HowStuffWorks Newsletter
Your body is pretty amazing. At any given point you have many biological processes going on -- circulatory, digestive, brain & central nervous systems and more. Learn about these body systems as well as the eye, ears, nose and throat.
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Stanford researchers have developed a new white cane, incorporating sensing and wayfinding approaches from robotics and self-driving vehicles. Could this new white cane reshape life for the visually impaired?
Parosmia is a post-COVID-19 side effect that distorts your sense of taste and smell. But smell training (you read that right) can help most people get things back on track.
Technology for hearing aids has advanced drastically since our grandparents wore those big, bulky ones wrapped around their ears. Now they're Bluetooth-enabled and can even translate foreign languages on the fly.
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Deaths from cases of the flu have dropped a staggering amount during the 2020-2021 flu season, even while cases of COVID-19 soared. What does that mean and what can we learn for the future?
Does feeling sick after you get the vaccine mean your immune system is responding? What if you don't feel sick? Does that mean it's not?
Does using a bathroom other than your own freak you out? The Faux Fan drowns out the sounds your body makes when you have to, well, go, so you can poop without worrying people will hear.
By Meg Sparwath
Empty nose syndrome is a rare problem where patients have clear nasal passages but constant sensations of being unable to breathe. And worst of all, many doctors believe it's all in their heads.
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Savant syndrome is a rare condition in which someone with significant mental disabilities demonstrates certain unexplained extraordinary abilities, such as playing music or remembering prodigious amounts of information.
We've probably all been breathing wrong our entire lives. Why is that? Experts suggest we should focus on breathing through our noses and most of us don't.
There are eight major blood types and some are more common than others. But what's the rarest of them all?
Getting a bloody nose is nasty and can be also be pretty scary if you can't stop it. So what's the fastest — and safest — way to get your nose to stop bleeding?
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Proprioception refers to our ability to perceive our body's position and how we move through space. It's often considered our sixth sense because we do it without thinking about it.
Blue light glasses are super popular these days. But do they work the way marketers promise?
Although the inability to picture things in your head would seem to be a hinderance, some experts say it's definitely not a creativity killer and actually can have some advantages.
By Alia Hoyt
A low oxygen level in your blood is a good indicator of a COVID-19 infection, but what exactly does that mean and how do doctors test for it?
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We're all hearing the words 'antibody' and 'antibody testing' way more than we ever thought we would in the normal course of a day, so what exactly are we talking about?
Cytokine storm syndrome can turn a normally functioning immune system into an enemy more dangerous than the virus it's trying to dispatch.
Maybe you've never even thought about it when you've smelled — or emitted — a particularly odoriferous fart. But can that fart spread disease?
You almost never notice the way your own place smells. Why is that?
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The cerebellum is the part of our brain that controls voluntary movements like posture, balance, coordination and speech.
The hypothalamus is a tiny area of your brain that keeps everything — hunger, thirst, sleep, energy, mood — in balance.
Sometimes referred to as the "cuddle hormone," oxytocin is released during sex and breastfeeding. But does it make you fall in love with someone or just bond you more with someone you already love?
By Dave Roos
Located in the temporal lobe, this tiny horseshoe-shaped organ plays a massive role in both the storage of long-term memories and the creation of new ones.
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Homeostasis comes from the Greek words for "similar" and "steady" but this state of steadiness is anything but boring. In fact, it's what you want your body to be.
By Alia Hoyt
The amygdala is a small part of the human brain that most humans have probably never heard of.