10 Extraordinary Body And Facial Features

Everyone's body is a bit different, but some people have features that are so unique that they are practically 1-in-a-1,000,000 or even rarer!

These special characteristics do not show up often, but once they do, they certainly make their mark. They will sometimes give a person an incredibly beautiful appearance. Other times, it is all taking place inside, making them live a very different life than we do.

Take a look at ten amazingly rare body and facial features that both bless and plague some people around the world.

Some people still have the vestigial muscle from when our ancestors used to climb trees.

The tendon appearing on the left, but not on the right is called palmaris longus. We do not use it nowadays, but genetics ensure that sometimes it still pops up. Its only use today is as a donor's tendon in the case that a person needs a tendon graft.

Are you tetrachromatic?

The word is perhaps a mouthful, but it is a pretty simple case. Tetrachromatics have a fourth type of cone cell in their eyes, which enables them to see over a hundred million colors when an average person can only see a million. Sometimes, artists have this and paint vivid pictures that can only be truly appreciated by other tetrachromatics.

This genetic deficiency keeps heart disease at bay.

A gene called Proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 9 (PCSK9) exists in all of us. However, a small subset of the population has less than the rest of us, that puts them at lower risk for cardiovascular disease.

Drug companies are studying the phenomenon and are hoping to create a drug that lowers the levels for everybody in the battle against heart disease.

That's chimerism.

As you can see, chimerism can lead to this unbelievable image of a man with two very different color eyes. It happens when people carry a second set of DNA in them, that materializes in strange, but usually safe, ways like that.

Some individuals have denser, stronger bones.

You almost certainly do not know what “low-density lipoprotein receptor-related protein 5 (LRP5)” is, but you also don’t need to appreciate it. It is a protein that replaces bone matter as older cells die off. If you do not have enough, you can get osteoporosis. However, with a lot of LRP5, you enjoy more bone density, which means stronger bones.

Golden blood may be the rarest of them all.

In 1961, doctors discovered a rare mutation that leads to a blood type called Rh-null. It’s called “golden blood” because it can donate and match with any blood type. The catch? It is EXTREMELY rare?

Like, right now there are only ten people in the entire world who have it.

An extra rib may be inside you.

Strangely, that rare extra rib, as the diagram demonstrates, actually turns up near the neck. They are often different sizes, and the large ones might create comfort and mobility problems if they get too large in the wrong place.

5 percent of people have a tiny hole near their ear.

Back when living things had gills, the preauricular sinus, was frequent. However, like that tendon from when people climbed trees, over time the trait has pretty much disappeared. Nevertheless, one in twenty people still has it. It’s not dangerous, but it’s quite interesting!

Some people just need less sleep.

If you aren't a morning person, maybe you can blame genetics for not blessing you with “basic helix-loop-helix family, member e41 (called BHLHE41 or DEC2).”

The rare gene allows you to cycle through the sleep process faster than others, meaning you simply need less sleep. That would be nice, wouldn’t it?

Margaret Thatcher, Salvador Dali, and Nikola Tesla all had this gene and produced amazing work from the extra time awake.

Distichiasis

Sounds dangerous, doesn’t it? Well, it is not.

In fact, it is purely aesthetic. Anybody who has this gene gets treated to a second row of eyelashes, much as Elizabeth Taylor had.

There can be an irritation if the lashes are too close to the eyes, but it’s an easy fix and draws attention, which is pretty fun, and marketable if you work in entertainment or fashion.

Reference: TwentyTwoWords