The Brain

Complex and poorly understood, the brain is what makes everything work properly. The body may be kept alive, but without the brain, a person can’t truly live. Here are some interesting and weird facts about the brain.

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2. The brain doesn’t feel pain: Even though the brain processes pain signals, the brain itself does not actually feel pain.
3. Your brain has huge oxygen needs: Your brain requires 20 percent of the oxygen and calories your body needs — even though your brain only makes up two percent of your total body weight.
4. 80% of the brain is water: Instead of being relatively solid, your brain 80% water. This means that it is important that you remain properly hydrated for the sake of your mind.
5. Your brain comes out to play at night: You’d think that your brain is more active during the day, when the rest of your body is. But it’s not. Your brain is more active when you sleep.
6. Your brain operates on 10 watts of power: It’s true: The amazing computational power of your brain only requires about 10 watts of power to operate.
7. A higher I.Q. equals more dreams: The smarter you are, the more you dream. A high I.Q. can also fight mental illness. Some people even believe they are smarter in their dreams than when they are awake.
8. The brain changes shapes during puberty: Your teenage years do more than just change how you feel; the very structure of your brain changes during the teen years, and it even affects impulsive, risky behavior.
9. Your brain can store everything: Technically, your brain has the capacity to store everything you experience, see, read or hear. However, the real issue is recall — whether you can access that information.
10. Information in your brain travels at different speeds: The neurons in your brain are built differently, and information travels along them at different speeds. This is why sometimes you can recall information instantly, and sometimes it takes a little longer.

Your Senses

You might be surprised at the amazing things your various senses can accomplish.

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2. Your smell is unique: Your body odor is unique to you — unless you have an identical twin. Even babies recognize the individual scents of their mothers.
3. Humans use echolocation: Humans can use sound to sense objects in their area using echolocation. It is thought that those who are blind develop this ability to heightened effectiveness.
4. Adrenaline gives you super strength: Yes, with the proper response in certain situations, you really can lift a car.
5. Women smell better than men: Women are better than men at identifying smells.
6. Your nose remembers 50,000 scents: It is possible for your nose to identify and remember more than 50,000 smells.
7. Your hearing decreases when you overeat: When you eat too much food, it actually reduces your ability to hear. So consider eating healthy — and only until you are full.
8. Your sense of time is in your head: How you experience time is all about your perception. Some speculate that stress can help you experience time dilation. Apparently, time manipulation isn’t just for superheroes.

Reproduction

How we as a species reproduce offers all sorts of interesting weird facts. Here are some of the weirder things you might not know.

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2. Your teeth are growing before birth: Even though it takes months after you are born to see teeth, they start growing about six months before you are born.
3. Babies are stronger than oxen: On a pound for pound basis, that is. For their size, babies are quite powerful and strong.
4. Babies always have blue eyes when they are born: Melanin and exposure to ultraviolet light are needed to bring out the true color of babies’ eyes. Until then they all have blue eyes.
5. Women might be intrinsically bi: There are sex studies that indicate that women might bisexual intrinsically, no matter how they class themselves, while men are usually either gay or straight.
6. Most men have regular erections while asleep: Every hour to hour and a half, sleeping men have erections — though they may not be aware of it.
7. Sex can be a pain reliever: Even though the “headache” excuse is often used to avoid sex, the truth is that intercourse can provide pain relief. Sex can also help you reduce stress.
8. Chocolate is better than sex: In some studies, women claim they would rather have chocolate than sex. But does it really cause orgasm? Probably not on its own.

Body Functions

The things our bodies do are often strange and sometimes gross. Here are some weird facts about the way your body functions.

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2. Earwax is necessary: If you want healthy ears, you need some earwax in there.
3. Your feet can produce a pint of sweat a day: There are 500,000 (250,000 for each) sweat glands in your feet, and that can mean a great deal of stinky sweat.
4. Throughout your life, the amount of saliva you have could fill two swimming pools: Since saliva is a vital part of digestion, it is little surprise that your mouth makes so much of it.
5. A full bladder is about the size of a soft ball: When your bladder is full, holding up to 800 cc of fluid, it is large enough to be noticeable.
6. You probably pass gas 14 times a day: On average, you will expel flatulence several times as part of digestion.
7. A sneeze can exceed 100 mph: When a sneeze leaves your body, it does so at high speeds — so you should avoid suppressing it and causing damage to your body.
8. Coughs leave at 60 mph: A cough is much less dangerous, leaving the body at 60 mph. That’s still highway speed, though.

Musculoskeletal System

Find out what you didn’t know about your muscles and bones.

