365+ Mind-Blowing Facts You've Never Heard Before

365+ Mind-Blowing Facts You've Never Heard Before | Brainy Facts !! Fact Per Day

Mind-Blowing Facts You've Never Heard Before | Brainy Facts !! Fact Per Day

#1 The cortex gets its name from the Latin word for "bark" (of a tree).

#2 There are approximately 100 billion neurons in the human brain.

#3 The average human brain weighs about 3 pounds (1.4 kilograms).

#4 Unlike humans, the octopus does not have a blind spot.

#5 The average length of the adult spinal cord is 45 cm for men and 43 cm for women.

#6 The skin of an adult human covers about 18-20 square feet (~2 square meters) and weighs about 6 lb (2.7 kg).

#7 The sponge is the only multicellular animal without a nervous system.

#8 The word "hypnosis" comes from the Greek word meaning "sleep."

#9 A butterfly can taste with its feet.

#10 The pufferfish, eaten as a delicacy in Japan, contains a potent neurotoxin called tetrodotoxin.

#11 The heaviest human brain ever recorded weighed 5 lb., 1.1 oz (2.3 kg).

#12 Stroke ("brain attack") is the 3rd leading cause of death in the US.

#13 The Greek philosopher Aristotle believed that the heart, not the brain, was the seat of mental processes.

#14 Information travels in the nerves at speeds up to 268 miles per hour (429 kilometers/hour).

#15 The smallest bone in the human body is the "stapes." This bone, found in the ear, is only 0.25 to 0.33 cm long (0.10 to 0.13 inches) and weighs only 1.9 to 4.3 milligrams.

#16 400 to 500 ml of cerebrospinal fluid is produced each day.

#17 Some of the oldest cells in the human body are neurons...they last a lifetime.

#18 If people sleep 8 hours each day, they sleep the equivalent of 122 days per year.

#19 Most people dream about 5 times during each 8-hour period of sleep. Based on this number, people have about 1,825 dreams every year.

#20 An average yawn lasts about 6 seconds.

#21 The distance separating two neurons at a synapse is 20-40 nanometers. (1 nanometer is equal to one-billionth of a meter.)

#22 People typically blink about 15 times per minute. If you are awake for 16 hours each day, then you blink approximately 14,400 each day.

#23 Bicycle helmets reduce the risk for head injury by as much as 85% and reduce the risk for brain injury by as much as 88%.

#24 Percentage of total cerebral cortex volume (human): frontal lobe = 41%; temporal lobe = 22%; parietal lobe = 19%; occipital lobe = 18%.

#25 Schizophrenia affects about 1 out of every 100 people.

#26 People can distinguish between 3,000 and 10,000 different smells.

#27 Bees and butterflies can see ultraviolet light.

#28 Each year in the US, about 200,000 people require hospitalization for head injury and 52,000 people die due to head injuries.

#29 The human cerebellum weighs about 150 grams.

#30 There are about 300 million neurons in the octopus brain.

#31 Fevers are controlled by the part of the brain called the hypothalamus.

#32 Sounds as loud as 130 dB can cause pain.

#33 Epilepsy affects about 2.5 million people in the US.

#34 The brain of the great physicist Albert Einstein weighed 1,230 grams.

#35 A 12 oz. can of Coca Cola has 46 mg of caffeine, a central nervous system stimulant. A cup of coffee has 60-150 mg of caffeine.

#36 It is estimated that there are 60 trillion (yes, trillion) synapses in the cerebral cortex.

#37 Each eye of a dragonfly has about 30,000 lenses.

#38 In the US, one third of all adults complain about sleep problems.

#39 The channel catfish has 100,000 taste buds on the outside of its body.

#40 About 4 million people in the US have Alzheimer's disease.

#41 The corpus callosum, the fiber tract that connects the right and left hemispheres of the brain, contains more than 300 million axons.

#42 The venom of the black widow spider is called "latrotoxin." This toxin causes a massive release of acetylcholine from neuromuscular junctions.

#43 The X-ray was invented by Wilhelm Konrad Roentgen in 1895.

#44 The human cerebral cortex has an area of about 2.5 square feet, has 25 billion neurons, is interconnected by over 100,000 kilometers of axons and receives 300 trillion synapses.

#45 The eardrum (tympanic membrane) is only 0.1 millimeter thick and weighs only 14 milligrams.

#46 The "four-eyed" fish ("Anableps") has TWO pupils in each of its eyes. Therefore it can see above and below the water at the same time.

#47 Approximately 50% of the population of the US is nearsighted.

#48 The human hypothalamus weighs about 4 grams.

#49 A giraffe sleeps only two hours each day.

#50 The human eyeball is 24.5 mm (~ 1 in) long.

