What are the strangest features of the human brain?
- When you find yourself sleeping for the first time in a new environment, the brain processes the danger and stays half awake in order to be more aware.
- The world's fastest supercomputer requires 24 million watts of power to operate, but our brain only needs 20 watts and runs about 100,000 times faster.
- The human brain is divided into two parts, each interacting with the opposite side of the body. Although this interaction is known, its reason is still not understood.
- The human brain has the ability to generate about 23 watts of power when awake.
- The brain receives 20% of the blood and oxygen produced in our body.
- The blood vessels in the brain are nearly 100,000 miles (161,000 km) long.
- In early pregnancy, neurons develop at a frantic rate of 250,000 per minute.
- Almost all colors have a physical wavelength associated with them, but this is not the case with Magenta color. On the contrary, your brain simply treats the color as "non-green."
- We cry when we are very happy because our hypothalamus in our brain cannot tell the difference between strong happiness and strong sadness.
- 3% of your brain is made up of water alone, which means that if you become more than 2% dehydrated, you may suffer from a loss of attention, cognitive skills and memory.
- You can actually improve your memory if you choose to eat seafood regularly. The fatty acids in these foods improve memory by creating storage areas in your brain.
- The brain cannot feel pain. This allows neurosurgeons to probe areas of the brain while patients are awake. They can then get real-time feedback from each patient, allowing them to locate particular regions, such as for speech or movement.
- During sleep, your body produces a hormone that prevents you from getting up and achieving your dreams. Five minutes after a dream, your body has already forgotten half of it and ten minutes later it has forgotten 90%.
- The feeling of already seen has not been fully explained. Scientists believe that this is actually a neurological problem caused by recording something in memory before conscious thinking.
- Ninety minutes of sweating can temporarily shrink the brain as much as a year of aging.
- Stress can change the size of your brain (and make it smaller).
- It is literally impossible for our brain to multitask.
- Your vision trumps all other senses.