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2. Bones can self-destruct: It is possible for your bones to destruct without enough calcium intake.
3. You are taller in the morning: Throughout the day, the cartilage between your bones is compressed, making you about 1 cm shorter by day’s end.
4. 1/4 of your bones are in your feet: There are 26 bones in each foot, meaning that the 52 bones in account for 25 percent of your body’s 206 bones.
5. It takes more muscles to frown than to smile: Scientists can’t agree on the exact number, but more muscles are required to frown than to smile.
6. When you take a step, you are using up to 200 muscles: Walking uses a great deal of muscle power — especially if you take your 10,000 steps.
7. Your tongue is the strongest muscle in your body: Compared to its size, the tongue is the strongest muscle. But I doubt you’ll be lifting weights with it.
8. Bone can be stronger than steel: Once again, this is a pound for pound comparison, since steel is denser and has a higher tensile strength.

Unnecessary Body Parts

We have a number of body parts that are, well, useless. Here are some facts about the body parts we don’t actually need.

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2. Coccyx: This collection of fused vertebrae have no purpose these days, although scientists believe it’s what’s left of the mammal tail humans used to have. It may be useless, but when you break your coccyx, it’s still painful.
3. Pinkie toe: There is speculation that since we no longer have to run for our dinner, and we wear sneakers, the pinkie toe’s evolutionary purpose is disappearing — and maybe the pinkie itself will go the way of the dodo.
4. Wisdom teeth: This third set of molars is largely useless, doing little beyond crowding the mouth and sometimes causing pain.
5. Vomeronasal organ: There are tiny (and useless) chemoreceptors lining the inside of the nose.
6. Most body hair: While facial hair serves some purposes, the hair found on the rest of body is practically useless and can be removed with few ill effects.
7. Female vas deferens: A cluster of dead end tubules near the ovaries are the remains of what could have turned into sperm ducts.
8. Male Uterus: Yeah, men have one too — sort of. The remains of this undeveloped female reproductive organ hangs on one side of the male prostate gland
9. Appendix: Yep, your appendix is basically useless. While it does produce some white blood cells, most people are fine with an appendectomy.

Random Weird Body Facts

Here are a few final weird facts about the human body.

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2. Your head creates inner noises: It’s rare, but exploding head syndrome exists.
3. Memory is affected by body position: Where you are and how you are placed in your environment triggers memory.
4. You can’t tickle yourself: Go ahead. Try to tickle yourself.
5. Being right-handed can prolong your life: If you’re right-handed, you could live up to nine years longer than a lefty.
6. Only humans shed emotional tears: Every other animal that produces tears has a physiological reason for doing so.

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The prestigious journal Science today published the results of a research study demonstrating for the first time that mental activity can alter the biochemistry of the human brain. Conducted by researchers from Sweden’s Karolinska Institute, the study used Position Emission Tomography (PET scans) to monitor the brain activity of subjects using Cogmed Working Memory Training. The results reveal that the training impacted the brain by increasing the number of dopamine receptors in the cortex.

The research represents the latest in a growing body of peer-reviewed studies involving Cogmed Working Memory Training. The study was led by Torkel Klingberg, a professor of neuroscience at the Karolinska Institute and co-founder of Cogmed. In 2001, Klingberg first discovered that working memory could be improved through computerized training. He later co-developed Cogmed Working Memory Training, a proven program to help children, adolescents and adults who are constrained by the inability to focus attention.

“The Karolinska Institute is taking a lead role in advancing research that delivers valuable new insights into the workings of the brain,” said Jonas Jendi, president and chief executive officer of Cogmed. “As working memory continues to be a focus of the scientific community, we are proud that our program is able to aid new studies. Our close collaboration with leading researchers in Europe and North America affirms our commitment to adhere to the highest standards of scientific rigor.”

A diet rich in vitamin, minerals and fatty acids can help reduce aggression, improve mood and prevent depression. So why aren’t more people taking omega-3 capsules? The best way to curb aggression in prisons? Longer jail terms, maybe, or stricter security measures? How about more sports and exercise? Try fish oil. How can children enhance their learning abilities at school? A well-balanced diet and safe, stimulating classrooms are essential, but fish oil can provide an important extra boost. Is there a simple, natural way to improve mood and ward off depression? Yoga and meditation are great, but–you guessed it–fish oil can also help do the trick.

A diet rich in vitamins, minerals and fatty acids like omega-3 is the basis for physical well-being. Everybody knows that. But research increasingly suggests that these same ingredients are crucial to psychological health too. And that’s a fact a lot of people seem to find hard to swallow.

The relationship between nutrition and aggression is a case in point. In 2002, Bernard Gesch, a physiologist at Oxford University, investigated the effects of nutritional supplements on inmates in British prisons. Working with 231 detainees for four months, Gesch gave half the group of men, ages 18 to 21, multivitamin, mineral and fatty-acid supplements with meals. The other half received placebos. During the study, Gesch observed that minor infractions of prison rules fell by 26 percent among men given the supplements, while rule-breaking behaviour in the placebo group barely budged. The research showed more dramatic results for aggressive behavior. Incidents of violence among the group taking supplements dropped 37 percent, while the behavior of the other prisoners did not change.

