Human Body Phenomena That Science Cannot Explain<\/p>\n
1.<\/p>\n
“We don’t know precisely how our bodies can distinguish gas from poop. We have some ideas<\/a>; we know there are a ton of nerve endings in the area, but the precise mechanism of our bodies telling our brains ‘this is a fart, let loose’ isn’t really understood. What blows my mind is that it’s distinct enough that we even pass gas while asleep. That difference must be wired DEEP!”<\/p>\n 3.<\/p>\n “I\u2019m an anesthesiologist. We still don\u2019t really know why inhaled volatile anesthetics like sevoflurane<\/a>, the main anesthetic agent used to maintain general anesthesia, work. We kind of have an idea of maybe how it happens, but we don\u2019t really know. It\u2019s commonly said in my field that whoever figures this out will win the next Nobel Prize in medicine.”<\/p>\n 4.<\/p>\n “I’m a sleep specialist. While we do have some good theories about some of the functions of REM as far as how it affects the brain and health, we still don’t fully understand the purpose of dreaming<\/a>. Like, why do we dream at all, and why do dreams have a narrative instead of random incomprehensible imagery? Unfortunately, this is unlikely to even be solved.”<\/p>\n 6.<\/p>\n For many medicines, it is not clear how they work, or even if they work (for example, look at the actual efficacy trials of name-brand antidepressants<\/a>). When you look at them in aggregate, they look like they barely work. Yet, basically everybody knows somebody whose life was saved by a specific antidepressant.”<\/p>\n 7.<\/p>\n “Yawns. We are still guessing<\/a> on why it happens.”<\/p>\n 10.<\/p>\n “Psychiatry is still shockingly infantile in our understanding of human disorders<\/a>. It’s constantly in a state of flux, we don’t understand a lot about the meds we currently use, and the diagnostic criteria for disorders still change as we realize, ‘Hey, maybe all these behaviors aren’t the same source disorder.’ It’s incredibly hard to diagnose when the criteria are largely based on self-report and subjective observations.”<\/p>\n 14.<\/p>\n