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#51 There are about 1,200,000 nerve fibers in each human optic nerve.

#52 The adult human spinal cord weighs about 35 grams (0.1 lb).

#53 The brain of a cat weighs about 30 grams.

#54 There are about 3 million miles of axons in the human brain.

#55 As many as one in five Americans will be affected by a mental illness sometime in their lives.

#56 The aplysia ("sea hare") has a nervous system with only 20,000 neurons.

#57 Of the 31,000 suicides in the US each year, 60-80% are associated with depression or manic-depression.

#58 The economic cost of stress and stressrelated disorders in the US is $200 billion each year.

#59 Odin, a central character in Norse mythology, used two ravens named "Thought" and "Memory" to bring him news from around the world.

#60 The cerebral cortex makes up about 77% of the total volume of the human brain.

#61 After early childhood, synapses in the human neocortex are lost at a rate of 100,000 synapses per second.

#62 Approximately 8% of all males and about 0.5% of all females are colorblind.

#63 Glaucoma is a leading cause of blindness in the US. Approximately 5,400 Americans go blind from glaucoma each year.

#64 Head injuries account for 62% of bicyclerelated deaths.

#65 The gene responsible for Huntington's disease was discovered in 1993.

#66 Humans can hear sounds with frequencies between 20 and 20,000 Hz; cats can hear frequencies between 100 and 60,000 Hz; elephants can hear frequencies between 1 and 20,000 Hz.

#67 Written about 1,700 B.C., the Edwin Smith surgical papyrus contains the first recorded use of the word "brain."

#68 The world's largest invertebrate (animal without a backbone) is the giant squid (Architeuthis dux).

#69 The National Institutes of Health was established in 1887.

#70 The term "homo sapiens" comes from the Latin words meaning "wise man."

#71 There are approximately 1 billion neurons in the human spinal cord.

#72 In 1891, Wilhelm von Waldeyer coined the term "neuron."

#73 A giraffe has seven vertebrae in its neck...this is the same number of neck bones as in people and most other mammals.

#74 Venomous snakes can be dangerous even after they are dead. People have been "bitten" by snakes that were dead or thought to be dead.

#75 When asleep, humans spend 23.1% of the time in rapid eye movement (REM) sleep.

#76 Receptor cells in the taste buds are replaced about once every 10 days.

#77 The word "carotid" (carotid artery) comes from the Greek word karotis meaning "deep sleep."

#78 The cerebellum makes up 10% of the total volume of the human brain.

#79 Agenesis of the corpus callosum (ACC) is a birth defect in which the structure that connects the two hemispheres of the brain (the corpus callosum) is partially or completely absent.

#80 Taste buds are not just found on the tongue; they are also found on the palate, pharynx and larynx.

#81 The brain of the fly contains 337,856 neurons.

#82 Opossums do not have a corpus callosum (the large bundle of axons that connects the right and left cerebral hemispheres).

#83 Many spiders have eight eyes.

#84 The Controlled Substances Act of 1970 states that the mandatory penalty for possession of 1 gram of LSD is 5 years in prison.

#85 The human eye weighs about 7.5 g.

#86 The barbituate "pentobarbital" is also known as truth serum.

#87 A 12 oz can of Jolt cola has 71 mg of caffeine. A cup of coffee has 60-150 mg of caffeine.

#88 The first lobotomy in the US was performed by Walter Freeman in 1936.

#89 The brain of a goldfish makes up 0.3% of its total body weight. An adult human brain is about 2% of total body weight.

#90 Approximately 2 million people in the U.S. are impaired by the effects of cerebrovascular disease, including strokes.

#91 More than 28 million Americans (about 10% of the population) have hearing impairments.

#92 Cerebrospinal fluid is 99% water.

#93 The human brain has 100 trillion synaptic connections.

#94 A Purkinje neuron in the cerebellum may receive 150,000 contacts from other neurons.

#95 About 100 million Americans need eye glasses.

#96 Each year there are about 300,000 brain concussions that occur during sports activities.

#97 There are over 1,000 disorders of the brain and nervous system.

#98 The word "glia" comes from the Greek word meaning "glue."

#99 Young adults spend about 20-25% of sleep time in REM sleep.

#100 Aphasia is the name of speech and language problems caused by brain injury.

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#101 The knee jerk reflex takes about 30 milliseconds.

#102 Humans sleep for 17-18 hours a day at birth, 10-12 hours at age 4 and 7-8.5 hours by age 20.

#103 The vagus nerve, important for controlling heart rate and other internal functions, is the longest of the 12 cranial nerves.

#104 The cerebellum is only 10% of the entire volume of the brain, but contains more than half of all of the neurons in the brain.

