Aside from claiming the title of the largest animal known to have ever lived, the blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus) possesses a heart big enough to house a human. The heart of an average sized blue whale weighs 180 kg (400 lb) and is also the largest known in any animal.
During the first seven months of its life, a blue whale calf drinks approximately 380 litres (100 US gal) of milk every day. Blue whale calves gain weight quickly, as much as 90 kilograms (200 lb) every 24 hours. Even at birth, they weigh up to 2,700 kilograms (6,000 lb) - the same as a fully grown hippopotamus.
Blue whales have proportionally small brains, only about 6.92 kilograms (15.26 lb), about 0.007% of its body weight, although with a highly convoluted cerebral cor ...
This is what all the white matter in your brain looks like. This complex 3D-printed model accurately reflects the 2,000 strands of nerve cells that branch through every human being's brain.
Autism may start during the second and third trimesters of pregnancy, a new study showed. The researchers found patches of altered brain cells in the frontal and temporal cortexes of children with autism, important brain areas for social interaction and language. Although the scientists still have to figure out what causes these patches of brain cells, genetic factors and conditions inside the womb could be the culprits.
In a recent study, scientists delivered a molecule called FKBP1b into the central memory station found in the brain of aging rats. Upon administrating the molecule, hundreds of formally active genes were reactivated, in a pattern that closely resembles those of younger, more mentally agile rats than aged ones. As a result, the rats showed enhanced learning and appeared to reverse memory shortfalls when tackling a maze. These findings suggest that the mental rustiness which accompanies aging happens because the amount of this one molecule goes down; a follow up study is currently in the works to see why that is.
In fact, thinking and summer don't really mix. Yet we don't want to return to school feeling like a lower-IQ version of Keanu Reeves. How to strike a balance?
I'm sure you've all had that feeling before: You bust out the first assignment of the new school year, you sit down and grab a pencil, you put that pencil to the paper and you... stare. Gaze. Daydream. Sniffle?
"Dude, how is this stuff even remotely difficult?" you say. "It was a piece of cake four months ago."
Yeah, then that whole summer thing got in the way. Funny how cruel overexposure to sunlight, fireworks, burnt hot dogs and fried Twinkies can be.
Four months off is enough time to forget a semester. Six months will erase a year. And as I found out l ...
This is a human brain without grooves and folds, a condition known as lissencephaly. It belonged to a patient who died in a mental health facility in 1970, and almost a year ago a photographer found the jar containing the brain in a collection at the University of Texas, Austin. People with this rare condition suffer from seizures, muscle spasms, a range of learning difficulties, and usually die before the age of ten. ...
Why studying for large chunks of time can be counter-productive
We’ve all had those days where no matter what good fortune comes our way in the morning or afternoon, we still walk around with a slight furrow in our brow knowing that a night chock-full of homework and studying awaits. It’s like a Utah Jazz fan watching the wildly entertaining 1997 NBA Finals on ESPN Classic – he or she might enjoy it for awhile, but in the back of their mind they know the Michael Jordan buzz saw is coming to ruin their hopes and dreams. (Too young to remember? That's fine, you get the point...)
Alright, so maybe Michael Jordan draining threes isn’t exactly the same as laboring through endless schoolwork. I have an attachment to sports analogies so bear with ...
The microbes that live in your body outnumber your cells 10 to one. Recent studies suggest these tiny organisms help us digest food and maintain our immune system. Now, researchers have discovered yet another way microbes keep us healthy: They are needed for closing the blood-brain barrier, a molecular fence that shuts out pathogens and molecules that could harm the brain.
According to a study published in the medical journal eLife, researchers found that specific combinations of gut bacteria produce substances that affect myelin content and cause social avoidance behaviors in mice.
Researchers transferred fecal bacteria from the gut of depressed mice to genetically distinct mice exhibiting non-depressed behavior. The study showed that the transfer of microbiota was sufficient to induce social withdrawal behaviors and change the expression of myelin genes and myelin content in the brains of the recipient mice.
In an effort to define the mechanism of gut-brain communication, researchers identified bacterial communities associated with increased levels of cresol, a substance that has the ability to pass the bloo ...
For the first time, scientists have discovered a link between heavy marijuana use and reduced dopamine production. Just so you know, dopamine is the hormone/neurotransmitter that is released during any kind of satisfaction - it's the same hormone that is released in your brain when you eat chocolate. In a recent study, lower dopamine release was found in the striatum - a region of the brain that is involved in working memory, impulsive behavior, and attention, in addition to subregions involved in associative and sensorimotor learning, and in the globus pallidus. Previous studies have shown that addiction to other drugs of abuse, such as cocaine and heroin, have similar effects on dopamine release, but such evidence for cannabis was mis ...
