# The One and Only Human Body - Source: StoryWeaver (storyweaver.org.in), CC BY, Pratham Books, StoryWeaver, CC BY 4.0 - Reading level: Grades 3 and 4 - Subjects: Your Body, Science - Topics: body, that’s, bone, human, sleep, back - Length: 501 words, about 4 min - By: Niranjana Sivaram - Original: - Page: - Open in Sprouts: Let's take a walk through the human body. From head to toe, it is filled with organs, bones, muscles and blood. Everything in it works very hard to get us through the day. The brain is most active when we sleep! It keeps track of the sleep cycle. **Awake → Light Sleep → Deep Sleep → Dreaming → Awake** **The smallest organ** The pineal gland is shaped like a pine cone and sits in the middle of the brain. **The smallest bone** The stapes is quarter the size of an almond and is found inside the ear. **The smallest muscle** The stapedius is ten times smaller than a button. It is also found inside the ear. **The biggest organ** The skin makes up 16% or 1/6th of our body weight. **The biggest bone** The femur is located in the thigh. It can carry up to 30 times our body weight. **The biggest muscle** The gluteus maximus can be found in the buttocks. It stops us from falling backwards when we stand or walk. Teeth are protected by the hardest material in the body—enamel. It’s harder than bones! Every person has tongue prints and fingerprints that are one of a kind! The liver filters the blood that goes from our digestive system to the rest of our body. The liver has the power to grow back! Just a quarter of this organ is enough for it to grow back to its original size. The small intestine helps digest the food we eat. If it was stretched out, it would be 20 feet long. That is the height of an adult giraffe! **KHARRRRR! KHARRRRR!** That’s the sound you hear if we can’t breathe easily while sleeping. Snores are a sign that the path from your nose to your lungs is not clear. **LUB DUB! LUB DUB!** That’s the heart while it pumps blood. There are tiny waves of electricity created in the heart that make it beat. **GRAAUP! URRP!** That's the sound of the stomach sending back the extra air that was swallowed while you ate. There are some parts of our body that aren’t very important. The appendix looks like a sac and is attached to the large intestine. Although we can be healthy even if it is removed from our body, it is not entirely useless. It contains bacteria and tissues that help keep the intestine healthy. The tailbone is the lowest bone in the backbone. Since we don’t have tails, this bone doesn’t do much. The human body is wonderful and weird. In some people it goes out of its way to stand out! The longest nose ever measured was 8.8 inches long. That's nearly the length of two green chillies. The heaviest brain recorded weighed 2.3 kilograms. That’s the weight of a dozen apples. The longest human tooth extracted is recorded as 3.67 centimetres. That’s as big as a medium-sized grape. The longest moustache ever measured was 4.29 metres. That’s 20 times the length of a cucumber. ## Picture credits - Aindri C, CC BY 4.0 () - Aindri C, CC BY 4.0 () - Aindri C, CC BY 4.0 () - Aindri C, CC BY 4.0 () - Aindri C, CC BY 4.0 () - Aindri C, CC BY 4.0 () - Aindri C, CC BY 4.0 () - Aindri C, CC BY 4.0 () - Aindri C, CC BY 4.0 () - Aindri C, CC BY 4.0 () - Aindri C, CC BY 4.0 () - Aindri C, CC BY 4.0 () - Aindri C, CC BY 4.0 ()