#105 About 3% of all people living to the age of 80 will be diagnosed with epilepsy.

#106 Acetylsalicylic acid (aspirin) was first synthesized by Felix Hoffmann in 1897.

#107 In 1998, illegal drug use or nonmedical use of legal drugs resulted in 542,544 visits to emergency departments in the US.

#108 About 50 ml of blood travels through 100 g of brain tissue each minute.

#109 The human corticospinal tract, the pathway from the cerebral cortex to the spinal cord that is important for movement, contains over one million axons.

#110 The Society for Neuroscience, with more than 36,000 members, is the largest professional organization in the world dedicated to the study of the nervous system.

#111 The facial, glossopharyngeal and vagus nerves all carry information about taste.

#112 Atropine, a drug that blocks the action of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, comes from the plant called "the deadly nightshade." Belladonna is Italian for "beautiful lady."

#113 The three most common fears are: snakes (#1), heights (#2) and flying (#3).

#114 Some butterflies have ears on their wings.

#115 Between 20-28 million American have some form of hearing loss.

#116 The human ear canal is about 2.5 cm in length and 0.6 cm in diameter.

#117 Each of your eyeballs is moved by six muscles.

#118 In 1904, US President Theodore Roosevelt threatened to outlaw football after 19 college football players were killed or paralyzed from brain or spinal cord injuries.

#119 As you age, the amount of rapid eye movement ("dream") sleep you have decreases.

#120 When children are six years old, they can understand approximately 13,000 words; high school graduates know at least 60,000 words.

#121 The active ingredient in catnip is called nepetalactone.

#122 The dura mater is the outermost covering of the brain. The term "dura mater" comes from Latin meaning "hard mother."

#123 The roundworm (Caenorhabditis elegans) has 302 cells in its nervous system.

#124 Charles Scott Sherrington coined the term "synapse" in 1897.

#125 Each year approximately 7,000 sledders age 16 and younger are taken to the emergency room for head injuries.

#126 Mountain Dew soda (12 ounces) contains 55 mg of caffeine. A cup of coffee has between 60-150 mg of caffeine.

#127 Dr. James Parkinson first described a neurological disorder called the "shaking palsy" (later to be called Parkinson's disease) in 1817.

#128 The folds and ridges of the outer ear are called the pinna.

#129 The chemical known as ether was first used to manage pain during surgery in 1846 at Massachusetts General Hospital.

#130 Physicist Albert Einstein did not speak until he was three years old

#131 The pupil of the eye can vary in diameter from 1.5 to 8.0 mm. Therefore, the amount of light entering the eye can change 30- fold.

#132 There are 10 billion neurons in the human cerebral cortex.

#133 The word "cerebellum" comes from the Latin words meaning "little brain."

#134 The brain of the bottle-nosed dolphin weighs about 1,500 grams.

#135 Worker honey bees have a ring of iron oxide ("magnetite") in their abdomens that may be used to detect magnetic fields for navigation.

#136 The term "dendrite" was introduced by C. Golgi in about 1870.

#137- Each year about 10,000 babies born in the US develop cerebral palsy.

#138 The part of the brain called the "amygdala" gets its name from the Greek word for "almond" because its shape.

#139- The aroma of coffee contains over 800 different chemicals, but only 20-30 of them contribute to the characteristic quality.

#140 Monarch butterflies migrate up to 3000 kilometers (1,864 miles).

#141 In 1504, Leonardo da Vinci produced wax casts of the ventricles of the human brain.

#142 There are 1 quadrillion synapses in the human brain. That's 1,000,000,000,000,000 synapses! This is equal to about a halfbillion synapses per cubic millimeter.

#143 The weight of the human brain triples during the first year of life, going from 300 grams to 900 grams.

#144 Thomas Willis coined the term "neurology" in 1681.

#145 Every 33 minutes someone dies in an alcohol-related traffic accident.

#146 The word "axon" comes from the Greek word meaning "axle" or "axis."

#147 The lumbar puncture, a method to obtain cerebrospinal fluid by inserting a needle between the lumbar vertebrae and into the subarachnoid space of the spinal cord, was introduced in 1891 by Heinrich Quinke.

#148 About 30 million people (10% of the population) in the US have functionally significant hearing loss.

#149 The cerebral cortex is composed of six layers of cells.

#150 The olfactory epithelium of the human nose contains about 12 million olfactory receptor neurons.

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#151 The human olfactory system is anatomically complete before birth.

#152 There are an estimated 300,000 sportsrelated brain concussions in the US each year.

#153 Women comprise 22% of the US scientific and engineering workforce.

#154 A jellyfish has no brain.

#155 Roman emperors believed that eating lettuce would help a person sleep.

