if I run for more than 30 minutes, doesn't help that I'm a little overweight (reason why I'm running more in the first place)
Wow. Amazing story.
Inspiring although i do not have this disease i love when strong people like you overcome challanges it fills me with hope
My guy outran his condition, honestly that's crazy to me. Like I'm fairly fit, hell I've done an almost sprint uphill for 2 miles nonstop, but 10 kilometers daily would destroy me, even without GSD V.
It's always a gamble going into a video like this. Is it going to be science or silliness? Are they actually going to get into the nitty-gritty of things or are they going to repeat headlines. THIS is the kind of content that will keep me coming back. Fabulous detail, the visual support was more than just stock footage, it was actually often illustrative of the point. I especially love that the visuals were used as quasi-footnotes, showing the title of scientific papers. Thanks! My only correction is that it is "exostoses" not "extoses"
Great video to use in my Science lesson around Biology.
I'll add some more: Our hands. Without talking about how using our brains we devised and crafted stuff that allows us to walk on other worlds, human hands are just awesome. Even without being super smart, anyone can train their hands to pull off incredibly neat tricks of pure precision and grace. Juggling, spinning sticks around, there even exist people who juggle flaming sticks!! Butterfly knifes, zippos, drum sticks, all sorts of hypnotizing moves we can pull off. There are other animals who can hold stuff. Most mammals reptiles and birds can hold stuff with their mouths and beaks, but you already know how that always ends up. Some animals can hold objects with their feet, like parrots for instance. Have you seen a parrot handle an object? Yeah it's cool, but it's not awesome. Compared to the most incompetent healthy humans, parrots holding stuff with their feet are incredibly clumsy. Have you seen a chimp or an orangutan hold objects? I've seen a chimp use a stick to get termites from a colony and slurp them up. They too are incredibly clumsy, compared with a human. No offence intended. It's just the way it is. For a healthy human to maneuver their hands like a chimp, they need to be sedated, drunk or intoxicated in some other way. I believe it's because chimp's wrists aren't as versatile as ours. Walking. We may not be the fastest, but we are some of the most persistent walkers and joggers on the planet. We are on par with other land migrating animals. Yeah, most animals can run faster than us, but most animals can only run for a few seconds before they need to stop and rest for a a few more seconds before running again. Imagine an antelope or a zebra. They spot a couple of humans jogging towards them looking all dangerous. Hah. They're so slow. Losers. The antelope quickly runs away many times faster than the humans. But then the antelope gets tired. So it rests for a few seconds. And during that time the humans start catching up. Shit. The antelope runs again. Way faster than humans. Then rests again. The humans are still jogging. Have they even ever stopped? Their mouths are closed, are they even breathing? The antelope runs again. It'd muscles start to ache. It needs to rest again. Humans are still jogging. This has been going on for at least 20 minutes now. Fuck. Those damn hungry things keep chasing the antelope. Same pace. They don't even look fazed by the chase. An hour later, the antelope is demolished by running all the time. Although it has always been faster than the humans, they constantly chase it. Jogging. Not even sprinting. They are really not that fast. Those darn monsters. They aren't even panting. They look unfazed. The antelope collapses to the ground. The monsters constantly behind it catch up. Collapsed. Tired. Traumatized. The hopeless antelope accepts death from the relentless hunters. Always behind it. Always chasing. Always there. Dude, we humans are hecking terrifying. There are some humans that still hunt like this today. Obviously there's also our intelligence. We humans are like the wildcard of humanity. Yeah we're not the fastest. We're not the strongest. We're not the biggest. But hell, we're the smartest, and we're stronger than most. Bigger than most. Faster than most. And thanks to that, we have adapted to practically every environment on the surface of the planet. The only ones we haven't colonized yet are Antarctica and the bottom of the ocean, and I am absolutely sure that's just a matter of time until we reach those places and colonize them too.
