Nope. Sorry to weird you out here, but the human body evolved in some outlandish ways, and there are some evolutionary hangovers that didnt go away when we developed thumbs, the Cloud and bungee-jumping. This is a case in point: you know that we evolved from fish, dont you? Yes, yes everyone says apes, monkeys, or apemonkey-like creatures, but theyre just not being thorough enough. Well, scientists devoting their lives to observing how fish breathe (dont laugh, they got up late and all the good science was already taken) noticed a long time ago that fish have two sets of nostrils for taking in water: one for letting it in, and one for letting it out again sans oxygen. Inevitably, some bright spark asked (probably in a haze of smoky inspiration at 4am after a heavy night out) why, if we evolved from fish, we dont have two sets of nostrils ourselves. Well, we absolutely do its just that the second set is riiiight back inside our heads. Called choannae, which is from the Greek for funnel (so much more poetic than nostril, which is from the Old English for nose-hole), theyre the holes that connect the nose to the throat and actually allow us to breathe through our noses. Apparently these second nostrils migrated right back through our faces over untold millennia of evolution, resulting in some incredibly ugly amphibious ancestors of ours with (probably) faceholes like sucking wounds. Lovely. Whats your favourite well known fact thats actually total fiction? Shock, edify and weird us out in the comments. 500 Internet Points if you come up with one weve not heard before
Professional writer, punk werewolf and nesting place for starfish. Obsessed with squid, spirals and story. I publish short weird fiction online at desincarne.com, and tweet nonsense under the name Jack The Bodiless. You can follow me all you like, just don't touch my stuff.