#156 The word "cochlea" comes from the Latin word meaning "snail shell."

#157 The US Drug Enforcement Agency seized 9.3 million ecstasy pills in 2000 (up from 400,000 in 1997).

#158 Americans consume about 45 million pounds of caffeine each year.

#159 In the season finale (May 14, 1998) of the TV show "Seinfeld," Jerry Seinfeld said, "Maybe if we lie down our brains will work."

#160 Birds are insensitive to the effects of hot peppers because they do not have receptors for the chemical (capsaicin) that makes hot peppers "hot."

#161 At least 56,000 motor vehicle accidents each year in the US are attributed to sleepiness behind the wheel.

#162 Normal vision for people is 20/20. A hawk's vision is equivalent to 20/5. This means the hawk can see from 20 feet what most people can see from 5 feet.

#163 The entire last name of the person for which Tourette Syndrome is named is Gilles de la Tourette. People dropped the "Gilles de la" and the disorder is known simply as "Tourette Syndrome."

#164 The expression "memorize by heart" is derived from the old belief that the heart, not the brain, was important for memory. Also, the word "record" comes from the Latin word for "heart."

#165 The word "physician" comes from the Greek word "physis" meaning "nature."

#166 Three neuroscientists were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2000.

#167 When tests for speed and accuracy are given, people who stay awake continuously for 20-25 hours have similar problems as people who have a blood alcohol level of 0.10%.

#168 Slime eels have no eyes, but they do have light-sensitive sensors in their tails.

#169 Compared to humans, houseflies are 10 million times more sensitive to the taste of sugar.

#170 Epilepsy was once called "morbus Herculeus" because it was thought that Hercules had epilepsy. Epilepsy was later called "morbus sacer" which means "sacred disease."

#171 The giant axon of the squid can be 100 to 1000 times larger than a mammalian axon.

#172 The octopus and squid belong to the class of animals known as the "Cephalopoda" meaning "head-footed."

#173 A textbook on phrenology, the "science" correlating bumps on the skull with personality traits, sold over 100,000 copies in 1827.

#174 There are an estimated 300,000 sportsrelated concussions in the US each year.

#175 Tarantulas and other spiders sense vibration with hairs on their legs.

#176 Nine out of 10 people are right-handed, 8 out of 10 people are right-footed, 7 out of 10 people are right-eyed and 6 out of 10 people are right-eared.

#177 After age 30, the brain shrinks a quarter of a percent (0.25%) in mass each year.

#178 The neurotransmitter serotonin was first isolated in 1933.

#179 12.5 billion aspirin tablets, gelcaps and caplets are consumed each year in the US.

#180 Sleepwalking is also known as "somnambulism"; sleeptalking is also known as "somniloquy."

#181 The iris, the colored part of your eye, gets its name from the Greek word meaning "rainbow." In Greek mythology, the goddess of the rainbow is named Iris.

#182 When neuroanatomist Santiago Ramon y Cajal was 11-years-old, he destroyed a neighbor's gate with a homemade cannon and spent three days in jail.

#183 The Tokay gecko (Gekko gekko) uses it tongue to clean its eyes.

#184 Without myelin, the human brain would have to be 10 times bigger than it is now and we would have to eat 10 times as much to maintain our brain.

#185 The giant anteater has no teeth.

#186 Approximately 450 million people suffer from neuropsychiatric (mental and behavioral) disorders.

#187 Neuroptera" is the name of an insect order including the lacewings and antlions. "Neuro" comes from the Greek word for "nerve" and "ptera" comes from word for "wing."

#188 The pupil in the eye of the giant cuttlefish (a squid-like animal) is rectangular.

#189 The Snellen Eye Chart (the one with the letter E pointed in different directions) was invented by Dr. Hermann Snellen in 1862.

#190 The "absolute threshold" in humans for vision is a candle flame, 30 miles away, on a dark, clear night.

#191 The "absolute threshold" in humans for hearing: A ticking watch 20 feet away in a quiet place.

#192 The "absolute threshold" in humans for taste is a teaspoon of sugar in 2 gallons of water.

#193 The "absolute threshold" in humans for smell is a drop of perfume in a three-room apartment.

#194 The "absolute threshold" in humans for touch is the wing of a bee falling from 1 centimeter onto your cheek.

#195 Eagles have more than 1 million photoreceptors per square millimeter in their retinas; humans have 200,000 photoreceptors per square millimeter.

#196 In 2000, 495 doctorates were awarded in neuroscience; 39.4% of these new PhDs were women.

#197 Approximately 80% of the dragonfly brain is devoted to processing visual information.

#198 Every year 27 million people in the US benefit from pain relief, sedation and unconsciousness from anesthetics.

