Wednesdays: 25 Facts About the Human Brain

Welcome to Inkweb! Today, I have a compiled list of 25 facts about the human brain.

Concerning the schedule: tomorrow I will be posting a short poem I have composed, and then on Friday will be Cat Monologue #6! On Saturday, I will post HyperLinkzer's suggested short story.

---

1. The human brain weighs about 3 lbs.
2. The human brain starts growing at birth and stops growing at approximately eighteen years old.
3. The human brain uses about 20% of the total oxygen in the body.
4. The reason that it doesn't tickle if you touch yourself is that the brain recognizes the difference between your own touch and unexpected external touch.
5. Memories triggered by scent have stronger emotional connections in the brain.
6. Einstein's brain is at a museum in Philadelphia.
7. Most people dream about 1-2 hours a night and have 4-7 dreams during that time period. Just because you can't remember dreams doesn't mean you don't have them.
8. Laughing requires activity in five different areas of the brain.
9. The human brain is 75% water.
10. The brain can feel no pain, in the rain, falling gently on the plain in Spain. :) The brain actually has no pain receptors.
11. Reading aloud and talking often with young children promotes their brain development.
12. While awake, the human brain generates enough power to turn on a lightbulb.
13. Physical illness is highly tied to psychological illness. 50-70% of visits to the doctor for physical ailments are estimated to be related to psychological factors.
14. Every time you recall a memory or have a new thought, you are creating a new pathway in your brain.
15. Brain waves are actually more active when you're dreaming that when you're awake. "When we're asleep, our mind can do almost anything...Now in a dream...we create and perceive our world simultaneously, and our mind does this so well that we don't even know what's happening. That allows us to get right in the middle of that process...by taking over the creating part." Haha, sorry for the Inception quote. It's my favorite movie, and I couldn't resist.
16. Harvard has a "brain bank" where human brains are stored for study.
17. Humans are estimated to think an average of 70,000 thoughts per day.
18. The word "brain" appears 66 times in the plays of William Shakespeare.
19. The hippocampus of a London taxi driver is much larger than the hippocampus of an average person, because London taxi drivers know the city streets by heart, and their brains have grown to accomodate this memorization.
20. 85% of the brain is the cerebrum.
21. Music increases brain organization (both playing and listening).
22. There are 100,000 miles of blood vessels in the human brain.
23. The hearing range the average young adult's brain can interpret ranges from 20 to 20,000 hertz.
24. The average human brain is 167 mm long, 140 mm wide, and 93 mm high.
25. Hmmm...don't have any more facts. Oh well.

Happy end of October and beginning of November! I would try to start growing a mustache for Movember, but I haven't got any facial hair yet. I'll just have to settle for endless noveling...ah, well...
-JW