Wednesday, February 20, 2013

I Found One of My Love!!!

I love learning about human body, especially reproductive system. So i finally found a website that shares interesting facts about the human body. How much fun is that!!!! I want to read the whole page all at once, but at the same time I want it to last a while. So I decided read them everyday and share it on this blog. There are 100 facts. I am not quite sure if I want to post only one fact a day. Maybe I'll split into categories like the site has done. So here it is. First, it's the brain:



The Brain
The human brain is the most complex and least understood part of the human anatomy. There may be a lot we don’t know, but here are a few interesting facts that we’ve got covered.
  1. Nerve impulses to and from the brain travel as fast as 170 miles per hour. Ever wonder how you can react so fast to things around you or why that stubbed toe hurts right away? It’s due to the super-speedy movement of nerve impulses from your brain to the rest of your body and vice versa, bringing reactions at the speed of a high powered luxury sports car.
  2. The brain operates on the same amount of power as 10-watt light bulb. The cartoon image of a light bulb over your head when a great thought occurs isn’t too far off the mark. Your brain generates as much energy as a small light bulb even when you’re sleeping.
  3. The human brain cell can hold 5 times as much information as the Encyclopedia Britannica. Or any other encyclopedia for that matter. Scientists have yet to settle on a definitive amount, but the storage capacity of the brain in electronic terms is thought to be between 3 or even 1,000 terabytes. The National Archives of Britain, containing over 900 years of history, only takes up 70 terabytes, making your brain’s memory power pretty darn impressive.
  4. Your brain uses 20% of the oxygen that enters your bloodstream. The brain only makes up about 2% of our body mass, yet consumes more oxygen than any other organ in the body, making it extremely susceptible to damage related to oxygen deprivation. So breathe deep to keep your brain happy and swimming in oxygenated cells.
  5. The brain is much more active at night than during the day. Logically, you would think that all the moving around, complicated calculations and tasks and general interaction we do on a daily basis during our working hours would take a lot more brain power than, say, lying in bed. Turns out, the opposite is true. When you turn off your brain turns on. Scientists don’t yet know why this is but you can thank the hard work of your brain while you sleep for all those pleasant dreams.
  6. Scientists say the higher your I.Q. the more you dream. While this may be true, don’t take it as a sign you’re mentally lacking if you can’t recall your dreams. Most of us don’t remember many of our dreams and the average length of most dreams is only 2-3 seconds–barely long enough to register.
  7. Neurons continue to grow throughout human life. For years scientists and doctors thought that brain and neural tissue couldn’t grow or regenerate. While it doesn’t act in the same manner as tissues in many other parts of the body, neurons can and do grow throughout your life, adding a whole new dimension to the study of the brain and the illnesses that affect it.
  8. Information travels at different speeds within different types of neurons. Not all neurons are the same. There are a few different types within the body and transmission along these different kinds can be as slow as 0.5 meters/sec or as fast as 120 meters/sec.
  9. The brain itself cannot feel pain. While the brain might be the pain center when you cut your finger or burn yourself, the brain itself does not have pain receptors and cannot feel pain. That doesn’t mean your head can’t hurt. The brain is surrounded by loads of tissues, nerves and blood vessels that are plenty receptive to pain and can give you a pounding headache.
  10. 80% of the brain is water. Your brain isn’t the firm, gray mass you’ve seen on TV. Living brain tissue is a squishy, pink and jelly-like organ thanks to the loads of blood and high water content of the tissue. So the next time you’re feeling dehydrated get a drink to keep your brain hydrated.

3 comments:

  1. The brain is indeed a fascinating organ! And even though what we do know is quite remarkable, we really know so very little about how the brain actually stores and processes information, or about how and why specific drugs affect it the way they do.

    One of the things we always thought we knew was that dreaming was vital for brain and psychic health. And yet, I heard a Cambridge professor on NPR, asked about a new drug, one of whose side-effects was that patients don't have REM sleep, and therefore no dreams, that he didn't see this as a problem; patients in his study didn't seem to mind.

    Whereas I, for one, think a life without dreams would be a dull, if not an intolerable one!

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  2. Saman, I love your enthusiasm. Your excitement about this work seeps into your writing, which is lively and engaging. Fun to read! I, too, am currently fascinated with the brain, mostly because I am doing a lot of reading about memory and "making"--writing, drawing, creating with your hands. In another facet of my life, I have experience working with seniors (elder folk) on writing their stories, on writing as a form of memory and as an act of remembering or recreating. Anyway, the facts you've posted got me thinking about this work and about how the brain is like the ocean; no matter how much we learn, it seems as though we will never really be able to plumb the depths of it enough to truly understand, especially if you consider Travis' research and his musings about the brain/mind distinction. Hmm. Eager to see what you'll post next!

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  3. ALRIGHT! I didn't see your posts until just now, and let me just say, you've got good tastes! ;) I agree with Dr.Cook you've got spunk and it shows in your writing. I hate reading boring, perfectly precise grammatically sound writing that doesn't have any jazz in it. You've got that jazz, keep on grooving!

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