LUNGS: ONLY ORGAN IN HUMAN BODY THAT CAN FLOAT

What oxygen is to the lungs, such is hope to the meaning of life.

                                                                                   -Emil Brunner

                                       The lungs are the only organ that can float on water.  Each of your lungs contains about 300 million balloon-like structures called alveoli, which helps to replace the carbon-dioxide waste in your blood with oxygen. When alveoli  are filled with air, the lungs become the only organs in the human body that can float.

       Medical examiners use the so-called “lung float test” during autopsies to determine if a baby was stillborn. If the lungs float, the baby was born alive else the baby was stillborn. This method is accurate 98 percent of the time, according to a 2013 study in the International Journal of Legal Medicine.

Not only this, there are more interesting facts about lungs

•  An individual usually breathes an average of 13 pints of air every minute.
• In humans, left lung is smaller than right lung to accommodate heart.
•  If the lungs were opened flat, they would be so big that they would cover the size of a tennis court.
• 70% of waste is eliminated through your lungs just by simply breathing.
• Women and children have higher breathing rate than men.
• Humans exhale up to 17.5 millilitres of water per hour.