Best of all, we've used our brains to think of ways to improve even more our strong parts. We've invented breathing tanks to dive for hours. We've invented machines that can dive for us for days, that can literally see and hear for us. We've invented machines to launch stuff further and harder. Not just guns but heckin missiles that can travel anywhere on the world. This is no darn joke, now humans can throw and explosive rock at you from the other side of the continent. We have stuff to make going high up on a mountain easier. We can fly! We can fockin fly! Not just with planes, but even with jetpacks and other strange machines! We have invented levitation and it's a matter of time until we build floating trains. We move at hella fast speed using metal boxes powered by ultra fast explosions. There is no other way to put this, we can do magic! If I went to a medieval person and told me all that, if we assume they believe me, they would absolutely think it is magic. For us, it's just technology. But think about it. In stories we hear wizards talking to each other using magic stones. We've got magic bricks that can do that. They can kill people without touching them. Sure enough, just stand near that pile of uranium. They can revive the dead. Yup, defibrilator! They know everything or have a magical mirror that knows everything and they can ask that mirror for answers. Hey Google! No, Harry, you're a wizard!
I always think about how animals like, say, cats, can so gracefully place their paws when dancing around rough terrain, but the moment they have to prod at something, all that coordination seems to go out the window.
@@Appletank8 they are built for that. They evolved for being able to move on most types of terrains. They can even climb.
@@norielsylvire4097 Yeah, I know, I meant their coordination goes out when they have to like, pat something with their paws.
Sweat. No other creature comes close to our ability to sweat, which of course is valuable for regulating our temperatures. Horses sweat, but not nearly like us. It's interesting that humans sweat but apes and chimps don't... while horses do.
Tbh I think it's our brains & our ability to learn & be creative/inventive that makes us so incredible. That's what helped us adapt, survive & be able to live on all corners of the world. Without the ability to learn & nurture our young, we wouldn't be where we are: humans aren't born with innate ability to know to speak a language, how to use tools, how to function in society, how to build structures etc.
It's a combination. Humans had to eat a lot of protein to get the big brains. To get all the fresh meat you need to be diverse in hunting and at the top of the food chain. If you have the time watch some of the few videos on youtube showing the few modern hunter gatherer tribes that still exist. They eat high protein diets from many sources from hunting large animals to climbing trees for eggs to digging up termite nests and other methods. They also contend with wild animals using just primitive weapons. There is video of 3 men raiding a baboon troop of 40 with just primitive hunting tools.
our brains, endurance, and adaptability to any situation is what makes us remarkable
we learn quickly because we are tied to light and learn by seeing, doing and getting up and walking to act again as beasts operate in the ground by smell and you can only get the information of the ground. We consume light and it's information, that gives us access to the clouds, storms, geography, stars, the moon time and the knowledge of death being imminent. Everything we are points to design and that reasoning and truth are tied to us by the fundamental properties of truth and the way the cosmos was set up. Jesus is the light, he, his lineage, his town of birth and his death for sin was foretold for millennia before it happened. understanding beauty and performance being objective will help get away from the view of us being boujie monkeys to us being closer to birds who had our wings clipped and are wondering why we want to be in the clouds.
@@Bitchslapper316 Link please
@@volderhamer Here's one link. You can search on youtube for more if they're still up. There is another video of these same guys killing a dear by biting it's neck. kzhead.info/sun/gd1tkqyHpYWdY6c/bejne.html
This Video is so so so good! I watched it numerous times by now.
The investigation and edition of the video are amazing.
fun fact, us humans can smell "wetness" or the smell of rain multiple times better than sharks can smell blood in water, which is weird but yeah we can do that
so? there are many things animals can do better than homo sapiens too
@@Danuxsy ye but we can do the importent things better than any animals. The importent things make us so strong.
What, no "the ability to run marathons and longer distances" or "the opposable thumb"? The two most significant evolutionary advantages that allowed the species to survive.
Those are the obvious ones, everyone knows that
@@ok0_0 opposable thumbs sure, but I have a hunch a lot of people would call you an idiot if you said humans can outrun almost every animal on the planet.
@@Jenna_Talia speed no, distance yes
@@Jenna_Talia probably the phrasing makes it seem like humans can gap a cheetah
Primates in general have opposable thumbs. Hell most have them on their feet too.
I've heard one of the big reasons we have flexible wrists was due to clubs. To properly wield a weapon like that we needed more elastic wrist ligaments, which contributed to our abilities in using tools and weapons.
thank you thank you thank you for linking your references 🙇✨
Yes we’re all humans here and definitely NOT ants in trench coats
lol
Yes human, human, *beep boop beep*
hahahahahaha😅
Another ability just as if not more unique than these is lactose persistence i.e. the ability to digest milk in adulthood. Peoples from the British Isles, Northern and Central Europe, Indian states of Punjab and Haryana along with some pastoralist communities in the Middle East and Africa have the highest proportion of this adaptation.
