The intention of this post is to provide insight into some of the more mysterious (and apparently  functions of the human body. Have you ever wondered—Why Do We Do That?

Getting goosebumps: Have you ever seen your cat puff up its fur at the sight of another animal? Well, what is going on underneath the fur is very much like what we like to call goosebumps. Furry creatures (and feathered ones, such as geese) use this function to scare off enemies and also to keep warm. When humans were furry creatures, what we now know as goosebumps served the very same function. This is why we get goosebumps when we are scared or chilly. But, now that we are fur-free, we just get kind of bumpy.

Having “the hiccups”: This is one of the most weird (and potentially embarrassing) extraneous functions of the human body. And it dates back even farther in our evolutionary past. When our evolutionary ancestors first crawled out of the water and started living on land, they had to be able to close their lungs again so they could go back in the water. These early amphibians would push the glottis down while breathing in water. While we can no longer breathe underwater, we do have the extraneous ability to push down the glottis while breathing in. Hence the hiccup.

Growing wisdom teeth: Why do most of us grow more teeth than we can fit in our mouths? Well the answer is that as we evolved, in order to make more room in our skulls for our gigantic brains, space had to be taken away from the back of our jaws. Unfortunately most of us still grow teeth as though we still had that extra space. But, fortunately, what we are left with is the brainpower to be able to extract them (hence the name wisdom teeth). Bigger brains for a smaller jaw? Sounds like a good trade-off to me.