#199 In 1921, Hermann Rorschach developed the inkblot test to assess personality. Each day in the US, 33 babies are born with permanent hearing loss.

#200 Rats will die after two to three weeks of total sleep deprivation.

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#201 The average (median) amount of sleep each day by university students was 7.75 hrs (in 1969); 7.13 hrs (in 1979), 6.75 hrs (in 1989); 6.65 hrs (in 2001).

#202 Approximately 600,000 people in the US have a stroke every year, and 167,000 die from it. Stroke is the third leading cause of death in the US.

#203 Approximately 1 in every 1,000 people in the US has the autoimmune disease multiple sclerosis.

#204 Between 1987 and 1997, the number of people in the US being treated for depression more than tripled, from 1.8 million to 6.3 million, while those taking antidepressants doubled.

#205 On May 13, 1935, World War I hero Colonel T.E. Lawrence (better known as "Lawrence of Arabia") suffered a fractured skull when he lost control of his motocycle. He fell into a coma and died five days later.

#206 Worldwide, 120,000 tons of caffeine are consumed each year.

#207In the US, 10% of children and adolescents suffer from mental illness severe enough to cause impairment. However, only 20% of these children and adolescents receive mental health services.

#208 Sharks can detect electrical fields generated by animals. To detect these fields, sharks use special organs called ampullae of Lorenzini that are located below their eyes.

#209 Another word for sneezing is "sternutation."

#210 A shark's hearing is similar to that of a whale or dolphin.

#211 Botox temporarily paralyzes muscles by interfering with acetylcholine, which transmits nerve signals to muscles.

#212 Sharks have a fantastic sense of smell. Fish extracts with concentrations of only 1 part per 10 billion parts of water can alter a shark's behavior.

#213- Huntington's disease, an incurable, untreatable inherited illness, affects 30,000 people in the US, slowly killing their brain cells and eroding muscle coordination, memory, judgment, and emotional stability.

#214 In 1999, 30.1% of all traffic accidents resulting in a fatality involved alcohol.

#215 The first Ph.D. with "Psychology" in its title was given to Granville Stanley Hall at Harvard University in 1878.

#216 Women metabolize caffeine about 25% faster than men.

#217 Raccoons can smell an acorn buried up to two inches under dry powdery sand. #218 Pesticides which disrupt the nervous system are part of the reason why 32 species of frogs have become extinct in the last few decades.

#219 Glaucoma is the second leading cause of blindness in the US. The number one cause of blindness in the US is macular degeneration.

#220 Allan MacLeod Cormack, who won the 1979 Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology for the invention of computer-assisted tomography, never received a PhD or MD.

#221 Sharks can detect pressure that depresses their skin only eight ten-thousandths of an inch (10 microns).

#222 Cats can hear sounds in a 10.5 octave range. Humans have a hearing range of about 9.3 octaves.

#223 One child goes blind every minute.

#224 The annual salary range for a neurologist is $106,000 to $199,701. The annual salary range for a psychiatrist is $110,000 to $152,008.

#225 Approximately 160 million people in the US wear glasses or contact lenses.

#226 In 2001, eight young U.S. football players died as a direct result of injuries suffered on the field. Of these eight players, six died of brain injuries, 1 died of a fractured neck and one died of a ruptured spleen.

#227 It is estimated that more than seven million people become blind every year.

#228 At the 2002 USA Memory Championship, Scott Hagwood correctly matched 97 of 99 faces and names after spending 15 minutes studying the pairs.

#229 The original recipe for Coca-Cola contained a small amount of cocaine (about 22.5 milligrams of cocaine per gallon). Cocaine was removed from Coca-Cola in 1903.

#230 The average daily consumption of caffeine among adults is 200 mg/day.

#231 The country with the most neurologists per person is Lithuania where there are approximately 6,240 people for every neurologist.

#232 Americans spend $11 billion each year for glasses and contact lenses.

#233 Sharks can detect water movement through a series of pit organs (the lateral line system) located under their skin.

#234 In the US, more than 80% of adults consume caffeine on a daily basis.

#235 The "cauda equina" is the name for the collection of spinal nerves at the lower end of the spinal cord. The term "cauda equina" comes from the Latin words meaning "tail of a horse."

#236 Percentage of university students who are "dissatisfied" with their sleep: 24% (in 1978), 53% (in 1988), 71% (in 2000).

#237 A 19-year-old man died after smoking 100 cigarettes and 21-year-old man was seriously poisoned after smoking 80 cigarettes.during a "smoking contest."

#238 An estimated 180 million people worldwide are visually disabled.

