From childhood, we are taught that the human body has five senses. I’m sure we can all recite them: sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell. This list has remained unchanged since the time of Aristotle. To most people, a “sixth sense” refers either to one outside the realm of the scientific, or one that simply does not exist in most humans.

However, ask a neurologist how many senses the human body has, and you might get a surprising answer. Many identify nine or more senses- some listing as many as twenty-one. The first category of senses is the “special” senses, including the familiar sight, hearing, taste, and smell. The second category is made up of the somatic senses, which we usually lump under “touch”- including our perception of pressure, heat, and pain. The third category, however, is not nearly as well-known. These are the interoceptive senses- those that deal with data originating in the body itself.

It is fairly obvious what happens to a person when a sense fails. Many members of society are missing one or more senses. It is common knowledge that blindness is the absence of sight. Deafness, of hearing. Everyone knows what it’s like to lose taste and smell as well; this loss accompanies every head cold. But what happens when the body loses knowledge of itself is a far stranger occurrence.

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This article was written by Zack Jordan, one of our shiny new Damn Interesting writers.

The Atlantic Cable – The Eighth Wonder of the WorldIn the grand old year of 1492, Christopher Columbus set out from Spain with a fleet of three tiny ships. His journey began in August of that year, but it was March of the next before the Old World heard from Columbus again. Time taken: nearly eight months.

Over a century later, in September of 1620, the Mayflower departed England on its historic voyage to the New World. In May of 1621, it returned, bearing news of a (relatively) successful mission. Total time taken: more than nine months.

Over two centuries after the Mayflower, in 1850, the western world was in a state of dynamic change. The Industrial Revolution was in full swing, and the world was optimistic. The first railroads had been operating profitably for over a decade, steamships plied the rivers and coasts of America and Europe, and a network of telegraph wires had spread across territory on both sides of the Atlantic. Where once it had taken weeks to transmit news across hundreds of miles of land, it now took minutes. The world, it seemed, had shrunk. And between the two continents, where once it had taken months to deliver news, it now took… months. Nineteenth-century communications had hit a brick wall; the fastest way to get a message across the Atlantic was still floating and steam-powered, and it looked like things were going to stay that way unless someone was willing to take some huge risks.

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