Do you know about these

Do you know Hair and Nails grow even after death?

Folklore from earliest times abounds with ghoulish tales of the coffins of clean-shaven or bald men being opened to reveal corpses shrouded in luxuriant hair and beards. Formerly neatly manicured fingernails are reported to have reached Chinese mandarin lengths. The New York Medical Record in 1877 carried a report by a Dr Caldwell of Iowa, describing an exhumation which Caldwell said he attended. He claimed that the hair and beard of the previously clean-shaven corpse had burst open the coffin and was growing through the cracks.

          Such stories, however, belong to the realm of folklore, for there is absolutely no scientific basis for this belief. The only way in which growth of human tissue can take place is by cell multiplication, and the only way that can occur is for the cells to receive a plentiful supply of oxygen. When the heart and lungs cease to function at death, the body no longer receives oxygen and cellular activity stops. Any independent continuance of hair or nail cell activity would be momentary and certainly immeasurable. The shrinkage of the skin surrounding the hair follicles of scalp and beard, and that of the fingertips after death might reveal a further 1/16 inch or so of existing hair or nail – but by no means sufficient to burst a lid off a coffin.

Elephants never forgot

There is apparently some truth in the belief that elephants never forget. In a experiment, Professor B. Rensch of Munster University in Germany showed that an elephant recalled a number of tests with a 73-100 per cent accuracy even after the lapse of a year. The Experiment – in which the elephant was taught to associate certain symbols with food – proved that although elephants are not very intelligent, and learn extremely slowly, once they have mastered something it will remain in their memories for a considerable length of time.

          There is, however, no foundation in the belief that elephants are afraid of mice.

Crocodiles shed tears

            The phrase ‘crocodile tears’ meaning hypocritical grief, has been used in literature and everyday speech for hundreds of years. It stems from an early belief that the crocodile wept while devouring its victims. In his De Proprietatibus Rerum, the 13^th century English friar Bartholomaeus Anglicus wrote of the belief:

          “If the crocodile findeth a man by the brim of the water, or by the cliff, he slayeth him if he may, and then weep upon him and swallow him at last.

          The belief that the crocodile is unhappy at killing its prey is quiet erroneous, of course, but crocodiles do shed ‘tear’ as a simple reflex action when their jaws are opened wide – as we might when we yawn. And so there is some basis to the old myth after all.