Gesch’s findings were recently replicated in the Netherlands, where researchers at Radboud University in Nijmegen conducted a similar study for the Dutch National Agency of Correctional Institutions. Of the 221 inmates, ages 18 to 25, who participated in the Dutch study, 116 were given daily supplements containing vitamins, minerals and omega-3 for one to three months. The other 105 received placebos. Reports of violence and aggression declined by 34 percent among the group given supplements; at the same time, such reports among the placebo group rose 13 percent.

Gesch is quick to emphasize that nutritional supplements are not magic bullets against aggression, and that these studies are just “promising evidence” of the link between nutrition and behavior. “It is not suggested that nutrition is the only explanation of antisocial behavior,” he says, “only that it might form a significant part.”

But Gesch is just as quick to emphasize that there is no down side to better nutrition, and in prisons in particular, the cost of an improved diet would be a fraction of the cost of other ways of addressing the problem of violence among inmates.

Still, the menu in British prisons hasn’t changed in the five years since Gesch published his results, even though the former chief inspector of prisons in the UK, Lord Ramsbotham, told the British newspaper The Guardian last year that he is now “absolutely convinced that there is a direct link between diet and antisocial behaviour, both that bad diet causes bad behavior and that good diet prevents it.”

Yet the effect of nutrition on psychological health and behavior is still controversial, at least in part because it is so hard to study. Our moods, emotions and actions are influenced by so many factors: everything from our genes to our communities to our personal relationships. How can the role of diet be isolated among all these competing influences? That’s exactly why Gesch conducted his study in prisons. In a prison, there are far fewer variables, since all detainees have the same routine. Do the results of the inmate trials reach beyond the prison walls? Gesch thinks so: “If it works in prisons, it should work in the community and the society at large. If it works in the UK and in the Netherlands, it should work in the rest of the world.”

Another place improved nutrition seems to be working is in the city of Durham in northeastern England. There, Alex Richardson, a physiologist at Oxford University, conducted a study at 12 local primary schools. The research examined 117 children ages 5 to 12, all of whom were of average ability but were underachieving. Instructors suspected dyspraxia, a condition that interferes with co-ordination and motor skills and is thought to affect at least 5 percent of British children. Possible signs of dyspraxia may include having trouble tying shoelaces or maintaining balance, for example. The condition frequently overlaps with dyslexia and attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD), and is part of a range of conditions that include autistic-spectrum disorders.

Half the group of children in Richardson’s study was given an omega-3 supplement for three months; the other half received an olive oil placebo. The results: Children given the omega-3 supplements did substantially better at school than those in the control group. When it came to spelling, for example, the omega-3 group performed twice as well as expected, whereas the control group continued to fall behind.

Richardson came to the study of nutrition through neurology. Her interest was sparked by the rapid rise of conditions like ADHD, autism, dyslexia and dyspraxia. The incidence of these disorders has increased fourfold in the past 15 to 20 years. “These disorders overlap considerably,” she says, “but a real solution is rarely offered. A dyslexic child is assigned a special teacher. A kid with dyspraxia is sent to a physical therapist. One with ADHD is prescribed Ritalin. And you’ve got to learn to live with autism.”

But as Richardson writes in They Are What You Feed Them: “There is always something that can be done. Don’t ever believe it if anyone tells you otherwise.” One of the things that can be done, according to Richardson, is to boost your child’s intake of omega-3. Of course, Omega-3 is not the only answer to ADHD, autism, dyslexia, dyspraxia or other psychological or behavioral disorders, which also include Alzheimer’s disease. Studies like Richardson’s suggest, however, that it may play an important role in stimulating the brain, keeping it healthy and helping it ward off debilitating conditions.

And it looks like we need all the help we can get. Behavioral dysfunctions like ADHD are currently the fastest-growing type of disorder worldwide. Twenty years ago, no one had even heard of ADHD. Today, everyone knows a kid who is taking Ritalin. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that the number of people with psychological disorders will double by 2020–and that around that time, depression will surpass heart and vascular disease as the No. 1 most preventable cause of death. The WHO adds that psychological disorders account for four of the 10 most common causes of disability and that a quarter of the general population will be affected by them at some point in their lives.

Diet could well play a central role in all this. The quality–and quantity–of the food we eat has increased dramatically over the past century or so. But we are eating more and more processed foods, which contain less and less of the essential minerals, vitamins and fatty acids that appear to be so crucial for mental health. Tomato juice, for example, contains 64 percent less vitamin C, 49 percent less carotene and 17 percent less niacin than a fresh tomato.

