This list of extraordinary human abilities was inspired The Top 10 Tips to Improve Your Memory when I began thinking about how some people are blessed (or cursed, depending on your point of view) with the ability to recall a scene as if they were looking at a photograph. And how other people can recreate music from memory, such as Mozart’s famed reproduction of Gregorio Allegri’s Miserere after one hearing. What other extraordinary abilities might humans have? I’ve listed nine of the most well understood (i.e. not paranormal or ‘fringe science’) and interesting abilities rated from most common to most interesting and rare. Bear in mind that most of these unusual abilities are genetic and cannot be controlled by the person affected but are an inherent quality of their physical self.

People who experience taste with greater intensity than the rest of the population are called supertasters. Having extra fungiform papillae (the mushroom shaped bumps on the tongue that are covered in taste buds) is thought to be the reason why these people have a stronger response to the sensation of taste. Of the five types of taste, sweet, salty, bitter, sour, and umami, a supertaster generally finds bitterness to be the most perceptible.

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Some time ago we did a list of the 15 most bizarre patents. Fortunately for us, there are millions of them around - so we have put together another list! These are all patented in the US patent office (some of the original list of 15 were international patents) but we don’t mean that to be a reflection on the quality of American inventors! So, without further ado, here are 10 more bizarre (and stupid) patents:

This patent from 1968 is designed to help people who, for some unknown reason, might need to place a lock upon their toilet seat. I have spent a considerable amount of time trying to work out who might use this device - and, frankly, the only thing I can come up with is that perhaps it could be used to punish men who forget to put the toilet seat down. The inventor is a woman - which gives weight to my conclusion. Forgetful men should be thankful that no one has actually tried to build this device!

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In our ongoing quest for wonderful facts about all manner of things, we have put together this list (with thanks to the Reader’s Digest Book of Facts), a great list of amazing human facts. These are the fifteen most wonderful things about our bodies that hopefully are news to most of our readers! So, onwards:

1. The stomach’s digestive acids are strong enough to dissolve zinc. Fortunately for us, the cells in the stomach lining renew so quickly that the acids don’t have time to dissolve it.

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Man owes a great debt to the scientists on this list; all of them died or were injured in their pursuit of knowledge. The advances they have all made to science are extraordinary and many of them paved the way for some of man’s greatest discoveries and inventions.

Scheele was a brilliant pharmaceutical chemist who discovered many chemical elements - the most notable of which were oxygen (though Joseph Priestley published his findings first), molybdenum, tungsten, manganese, and chlorine. He also discovered a process very similar to pasteurization. Scheele had the habit of taste testing his discoveries and, fortunately, managed to survive his taste-test of hydrogen cyanide. But alas, his luck was to run out: he died of symptoms strongly resembling mercury poisoning.

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Almost all of us have, at some time, been chided by a parent or grandparent who has been mislead by an old wives’ tale. Their intentions are always good, but unfortunately they are misguided. There are thousands of old wives’ tales - ranging from the seemingly logical to the outright bizarre.

This is a list of ten of the most common old wives’ tales which are, in fact, bunkum! Feel free to use the comments to tell us about some of the more unusual tales you have come across in your life.

In fact, both colds and fevers cause dehydration - so liquids are essential when suffering from either. In addition, missing out on food when you are sick is never a good idea as food provides the body with the sustenance it needs to get healthy. So, you should feed a fever and feed a cold. This, of course, does not mean to overeat - it means to eat healthy balanced meals.

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