8 Ways Evolution Has Royally Screwed You Over

7. You Could Die From Eating Pizza

One of the more problematic features of the human anatomy is the fact that an errant pizza crust could well spell the end for your journey around the sun.

Our one and only route by which air can enter our bodies, also happens to be the same passage that we regularly shovel solids and liquids down. The only thing standing between you and purple-face oblivion every time you take a sip of frappacino, is a small fleshy flap called the epiglottis.

This doesn't seem to make much sense in an evolutionary sense, why would we develop a feature that can so readily kill us?

The thing is about evolution is that it's a tinkerer, not a designer. Assembling a human from a fish is difficult at the best of times, but doing it blindfolded on the roll of a dice is how you end up with mad systems like this one.

It is thought that the reason we hung on to the double-duty pharynx is that the benefits of being able to make complex sounds outweighs the drawbacks of occasionally dying of asphyxiation.

Incidentally, if we were to separate the two out, we would have to communicate in a kind of whalesong. An opportunity missed there, evolution.