One of the disadvantages of being a student is that you have finals. If you are like past roommates and neighbors of mine, your typical reaction to this might be either a) heavy drinking before finals and/or b) heavily drinking after finals.

I am a strong opponent of this irresponsible behavior, especially when so many of these students are consuming alcohol underage.

This is simply foolish. I myself will wait until the weekend after finals when I turn 21; then I can go home to Iowa City where I can legally drink and be set on fire by the bartenders there.

But drinking is not the topic of this column. I want to talk about some amazing facts about the human body that I stumbled upon, most of which were compiled by nondrinking scientists. I’ve adapted these facts to make them relevant to what will happen to your body during finals week.

In a normal two hour final, over 36 billion cells in your body will die.

1.2 million particles of skin will flake off your body during this time.

Every time you drop your pencil on the ground, remember that 90 percent of the dust it falls and rolls around in is dead human skin.

Your 250,000 sweat glands in your feet will produce a couple ounces of sweat.

You will grow about three yards of hair – not all on your feet, fortunately.

Your heart will work hard enough to lift up two tons one yard high. Or, if you’re French, that is 1800 kilograms 914 centimeters high.

Every time you “accidentally” glance at someone else’s paper, the six different muscles that control your eye will contract in less than a hundredth of a second.

If you decide to keep cheating, remember that honest eyes blink from 10 to 20 times in a minute. Cheating, lying eyes like yours will blink up to 40 times a minute.

Richard Nixon blinked up to 40 times a minute during the Watergate press conference. And he was president.

Monday exams are dangerous – the risk of heart attack is higher on Monday than any other day of the week. Late afternoon exams are also dangerous – most seriously ill patients die from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. – the time that human bodies are the weakest.

Flatulence is composed mostly of swallowed air – the rest is gas from decomposed food. The average person releases about a pint of gas a day.

The person who you are lucky enough to sit behind during your final will probably release enough gas in those two hours to colonize Antarctica.

Banging your head on your desk will burn over a hundred calories an hour.

The human brain is considered to be the most complicated ordered matter that has ever been discovered in the universe.

The average human brain can hold about four terabytes of data. That is over a million MP3s or over 200,000 full city phone books.

Unfortunately, during your final, the information in your brain will probably amount to several dirty jokes you read in Maxim and the tune to a Britney Spears song that your brain will continue to replay until you’re forced to stab your ear with a pencil.

The length of the ear canal is about one inch.

The best place for non-stop cramming is in a rocking chair. The two longest times without sleep on record (449 hours and 453 hours) were both set by people who stayed sitting in rocking chairs.

But above all, no matter how awful your finals may be, just remember that each final takes up only about 0.000002 percent of your life, and that you have the remainder of your life to live joyfully. Alcohol may or may not have a part in this.

Dan Nguyen is a senior in computer engineering and journalism and mass communication from Iowa City.