#239 The giant squid has the largest eyeball of any living animal. The diameter of the giant squid's eyeball is 25 cm. The diameter of a human's eye is 2.4 cm and that of the blue whale is 15 cm.

#240 As people age, their ears get larger. Ear circumference increases on average 0.51 millimeters per year.

#241 All invertebrate taste receptor cells are bipolar primary sensory neurons.

#242 In the early 1920s, Hans Berger recorded the first human electroencephalogram (EEG).

#243 Parkinson's disease affects 1-3% of people over the age of 65 years and 10% of those over 80 years.

#244 In 2001, 17,448 people died in alcoholrelated motor vehicle crashes. That is 41% of the year's total traffic deaths

#245 The word "neurology" was coined by Thomas Willis in 1681.

#246 Humans can feel a dot that is only 0.006 mm high and 0.04 mm across when it is moved across a fingertip. A standard Braille dot is 167 times higher.

#247 The word "dendrite" (the part of a neuron that brings information toward the cell body) comes from the Greek word meaning "tree."

#248 The vertebral column, the collection of bones (back bone) that houses the spinal cord, is approximately 70 cm long.

#249 Bipolar disorder, a serious brain disease that causes extreme shifts in mood, energy, and functioning, affects approximately 2.3 million adults in the U.S. or about 1.2% of the population.

#250 The complete inability to taste is called ageusia and the reduced ability to taste is called hypogeusia.

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#251 Thomas Edison is reported to have said, "Sleep is an acquired habit. Cells don't sleep. Fish swim in the water all night. Even a horse doesn't sleep. A man doesn't need any sleep."

#252 In 2001, the use of GHB (gamma hydroxybutyrate) resulted in 3,340 emergency-room visits in the U.S.

#253 The average number of neocortical neurons lost is 1 each second or approximately 85,000 each day or approximately 31 million each year.

#254 The average intelligence quotient (IQ) score is 100. About 68% of the population has IQ scores between 85 and 115.

#255 The word "retina" comes from the Latin word meaning "net."

#256 Normal eye pressure ranges from 10-22 mm Hg.

#257 ”Cataract" comes from the Latin word "cataracta" meaning "waterfall" because looking through a waterfall is similar to the vision that results from cataracts.

#258 The number of neurons in the neocortex of females is 19.3 billion; in males, the number of neurons in the neocortex is 22.8 billion.

#259 An eagle can see a rabbit from three miles away.

#260 In a 7-year study, people who ate at least one serving of seafood once a week had a 30% lower risk of developing dementia than those who ate less seafood.

#261 Smells and tastes are experienced in approximately 1% of all dreams.

#262 The length of myelinated nerve fibers in the brain is 150,000-180,000 km.

#263 Composer Ludwig van Beethoven may have been poisoned by lead; his hair had lead levels 100 times greater than normal.

#264 The brain of a grasshopper has approximately 16,000 neurons.

#265 The average number of neocortical glial cells in young adults is 39 billion; in older adults, there are 36 billion glial cells.

#266 The number of synapses in the cortex is 0.15 quadrillion.

#267 "Rabies" comes from the Latin word "rabere," meaning "to rave" as well as a Sanskrit word for doing violence.

#268 The vagus nerve, important for controlling the functions of many internal organs, gets its name from the Latin word meaning "wandering."

#269 Rubbing baby teeth with the brain of a rabbit is an old folk remedy to prevent tooth decay.

#270 Roman emperor Elagabalus (3rd Century) was served 600 ostrich brains at a single meal.

#271 Some people, such as professional perfumers, can distinguish between 100,000 different smells.

#272 The word "brain" appears 66 times in the plays of William Shakespeare.

#273 The bill of the platypus is equipped with sensory receptors to detect electrical fields. It may use this ability to find food.

#274 The famous French writer/philosopher Voltaire (born 1694, died 1778) is said to have consumed 50 cups of coffee a day or approximately 3,750 mg of caffeine a day.

#275 The ancient Roman goddess of wisdom and war is named Minerva supposedly was born when she leaped from Jupiter's brain, completely grown and dressed in armor.

#276 The human retina contains approximately 120 million rods and 6 million cones. Rods are cells used in dim light; cones are cells used for color vision.

#277 The movie "Rainman" starring Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise was inspired by a real person named Kim Peek who has memorized 7,600 books and every area code, zip code, highway and television station in the US.

#278 John Styth Pemberton, the man who invented Coca-Cola, was addicted to morphine.

#279 Competitive eating champion Takeru Kobayashi set a world record by eating 57 pan-seared cow brains (17.7 pounds) in 15 minutes.

#280 The channel catfish has a chemical sensing system that can detect the equivalent of less than one-hundredth of a teaspoon (1 to 100 micrograms per liter) of alanine (an amino acid) in an Olympic-size swimming pool.

