Welcome to Disney's Magic of Storytelling podcast, brought to you by Wake Med Children's, because inside every child is a story waiting to be told.
Our storyteller is ABC 11 news anchor John Clark.
Why?
Over 1,111 answers to everything by Crispin Boyer.
Why do I have a heart?
Your body's engine, the heart pumps blood to every cell in your body.
Why do I have blood?
A mix of special cells and liquid plasma blood delivers all the good stuff oxygen vitamins, minerals and chemicals called hormones to the cells in your body and carries away all the bad stuff carbon dioxide and other waste for disposal.
Red blood cells transport oxygen while white blood cells fight infections.
Special cells called platelets seal the leak when blood vessels break, a process called clotting.
An oxygen-carrying protein called hemoglobin is what gives blood its red color.
Why do I have lungs?
Each breath you inhale fills these balloon-like organs with oxygen, which is absorbed into your blood.
Each exhalation expels carbon dioxide waste from your blood.
Why do I have skin?
Skin holds your insides in and protects your tissues from ultraviolet radiation from the outside.
Skin is your body's largest organ.
It's made of layers of cells that march to the surface and flake off from friction.
The outermost layer is entirely dead.
Why do I have tonsils?
These two meatball-shaped masses of tissue at the back of your throat are part of your lymph system, which includes a network of nodes that work like little security guards to battle infection.
Why do I have an appendix?
This skinny tube in our digestive system is mostly useless today and can actually endanger your life if it becomes inflamed.
Scientists suspect that the appendix, which replenishes essential bacteria in our guts, was an important organ back before.
Germ-fighting medicines helped humans overcome constant bouts of diarrhea.
Why do I have a stomach?
This expandable organ stores everything you eat and starts breaking down food with powerful acids.
Why do I have intestines?
The bulk of food digestion takes place in your small and large intestines, two tubes that absorb all the vitamins, minerals and other nutrients from everything you eat.
Why do I have a liver?
Your body's biggest internal organ, the liver, is like a complex chemical processing plant.
It converts nutrients from the small intestine into fuel your body can use.
It makes bile an essential substance for digestion.
It cleans your blood of toxins and removes damaged red blood cells.
Why do I have kidneys?
This bean-shaped organ is so essential to good health that your body comes with a second one for free.
Each kidney is crammed with more than a million microscopic filters called nephrons that skim the waste, chemicals and other gunk from your blood.
Why do I have a pancreas?
This organ injects special protein substances called enzymes into your small intestine to break down carbohydrates for fats and energy, and proteins for bodybuilding materials.
The pancreas also creates a crucial hormone called insulin, which regulates the levels of sugar in your bloodstream.
Why do I have a spleen?
This fragile fist-shaped sac is your body's infection fighter, filtering bacteria, viruses and other nasty invaders from your blood.
Why do I have a skeleton?
Remove all your bones, along with the joints and muscles pinned to them, and you'd end up a shapeless, motionless bag of blood.
And remove all of your bones, along with the joints and muscles pinned to them, and you'd end up a shapeless, motionless bag of blood and organs.
Yuck.
Your skull and spinal vertebrae, made of tough deposits of calcium and other minerals, are like armor for your brain and nervous system.
Special bone marrow in your vertebrae and elsewhere is your body's blood factory.
Your muscles and joints meanwhile set your human machine in motion.
350.
About the number of bones in the body at birth.
206.
The number of bones in an adult.
Many bones fuse together during growth.
20 feet.
The length of the small intestine.
60,000 miles.
The length of blood vessels.
1.3 gallons. the average volume of blood in an adult's body.
Why is my blood type important?
Everyone's blood contains the same basic stuff, but mixed in with that stuff are antigens.
These special proteins act like an ID tag for a person's blood, letting his or her body know the blood is the person's own and not a foreign invader.
Antigen combinations make different blood types, eight in all, which are passed along from parent to child, just like eye color and other genetic traits.
If you get in an accident and lose a lot of blood or get sick and need a fresh supply, you'll have to go to the hospital to get a transfusion of someone else's red stuff.
Transfusions are simple procedures and the most common type of hospital procedure, but they always start with the doctor determining the patient's blood type.
If you get a transfusion of the wrong type, Your immune system will think it's an infection and go on the attack.
Wake Med Children's is proud to support the ongoing enrichment of children in our community and beyond through our sponsorship of the Disney Magic of Storytelling podcast.
To learn more about Wake Med Children's, please visit kids.wakemed.org.