You're not supposed to drink milk after weaning off. Milk is for babies. Cat's milk is for baby cats. Rat's milk is for baby rats. Cow's milk is for baby and adult humans? Wtf? Lol There's a reason the major of humans are lactose intolerant.
It’s not just milk drinking. People lived in houses with their cows in Ireland until the 1940s, in the same room
@@liamhodgson it used to be same in Punjab and Haryana in India too, infact in many rural households it still is. Although the buffaloes and cows are usually outside since it isn't as cold here
@@duckpotat9818 Probably because of cows having revered status in india, Dunno much about how ireland treats it's cows though
Our ability to digest starch is another "hidden" ability that is a great advantage to us. It allows us to tolerate a grain-based diet and make use of grasslands directly, rather than indirectly by hunting large herbivores. Interestingly, one thing that sets our long term companions, dogs, aside from wild wolfs is that dogs have developed this same ability to a limited degree so that they can benefit more from our table scraps.
What an awestriking video. This must be very high on the list of best videos I've ever seen on youtube, not even joking. Thank you for such good content hope you keep making similar videos
If you’re interested, check out some vids on how humans are the best long distance running species on the planet too! It’s super interesting and goes into things like how animals can easily outrun us in short distances, but we’d just jog after them for miles which is partly because we can sweat rather than pant like other animals and it was a huge help for hunter-gatherer times lol
The deep diving people also have an anatomical ability to not get decompression sickness from repeat deep diving.. I'd love to know more about that
The spear thrower like the one used at 4:35 was probably developed as soon as we started throwing spears at animals, as a way to extend our reach, and it was probably the reason we evolved a better throwing physiology. It was the premiere hunting weapon for thousands of year until we eradicated the woolly mammoth and started using a more accurate weapon, the bow and arrow, for smaller and faster animals.
Spears were THE default human weapon up until the Munich Police used them last time to disperse protesters in 1923. Swords are fancy, but spears got the bloody work done, and 1on1, spears win.
So you think they could kill a mammoth by throwing a pointy stick at them?
@@Max-yy3lz not one pointy stick, a lot of them
@@Max-yy3lz yeah
@@Max-yy3lz a lot of humans throwing a lot of spears
So humans are basically the personification of a 'jack of all trades' but in a weirdly good way.
The original quote specified that a jack of all trades is a master of none but often times better than a master of one. Evolution supports this!
@@ok0_0 Humans actually do have mastery of one. Endurance. Specifically, we are among the best runners in the animal kingdom, able to just keep going and going.
@@matteste well, yea. I neglected to mention that... But we've mastered so many other areas that it feels more like we're just super proficient in tons of fields.
jack of all trades, master of none
I think it'll be hella difficult for humans to go extinct even if an apocalyptic event hits us, because of our diversity in skills, genetics, knowledge, resources, etc. Greatly increases the chances that at least a few of us will survive whatever flavor of apocalypse is thrown at us and go on to reproduce.
a simple explanation for the effective oxygen portion of the video is that we use atmospheric pressure to push the oxygen across the border of our lungs and into our bloodstream. During high altitudes there is less pressure to push that oxygen across, so we therefore receive less oxygen with every breath. its not that there is less oxygen, just we aren't able to use it. When climbing mount Everest there are a couple things you can do to "fix" this: go down the mountain as there is more pressure down there, oxygen tanks which basically throw as much oxygen as it can at your lungs in the hopes that enough makes it through, pressure chambers which people experiencing hypoxia (lower than normal oxygen, also called altitude sickness) are placed in so that the body can absorb sufficient oxygen, and blood transfusion (i think). Fun fact for those who bothered to read through. during the climb once you enter above the 8000-meter mark, the climbers are literally dying this zone has been named the death zone for this reason.
Fantastically educating and entertaining video! Bravo!!
I use the divers reflex to help counteract episodes of tachycardia I sometimes experience. It truly does help, instantly reduces your heart rate upon the face submerging in water. That tends to help my heart retrigger normal electrical activity.
Interesting to know.
Great tip!
That's how I sometimes counteract my insomnia.
i was taught to use it during panic attacks! it’s really helpful to calm your body down when it just will not listen
how do you normally do this? It seems inconvenient to try in most places
Finally you are covering the top-tier animal on this planet.
