Amazing Facts About Brain Page 5 of 7

Amazing Fact 41# 

Your brain was disproportionately large compared to other organs when you were born. That’s why babies look a bit like aliens. Not yours of course, yours are cute, just other people’s babies.

Amazing Fact 42# 

Speaking of babies. Their most heightened sense at birth is touch and not their ability to scream, as you might imagine. For about the first 12 months, they do much of their learning through simply touching things, which is why over-the-top “baby proofing” a house isn’t always a great idea unless you want your kids to grow up thinking everything on the earth is made of foam and/or rubber.

Amazing Fact 43# 

There is a growing belief that human beings like Monarch butterflies have an inbuilt compass, although research at this stage is in its early stages and obviously that’s only women because men are clueless when it comes to such things.

Amazing Fact 44# 

Other research is suggesting that a gut instinct can literally be a gut instinct and that there is a mini-brain operating inside your stomach. Again the research is in its early days, but it’s a fascinating concept nonetheless.

Amazing Fact 45# 

Your neocortex (the weird looking bit on the outside of the brain) is only about as thick as a dinner napkin and is made up of 6 layers. However, if you were to pull yours out and stretch out the folds, it would be over 3 feet square.

Unfortunately your planning skills would diminish rapidly and your ability to put it back in properly would be less likely than assembling a bed from Ikea correctly without an intimate knowledge of Swedish and schematics drawn up by an excited 8 year-old.

Amazing Fact 46# 

Very strangely you are about 4 times more likely to marry somebody with the same last name as yourself. And I’m not referring to marrying another member of your family. Your brain just loves familiarity even to the point of preferring people with the same name as you. Weird eh?

Amazing Fact 47# 

And by the way that familiarity extends way past names. You are more likely to prefer somebody who does the same job as you, supports the same sports team, is the same nationality, belongs to the same club or group or even has the same type of dog.

That’s why dobermans owners rule, yeh!

Amazing Fact 48# 

If you were to get up off the couch and sprint hard for 20 seconds or so, you would increase the workload on your muscles by about 100x. However, if you sat down with Gary Kasparov after recklessly challenging him to a chess match after one too many beers, no matter how hard you concentrated you’d only require your brain to increase its workload by about 1%. You’d also lose.

Amazing Fact 49# 

You’re 40 - 60% more likely to buy food you can reach out and touch than food somebody describes to you or places behind a counter. The old fashioned sweet trolleys really do generate more sales and top restaurants know this.

Amazing Fact 50# 

You are far more likely to tip a waiter or waitress more if it’s a sunny day because the chemicals released in your brain put you in a more genial and generous frame of mind. Having said that, the effect of this if you live in a really hot country where sunshine is the daily norm is minimized.