#281 Atropine, a drug that blocks receptors for the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, is made from the poisonous Atropa belladonna plant.

#282 Some unusual phobias are aerophobia (fear of the air), chromatophobia (fear of colors), spectrophobia (fear of mirrors), odontophobia (fear of teeth) and basiphobia (fear of walking).

#283 In the US, 50 billion aspirin tablets are consumed each year.

#284 An octopus has receptors for taste on the suckers in its arms.

#285 The rate of fatal alcohol-related motor vehicle crashes among drivers between 16 and 20 years old who use alcohol is more than twice the rate for drivers aged 21 years and older.

#286 Louis Braille invented the system of reading by touch (the Braille system) when he was only 15 years old.

#287 Within the US in 1990, approximately $1.6 billion was used to eliminate or mask underarm odors.

#288 In 2001, the three drugs that caused the most visits to emergency departments were alcohol (34%), cocaine (30%) and marijuana (17%).

#289 Right-footed African Grey parrots have a larger vocabulary than left-footed African Grey parrots.

#290 The bacterium Streptococcus pneumoniae causes more than 3,000 cases of meningitis in the US each year.

#291 Adolf Eugen Fick coined the term "contact lens." He made the first contact lens for vision correction from glass in 1887.

#292 Drunken behavior and violent crimes involving adolescent drinking cost the US $53 billion per year, including $19 million from traffic accidents.

#293 In 2001, approximately 22.8% of the adults in the US were smokers. In 1993, approximately 25.0% of the adults in the US were smokers.

#294 Mr. Jeffries, a Bassett Hound, is the dog with the longest ears. His ears measure 29.2 cm (11.5 in) in length.

#295 John Adams (2nd President of the US) and his son, John Quincy Adams (6th President of the US), were both born in Braintree, Massachusetts.

#296 Leonardo da Vinci designed contact lenses made of glass filled with water.

#297 Eight hours in a smoky bar breathing second-hand smoke is the equivalent to smoking a pack of cigarettes.

#298 A sperm whale's click is the loudest sound produced by any organism on the planet.

#299 The corpus callosum, the fiber tract that connects the right and left hemispheres of the brain, is approximately 10 cm long and 1 cm wide.

#300 "Ammon's horn," an area of the hippocampus was named after a character from Egyptian mythology who had a ram's head and large curved horns similar to the shape of the hippocampus.

#301 Neuroanatomist Santiago Ramon y Cajal (1906 Nobel Prize winner) worked as a barber's apprentice and a shoemaker before his career in neuroscience.

#302 In 2001, approximately 22.8% of the adults in the US were smokers. In 1993, approximately 25.0% of the adults in the US were smokers.

#303 The esophagus goes right through the brain of an octopus.

#304 Morphine, the analgesic (pain reliever) drug from the opium poppy, is named after the Greek god of dreams, Morpheus.

#305 Approximately 3.3% of snowboarding injuries involve the spinal cord; 1.4% of skiing injuries involve the spinal cord.

#306 Alexander Graham Bell, who invented the telephone in 1876, suffered from headaches (probably migraines) that lasted hours to days.

#307 The human brain uses 15-20% of the body's oxygen supply. The brain of the African elephant nose fish uses 60% of its body's oxygen supply.

#308 Impressionist painter Claude Monet (1840- 1926) had cataracts and was almost blind by 1922. He had cataract surgery on his right eye in 1922.

#309 Cerebral oxygen consumption is 3.5 ml/100g of brain/minute or 49 ml/minute for a whole brain. The energy consumption of the brain is equal to that of a 20 W light bulb.

#310 Sailors once believed that smelling the bad breath of whales could cause brain disorders.

#311 Neurophysiologist and Nobel prize winner (1932) Edgar Douglas Adrian was an expert fencer and mountaineer.

#312 Bruxism, or grinding of the teeth, causes tooth and jaw pain in 15-20% of people in the US.

#313 An octopus has twice as many nerves in its body than it has in its brain.

#314 Approximately 24.5% of people between the ages of 53 and 97 years have an impaired sense of smell.

#315 A severe lack of vitamin A can result in night blindness, the inability to see in low light conditions.

#316 There are 186 million MORE neurons in the left cerebral hemisphere of the brain than in the right hemisphere.

#317 The venom of some scorpions affects a victim's nervous system. In 2002, scorpions stung 15,687 people in the US and two people died.

#318 Forty years ago, 42% of adults in the US smoked. Today, approximately 23% do. Surveys report that 70% of smokers want to quit.

#319 The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) estimates that 500,000 people in the US exhibit symptoms of chronic fatigue syndrome.