They already did ants
@@kevinaguilar9454 I don't see a ant in 🚀 space
I don't see any crabs in this
@@Watch-0w1 they probably just don't wANT to go there ;)
And the most destructive
Excellent video! New subscriber from me :) I was half expecting to see our ability to mimic sounds in here, but I guess that's not an athletic feat so that makes sense.
We don't use it as much as before, but our ability to sweat is one of our most overpowered.
I've always had a pretty solid throwing arm, a good throwing arm is often a good swinging arm. The amount of damage humans are able to inflict with handheld weapons is unreal. Just think of a lumberjack splitting rounds of oak with a maul. I don't think there is an animal on the planet that could rival our amazing swing.
HUMANS RAAAAAHHHHHHHHH 🙋♂️🙋♀️🕺🚴♂️🏋️♀️🤼♀️🤾♂️⛹️🏌️♂️🤽♀️🏊♂️🚣🏄🚵🏇🧗🔥🔥💯💯💯💯💯💯💯💯💯💯💯💯‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️
Introducing the Pistol Shrimp, which throws down with the force of a .22 calibre bullet, despite being able to be held by a human
@@mikeoxmall69420 Oh sure, that's a lot of power, but can it split a log in half?
@@mikeoxmall69420 Not the power, the speed. The pistol shrimp still wouldn't be able to hurt you.
@@MrCmon113I'm sorry, you try getting punched by a pistol shrimp that literally causes the water around its clubs to boil because of how fast they move. Unless you also think that getting shot with a gun won't hurt? Because that's what you're saying lol
I wish you touched down on the population of Kenya's village of Itan! Located 2,400m above sea level in Rift Valley, this small village is where the world's best distance runners come from. They have the longest leg to torso ratio. Also their legs are oval shaped rather than circle shaped if seen from a cross section from above. This makes them more aerodynamic! I studied them for years while I was ultra-running for Nike!
super cool!
Thats cool but this video is about us all being extraordinary.
@@joso7228 did you watch the video lol like the mountain people or the diving people
I was born and raised in Italy, in a city whose average altitude is below 400m. Now, since 2012 I live in the Andes, at an altitude of 2500m. I had some initial problems, but now I can run more than 100m quite fast or walk long distances. The max altitude I was exposed to, right after I got here, was around 5000m, it was quite hard, but I did it. I'm not sure if my asian dna (I'm half japanese) helps in this matter. According to the video, it doesn't since my father and his parents come from a town on the coast. On the other hand, a few weeks ago, I tried holding my breath in a pool, a few hundred meters above sea level, as a kid I could hold my breath for more than a minute, now it's quite less than that.
three things I tell myself: 1. there's always room for improvement 2. question everything, even yourself 3. change is the only constant
W philosophy
@@BigBrotherBrody the first two things I discovered myself when I used to meditate regularly. It just came up in my mind. The last one I learned from Andy puddicombe, a former monk and former co-founder of headspace. He also meditates in case you haven't realized yet 😅
To give further perspective, the human hand, with its precision grip is incredibly crucial to human development. Humans are mostly upright spiders. We are basically hands adorned with hands. Our strength may be lower, but our grappling precision is unmatched.
The hand is also so sensitive, if you were the size of a planet, you'd still be able to feel tiny individual buildings.
Look up a video called "you are an upside down lobster" 🙃 And our hands aren't what makes the hand special. It's the muscles and the control. Fast twitch muscles are vastly stronger than slow twitch muscles. But fast twitch muscles can't be controlled with as much precision as slow twitch. Which is why a chimpanzee weighing just 200 pounds(a little chubby actually) could easily punch a woman's face off her bones, AND literally pull her hands off her arms at the wrist, in seconds. Just one big rage fest.
The dexterity of our wrists and knuckle joints is insane compared to other great apes.
@@lordgarion514 Nonsense. The muscles of the hads are part of the hands which makes a hand a hand.
@@lordgarion514 OI watched it. It's bullshit.
Crazy that all I could think of during that intro about animals being physically gifted was how I’ve never seen a pack of lions form a phalanx
Very nice and inspiring presentation, thanks 👍👍
As a medieval reenactor (used to throw spears) and amateur free-lung diver (certified monofin diver) who incidentally comes from a high-altitude city, this video feels... quite personal to me.
We are incredible lucky. More so to be born and live in our current time. There's NEVER been a better time to be alive! I am incredibly grateful to be here with all of you!
