Quick, Tell Me: Stupid Human Tricks Edition

Quick Tell Me LogoGenetic variation is an amazing thing. The chance that another human has or had an exact copy of your genetic code is pretty much nil.  When the FBI uses STR (short tandem repeat) technology to identify forensic samples of DNA, they only look at 13 regions of the human genetic code; the chances that any two non-identical-twin individuals have the same data for just those 13 loci are about 1 in 1 billion.

DNA codes for amazing things, like hemoglobin and eye color and entire spleens. It also can code for very odd abilities, like double-jointedness and the ability to wiggle your own ears.

Or, DNA aside, you could have just spent many hours of your life learning how to stick spoons to your face.

Quick, tell me about your stupid human tricks.

I can roll my tongue.

18 Comments:

  1. I have an amazing ability to stick my foot in my mouth.

  2. I can bend the last joint of my thumb back 90 degrees. I only use this power for evil, by ‘breaking’ it back with mock-effort, then waving my hand up and down, letting the thumb flop brokenly.

    Also, I know someone who can shoot Knob Creek bourbon from her tear ducts, does that count?

    • Clearly, this Knob Creek person must be related to the short horned lizard, which can shoot blood from its eyes.

  3. I can touch my tongue to my nose.
    I can stand on my head until I eventually pass out.
    I’m a really good spitter.

  4. I have a deformed thumb that most people never notice. That is, until I pretend I’m doing a trick with it and then they are astounded. I’ll show ya sometime. It works best on the intoxicated.

  5. I can also roll my tongue, both front to back and side to side.
    My other weird quirks are photoptarmosis and brachydactyly. (photic sneeze reflex in response to bright sunlight, and stupid ugly short fat thumbs that look like toes.)

    ~Sharon

  6. If I want I can bend my fingers at the tips, that is, at the first knuckle only. When I found my birthmother back in 1993 she sent me a photo of my half-brother who, like me, was an atheist and an Amiga computer programmer. The photo was of him bending his fingers at the first knuckle, with the caption “Can you do this?”

  7. I used to be able to fold my tongue into a cloverleaf. Then I injured my tongue and now I can only do half of that fold. Also, I once got yelled at by an artist at a drawing workshop because my elbows hyperextend.

  8. My fingers bend backwards only at the 2nd joint from the tip, not from the 1st or 3rd. Only obvious when other people try to duplicate the trick, and usually can’t. That, and the top of my left eye socket has a ridge of bone that doesn’t match the right. Also not obvious unless I take my glasses off and point it out.

  9. Sharon can also point her feet backwards. She’s a freak of nature!

  10. In junior high school gym class we were tested to see how long we could maintain a chin-up. You were disqualified if your chin touched the bar you held yourself up by. I had just seen a movie where people clinging to the edge of a cliff fell to their death because they “just couldn’t hold on any longer” and I wondered how well I would do in the same spot. The gym teacher had two kids chin on the bar at a time; I was tenth in line. I stayed on that bar for longer than the next twenty kids, combined. I only came down when the teacher got tired of waiting and asked if I would come down so the class could move on to the next unit. Once I came down I was unable to unbend my arms for quite some time, but I was too smug to mind.

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