Gesch says we “seem to have made unprecedented changes to human diets in recent years with little or no systematic evaluation of the effects on our brain or behavior.” He wants to reverse “high-calorie malnutrition” by encouraging nutritionists, physicians and educators to concentrate not just on calorie intake but on the consumption of nutritional components like vitamins, minerals and fatty acids as well.

In our distant evolutionary past, we all had much more varied diets. Research among native tribes in remote areas suggests that our hunter-gatherer forebears consumed between 100 and 150 different types of plants during the course of a year. Nowadays, our grain consumption is heavily dominated by wheat. Soy oil accounts for more than 80 percent of the fat Americans consume. Health authorities recommend a minimum of 400 grams (14 ounces) of vegetables and fruit each day, but lots of people don’t even come close to that. And even those who do eat lots of fruit and vegetables often don’t get the full nutritional benefit because intensive farming has depleted the soil of key minerals.

So what’s a consumer to do? Eat fish. Working with the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), American physician and psychiatrist Joseph Hibbeln compared data on fish consumption with figures on depression and murder in a large number of countries around the world. Fish are a rich and ready source of omega-3. In countries in which fish consumption is low, Hibbeln found the likelihood of suffering from depression was up to 50 times greater than in countries where it is high.

Some 6.5 percent of New Zealanders suffers from severe depression; these citizens also eat very little fish. In Japan, where fish consumption is high, 0.1 percent of the population suffers from depression. Manic depression (bipolar disorder) is rare in Iceland, which has the highest per capita fish consumption in the world, but is quite common in Brazil and Germany, where people don’t eat as much fish. Hibbeln also found that, on average, the risk of being murdered is 30 times greater in countries where fish consumption is low compared to countries where it is high.

Cultural and other factors certainly influence these statistics, but the comparisons are nevertheless illustrative. Overall, in subsequent trials, Hibbeln found that depressive and aggressive feelings diminished by about 50 percent after taking fish-oil capsules for two to four weeks. Based on this and other research, the WHO concluded in a report last year: “Certain dietary choices, including fish consumption, balanced intake of micronutrients and a good nutritional status overall, also have been associated with reduced rates of violent behavior.”

How can something like omega-3 have such an impact on behavior and psychological health? Communication between the nerve cells in the brain depends on the circulation of neurotransmitters, such as serotonin and dopamine. Low serotonin levels are associated with an increased risk of suicide, depression and violent behavior. Omega-3, a long, flexible molecule, appears to facilitate the circulation of neurotransmitters like serotonin in the brain, thus boosting communication among nerve cells. And nerve cells that talk a lot with each other make new connections in the brain, a process crucial for learning. Less flexible fatty acids than omega-3, though, do not as efficiently support the chatter.

Hibbeln’s work has shown that the brain tissue of Americans is different from that of the Japanese. American cell membranes contain much higher levels of the less flexible omega-6 fatty acids; Japanese cell membranes are significantly richer in omega-3. Processed foods happen to be rich in omega-6, and Americans eat a lot of them. These omega-6 fatty acids seem to have displaced the omega-3 fatty acids found so abundantly in fish, of which the Japanese are so fond.

Other studies have found that depressed patients and children with ADHD and autism are deficient in omega-3. So some scientists speculate that this change in the fatty acids contained within our brains could be causing the modern rise in psychological disorders.

Although more and more research underlines the importance of nutrition for psychological wellness, these findings have not been widely translated into action. “Politicians, policymakers and business leaders keep asking for more research involving thousands of people, like the trials done for every new drug,” Richardson complains. “But I say, We have done the uncontrolled experiments now [in the general population] for quite some time.” Pharmaceutical firms have few incentives to organize their own studies, since omega-3 is derived primarily from fish oil–and you can’t patent fish.

This frustrates many scientists in the field. “Do we want to wait for more studies that confirm these findings, or do we want to do something today about the level of crime and aggression in our societies?” asks Stephen Schoenthaler, a sociologist at California State University at Stanislaus, in Turlock, California, who has studied the link between food and behavior for the past 25 years and led several studies among prisoners and schoolchildren showing the social benefits of a healthier diet.

It’s not all good news, though. Consumers should watch out for manufacturers that make exaggerated claims about these nutritional supplements. “Never use supplements as a substitute for a good diet,” counsels Richardson. “The key thing that most people seem to have forgotten is that food is not just fuel, it is nourishment. Food is not just a source of energy that one can consume on the run. A healthy diet needs to provide a minimum of essential nutrients in a dosage recommended for daily use.”

A multivitamin and mineral supplement is a good “insurance policy,” Richardson says, and 500 mg of omega-3 every day is not a bad idea either. But buyer beware: Not all supplements are good supplements, so seek the advice of a qualified professional before deciding which supplement, if any, is right for you.

It almost sounds too good to be true, but research is beginning to confirm that vitamins, minerals and fatty acids can reduce aggression and improve psychological well-being. That could be a simple recipe for a more peaceful world.