GLORY TO GOD
We don't know that. The world has been destroyed and rebuilt so many times no telling what kind of civilizations existed
@@kymma2589 you watch too many “ancient aliens” programs. Sorry, but we *do* know this. There’s no Atlantis hiding in our past
❤️❤️❤️
The ability to train at a task until we've amplified our ability at that task - become an athlete - is itself uniquely human. What other species dedicates itself to lifting weights, or expanding its physical repertoire beyond all practical purpose like gymnastics or dancing or the triple-jump or pole-vaulting?
I go back and forth... Want to see REAL physicality? Look at those youtube videos of hairless chimps. Every single one of them looks like they fell into a vat of radioactive spiders and super soldier serum. And that's WITHOUT actual steroids or even hitting the gym every day. We have people who dedicate their entire lives to building muscle (pumping iron, daily illegal steroids, specialized diets, trainers, etc) and those people look like starving Ethiopians compared to your standard, lay-around-all-day-in-a-zoo Chimpanzees.
killer whales
Your mom
Some birds have been observed to lift broken tree branches, it's theorized that they do it to practice for their hunting. It's definitely a special trait but not exclusively human so tone down that human hubris.
My cat never gives up. If he wants to climb my hammock deliberately left really high or a wall he will train for days until achieve it. He doesn’t sleep he doesn’t eat he just need to climb my safe sleep place. I don’t know if it’s because i have ADHD but my boy got so much more persistence than me.
Back in 2010 I was bulimic, went from 110kg(242,5lbs) to 66kg(145,5lbs) in 3 months, ate once every 3 or 4 days, and when I ate, always threw up on purpose, I was 18 years old, yet it was the time I felt the strongest and had more stamina and energy in my life, despite being skin and bones, I was working with dad, he rented scaffolding to various constructions and since he was already 60 years old, I was the one who always loaded and unloaded the scaffolding for him, I once made a calculation based on the weight of each piece of scaffolding, I carried between 4 and 5 tons of weight on a daily basis from 8 am to 6 pm, monday to friday, and after work always went out with my girlfriend at the time or my friends, after coming back home still had energy to play a couple of hours on the computer then I went to sleep, by the way, I was already a smoker at the time, I still get baffled when I think about it, how the heck I never collapsed, never even felt tired, all because... I felt good with how I looked(at the time, nowadays I look at my pictures from that time and holy crap, I looked terrible when I was extremely skinny, I might not be tall, 1,75m/5'9", but the ideal weight for my corporal build is 85kg/187,4lbs, which thankfully is what I weight nowadays despite having a little bit of a beer belly haha), the only explanation I can think of if that I took many physical atributes from my late grandfather from my mother's side, and everybody always tells me stories of how insanely strong he was even in his late 60s, I never witnessed his feats of strenght myself but, i'm nearly identical to him, only taller and way less overweight(he was extremely obese since I can remember to the day he passed, in 2015, miss you a lot grandpa), but we are both, I mean, I am and he was, very broad, with large but discrete muscles(you know when you are very muscular but you aren't "ripped"?), and I don't even work out often, I like to swim way more than to work out, i'd say if it were possible to share images on comments i'd show you guys a picture of me of that time, but I wouldn't wanna give anyone nightmares with spooky skeletons haha(to makes matters worse I used to dye my hair bright red during that time, wth was wrong with me? how did I even had a girlfriend during all that craziness?! and no, never did any drugs besides cigarettes and alcohol, most precisely beer, here the legal drinking age is 18 but I drank since I was 15 and I smoke since I was 13, I feel so sorry for my parents during my teenage years...)
Hi, I don't know you but I read this whole story and I'm glad you're doing well now. I hope you stay healthy and take good care of yourself.
Man! What an amazing creature!! I wish I was one of them.
You are probably a Monkey who made the comment, right?
_"Let me tell you about humans, using something I'm familiar with in anthropology. When a Shoshone warrior wants a pony, he goes to a herd, picks one, and walks toward it. Naturally, the pony runs away. The Shonone follows, day and night just walking, usually for three full days. Pony runs away, man just keeps walking at a steady pace. Finally the pony simply collapses from exhaustion after running away for days, and the man walks up and puts a bridle on it. That is the kind of monster humans are"._
It's the buttocks and the perspiration. Humans are sweaty ar*e.