#320 Panic disorders affect 2.4 million adults in the US each year.

#321 The average duration of a single blink is 0.1 - 0.4 seconds.

#322 The eye of an octopus does not have a cornea.

#323 In the US each year, 1.4 million people have cataract surgery, making it the most common operation.

#324 Oilbirds have the highest density of rod receptors (1 million rods per square millimeter) of any vertebrate eye. The highest density of rod receptors in humans is only 175,000 per square millimeter.

#325 There are more than two million cases of traumatic brain injury (TBI) in the US each year. Most TBIs are caused by motor vehicle accidents, falls, gunshot wounds and sports injuries.

#326 In 1921, Austrian scientist Otto Loewi discovered the first neurotransmitter that he named "Vagusstoff." We now call this chemical "acetylcholine."

#327 The octopus is color blind.

#328 The iris is the circular band of muscles that controls the size of the pupil in the eye and gives color to the eye. The iris was named after the mythological character Iris, the Greek goddess of the rainbow.

#329 The word "doctor" comes from the Latin word "doceo" that means "to teach."

#330 An estimated 20.5 million people in the US older than 40 years have a cataract in either eye. It is estimated that 30.1 million people will have cataracts by 2020.

#331 At least 30 million neurons in the entire visual cortex are activated by the single image of a house or face.

#332 The word "pain" comes from the Latin word "poena" that means punishment or penalty.

#333 The world's smallest vertebrate (animal with a backbone) is the stout infantfish (Schindleria brevipinguis).

#334 Central and South American poison frogs produce about 600 chemicals in their skin.

#335 Humans can detect one molecule of green pepper smell when it is mixed in the air with 3 trillion other molecules.

#336 The first football helmet used during a game was worn when Army played Navy in 1893.

#337 Aspirin, the commonly used pain reliever, gets its name by combining the "a" from acetyl and "spirin" from "spiraeic acid," the old term for salicylic acid.

#338 Almost 50% of the people in the US wear eyeglasses. The total spent for eyeglasses in the US is $13 billion.

#339 The average amount of time required to attain a PhD in the biomedical sciences is approximately 6.9 years.

#340 The upper canine teeth are sometimes called the "eye teeth" from the false belief of ancient physician/anatomist Galen who thought that a nerve in these teeth came from a nerve that also supplied the eye.

#341 The first cervical vertebra (backbone) is also called the atlas. Atlas was one of the Titans in Greek mythology.

#342 Most walruses appear to be right-"handed."

#343 In 1863, Adolf von Baeyer synthesized barbituric acid, the first barbiturate. He named this chemical after his girlfriend Barbara.

#344 Bhutan was the first country to ban the sale of tobacco.

#345 A crocodile cannot stick out its tongue.

#346 Some snails can sleep for three years.

#347 The brain of a worker honeybee weighs only 1 milligram.

#348 The word "alcohol" comes from the Arabic "al" and "kohl." Kohl is a powder that was used to paint eyebrows.

#349 About 2 to 3 out of every 1,000 children in the US are born deaf or hard-of-hearing. Nine out of every 10 children who are born deaf are born to parents who can hear.

#350 Depression occurs in 2% of elementary school-aged children and 4-8% of adolescents.

#351 Squid and cuttlefish have eye with Wshaped pupils.

#352 Swordfish have special tissue (a "brain heater") behind their eyes that warms their brains as much as 14 degrees centigrade above the temperature of the water.

#353 Although stroke is the third most common cause of death in the US, its death rate has declined 65% since 1950.

#354 Several types of beetles are attracted to forest fires. These beetles detect the heat of forest fires with receptors for infrared radiation.

#355 Some fish (e.g., sharks, sturgeon), lampreys, salamanders and the platypus can detect weak electrical fields.

#356 Every day, people worldwide light up 15 billion cigarettes.

#357 There are approximately 6,800 languages spoken in the world today.

#358 The stapedius muscle is the smallest muscle in the body. This muscle, 6.3 mm in length, helps move the stapes bone in the middle ear.

#359 A "Mickey Finn" is a drink made with alcohol and chloral hydrate. This drink was developed in the 1870s by a group of tavern owners to make customers unconscious. Customers were robbed after they became unconscious.

#360 Caffeine is the most widely used behaviorally active drug in the world.

#361 The preying mantis has been called an "auditory cyclops" because it has only one ear. The ear of this insect is located in the middle of its underside, between its legs.

#362 The brain of a 136 kg (300 pound) swordfish weighs only 2.2 grams (0.005 pounds).

#363 Emil Kraepelin coined the term "Alzheimer's disease" in 1910.

#364 Sleepwalking affects 2-14% of all children and 1.6-2.5% of all adults.

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