Humans may not have many showy superpowers like a crocodile's bite force or a cheetah's speed, but the once we do have are terrifying. Tool use (our hands are perfect for holding cylinders like any tool handle and when using a hammer we won't drop it, chimps will and this is partially due to finger proportions and partially grip strength.) Endurance: exactly what you just said. We can run marrathons and need minimal recovery time (if trained), but we can jog, power walk, and normal walk all day long without tiring more than usual. (Modern example, any job that requires you to stand and be on your feet all day, we complain sure but its not like we are about to collapse, just a little sore.) Intelligence, maybe this is flashy but we can plan very far ahead and strategize. Its not just that we can walk a horse to death, we can intentionally do so and profit calories from eating it. We can thow a stone with lethal force, but we can also aim and decide a stone is goob but a spear is better and then smash rocks together, find a stick, make twine, and combine them into a very deadly weapon. Humans are the real monster, we habe the endurance to follow you, the biomechanics to cross basically any obstacle (climbing, swimming, leaping, ect), we have the intelligence to track you, and the patience & foresight to actually do it. These traits are what make monsters such as the predator, xenomorphs, and most low budget horror monsters scary. A raging bull can and will kill you quickly, a human can't so they will just do it slowly and win the war of attrition, and the latter is much more terrifying and unpleasant.
Apparently Lappish people in northern Finland used the same technique to catch wolverines and other game/fur animals. They would walk after it for days until it was too exhausted to move, then club it.
It's like those horror movies but we are the monster.
Running and sweating which are the most impressive were left out. Hope there is a part 2 and also add on the ability of how our brain works and how fast it can process and interpret information.
And how we've sacrificed certain aspects of thinking to take on others. Chimps can do specific tests far better than humans because they're far better at immediately recognizing groups from a second long glance.
Right? That's what I was commenting about too. I truly believe we humans aren't physiologically that great. We are just well rounded. It's our brains, mental strength, willpower, ambition, ability to practice, etc. that pushes our limits and takes us to the next level.
@@ape8404 Not necessarily. We're very, very, very good at hunting and eating. Our throwing, stamina, empathy, and molars/normal teeth enable us to outlast and exhaust other animals, and we have a wider range of foods to eat due to our digestion. We still specialize, just in other ways
The optic nerve processes something like 3MB/s (retina resolution in number of average receptive fields by temporal resolution of 20/sec), and our ability for pattern recognition is off the charts. Ok, sometimes it goes overboard and we develop conspiracy theories, but still. And we can hear noises just 1 order of magnitude stronger than the thermal noise of Brown´s motion, that´s pretty amazing. Also, we have clear colour view in a wide angle, which not many animals have in this acuity. And with the front-mounted eyes, we can also see depth at any distance, which not many animals can. Owls, yes, Chimps. But not much else.
@@thunderspark1536 Yeah, true. We have a pretty low base calory need given our size. I remember vaguely a story about a Great Dane, which weight around 80 kg. He had to be fed about four whole chicken A DAY, just to keep him alive. If he had been a working dog of any kind he would have needed even more. My father is even heavier than the dog and eats half the amount. And he is working and exercising. For a non-specialized omnivore we're incredibly good in converting food to energy. And we're pretty good in keeping our body hydrated, too (even though not as efficient as camels, birds or most reptiles).
Wow. Evolution sure is an excellent planner. As it evolved the major organs, it knew to evolve the support systems for those organs at the same time. Incredible!
you're anthropomorphizing a natural process.
@@dionysusnow There's nothing "natural" about a "blind" process that somehow knew that as it evolved a heart it would also need blood, blood vessels, and the means to carry nutrients and oxygen to the rest of the body. Or evolving a brain, while at the same time "knowing" it would have to evolve a spinal cord, nerves, and develop the means to generate electrical charges and connections to control muscle movement and a beating heart. Or "evolving" a stomach, while at the same time "knowing" it would also have to develop acid for food breakdown, intestines, and the means to process food for energy and growth and the means for expelling waste. Or kidneys, livers, eyes, ears, lungs, and the processes that needed to develop AT THE SAME TIME to support them.
I think the most OP adaptation humans have, is our ability to survive almost any injury. Sure, there are easy ways to kill a human, but if you don't know those spots, it's gonna be really, _really_ hard
The human body is amazing. I had a physiology professor talk at me and some friends once about how the human hand, wrist and arm have evolved with melee combat in mind. Hmm.
I used to be pretty good at melee combat, until I took an arrow in the knee...
I would have like a knife or at least a spike.
@@MrCmon113 That's why we evolved for melee combat, having a tool just helps that.
@@4FYTfa8EjYHNXjChe8xs7xmC5pNEtz whats wrong? Someone stole your sweet roll?
@@Chad-ob5su I can see you don't get to the Cloud District very often, do you?
back in the 90s when I was a kid, i remember asking my oldest brother, already an adult in college, what the most dangerous animal was, thinking that it would be a shark or some snake with super venom... my brother said " you want to know what the most dangerous animal is?" he looked down at me, knelt and looked into my eyes and said "Man."
If you go by number of deaths per year then it is the mosquito - by a large margin. But I get what your bro was suggesting.
cap he aint say that 😹🙅🏿
@@VestigialHead he said most dangerous, not deadliest
cringe
@@han.2513 Cope that you didn't have wholesome and mature elder siblings.
Our brain is currently learning about things that our brains are controlling.
This is the equivalent of me watching a review of a product I've already bought
As an ultra endurance human with a high hgb to hct ratio, this video is so interesting to me. One thing left out however, is the human trait of perspiration. It's what gives us humans one of the best endurance capabilities in the animal kingdom, not a lot of mammals perspire like us humans.
I was looking for this. Maybe our most important feature outside of our intelligence and opposable thumbs.
Yeah, if it wasn't for our ability to dump water to cool off, none of this "top athlete" stuff would matter, because we wouldn't be able to do it for so long & consistently! Sweating is so underappreciated, but I was so sure it would be a main focus of this video.
I was expecting this video to talk about endurance hunting, and was quite surprised when I realized it didn't.
Just wanted to tell you, that over the last year you've become by far my most favourite channel on this website. I've been on youtube for over 13 years now, but not a single channel managed to grab my attention and curiosity in the way you do. I've watched every video on your channel several times and they are always a pleasure to experience. The way you narrate, the accompanying videos and the way you treat your audience are pretty much unrivaled for me. I truly hope you never stop. These videos made me so interested in biology and natural sciences that I've decided to study biology this year. Thank you. You rock!
Thanks! Fellow Human.
Thanks for donating she deserves it :)
Fantastic!
The ability to throw. My respect for Zeke in AoT gone up and up
Thank you for including all the people
The spear is not just a throwing weapon. Its also a very capable melee weapon, one of the best in fact.
It also shows off basically all aspects of our tool use abilities: intelligence, grip strength, and dexterity (both in not dropping the finished spear or other tool like a hammer, and in crafting the tool).
Spears were actually the superior melee weapon, swords were only used for backup.
And they were pretty cheap too, suitable for equipping massive armies
With enough practice you can hold your breath for a very long time. I learned about a technique called packing from a dive instructor. Basically it's a method of breathing that causes you to over-saturate your blood with oxygen and causes your heart rate to slow down drastically. He demonstrated his ability to hold his breath for 8 minutes while sitting at the bottom of a swimming pool. The Guinness World Record is over 20 minutes I do believe. Our legs are also incredibly strong and because of the way our knee and hip work we can do a similar motion to throwing, only instead of throwing a rock or spear you are basically trying to throw your foot. This gives your average human the ability to throw kicks that land with over 1000 foot-pounds of energy. Obviously you would need training to do so. Either way that is enough energy to easily break bone or even kill smaller predatory animals.
Smaller? We beat anything in our weight class in adrenaline mode
@@ricklopez4703 I disagree with you on that. See chimp for reference lol
@@thatoneguy454c men have killed Alpha chimps in those situations before and chimps try to jump you that's why they are dangerous. People base chimps strength against women and the guy who was attacked by his chimp and neither are good comparisons to a strong man who could do the same type of damage to women and older men
@@thatoneguy454cchimp OP
Isnt that the dangerous thing that causes you to faint lol?
throwing accurately , cooking , long distance endurance running , etc combined with our propensity for rational/critical thinking , yep , humans are amazing creatures indeed XD ; big fan of the aquatic ape theory ; another banger video RS , stay awesome =]
Another excellent episode! Thanks!
Something I came to appreciate as a particularly unique trait of our species is our capacity for language, adapting it and creating new terms with sounds to go with them. The FOXP2 gene if i remember right is considered the culprit for our ability to just create a new vocabulary, which is apparently quite unique to us, I believe arguments have been made for other species but the debates ongoing. They've apparently even found our intelligence is tied to language, they evolved alongside each other. Its all really, really cool. : D