Yawns Freeze Your Brain E-Book

Mick O'Hare

• Herausgeber: Bedford Square Publishers
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 212

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

Ever wondered why we yawn and have eyebrows, what happens at absolute zero and why some tunes get stuck in our heads? If you've spent your days searching for the answers to these and life's other big questions then look no further. Yawns Freeze Your Brain from the bestselling author of Does Anything Eat Wasps and Farts Aren't Invisible is the gift of enlightenment that you never knew you needed! Shining a light on some of life's trickiest questions across science, history, life and the universe. Uncover the mysteries woven into the fabric of our very existence with answers to questions such as; How much fuel does the sun burn in a second? What are the most misheard song lyrics? Why does cheese smell? Why is the Eiffel Tower 15cm taller in summer than winter? Who on earth invented existentialism (and what is it)? Increase your IQ and win pub quizzes with this perfect blend of wit, wisdom and wonder. The perfect gift for brainiacs.

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YAWNS FREEZE YOUR BRAIN

More Mind-Blowing Facts From Science, History, Life and the Universe

Mick O’Hare

As ever, thanks go to Sally and Thomas

for their love, support and patience

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Introduction

Chapter 1

OUR BODIES

(or Yawns freeze your brain)

Chapter 2

LIFE ON EARTH

(or Why is bird poo white?)

Chapter 3

THE UNIVERSE AND OUR SOLAR SYSTEM

(or How loud is the Sun?)

Chapter 4

YUCKY STUFF

(or Why do some people eat bogeys?)

Chapter 5

THE WORLD AROUND US

(or Why is the Eiffel Tower taller in summer?)

Chapter 6

EATING AND DRINKING

(or Why do onions make us cry?)

Chapter 7

HEALTH AND ILLNESS

(or Why does silver foil make your tooth fillings hurt?)

Chapter 8

GEOGRAPHY

(or Why is the sea salty?)

Chapter 9

THE INTERNET AND SOCIAL MEDIA

(or Why is social media so addictive?)

Chapter 10

HISTORY AND POLITICS

(or Why do we have leap years?)

Chapter 11

SOCIETY AND RELIGION

(or Why do we make friends?)

Chapter 12

POP CULTURE AND THE ARTS

(or Why do we like music?)

Chapter 13

CONFLICT AND OTHER NASTY STUFF

(or Why do humans fight wars?)

Chapter 14

CLEVER SCIENCE, SILLY SCIENCE

(or Is necessity the mother of invention?)

Chapter 15

THE BEST OF THE REST

(or Why couldn’t we fit this stuff in elsewhere?)

Chapter 16

WHAT’S GOING ON?

(or Why are we here?)

Acknowledgements

Also by Mick O’Hare

About the Author

Keep Reading …

Copyright

About the Publisher

INTRODUCTION

It’s been my favourite joke of the year. Back in the day, a dog walks into a telegraph office in New York. He wants to send a message to his cousin in California. The operator says, ‘It’ll cost you two dollars.’ The dog hands over his money and dictates his message. ‘Woof woof. Woof. Woof, woof, woof. Woof.’ ‘For what you’ve paid, you can have two more woofs,’ says the operator. ‘But then it would make no sense,’ replies the dog.

It’s that mixture of logic and absurdity that underpins most of what appears in this book. Facts can simply be facts, but for them to be memorable, mind-boggling, thought-provoking or simply wonderful, they must have a certain je ne sais quoi.

In an earlier life, I used to edit a column in the weekly magazine New Scientist. Readers wrote in with clever questions and other, even cleverer, readers attempted to answer them. I just sat in the middle trying to figure out which of the answers was the right one. And, most importantly, which of the questions to ask in the first place.

One evening, after perhaps a glass of wine too many, we tried to determine what would be the perfect question for the column. It had to be quirky or amusing. It had to be clever without being overly intellectual. But most important of all, we had to be sure that out there, somewhere, there would be an answer.

After much debate, we figured we’d found it, the question that fitted all the criteria. It was ‘How fat do you need to be, to be bulletproof?’ And yes, somebody really had done the research. The US military had the answer – you needed 60 centimetres of fat around all your vital organs in order to become bulletproof. The drawback? You’d probably be dead of a heart attack before you could even waddle into battle. Nonetheless, we felt smug – our perfect question had an answer.

Perhaps not all the facts in this book are as gratifyingly entertaining as that one, but you’ll find the surprising, the witty, the ridiculous and the diverting. And perhaps one or two of them will encourage you to seek out more (beware, it’s exactly what happened to me all those years ago!).

So, on to my second favourite gag of the year. It’s a dad joke. Two men are convicted of stealing a calendar. They both got six months. This book, I hope, will appeal to dads, to mums, to their offspring, to their offspring’s grandparents and pretty much to everybody. And, after reading it, you might be inspired to come up with a question that’s even better than how fat do you need to be, to be bulletproof? If so, I’d like to hear from you.

Mick O’Hare

CHAPTER 1.

OUR BODIES

(or Yawns freeze your brain)

What? Yawns freeze your brain?

Sort of, but perhaps not in the way you think. There is no ice involved but some scientists believe yawning makes your brain cooler. This helps keep it at its optimum functional temperature – heat is released as we yawn – and studies show people yawn more in summer. However, there is no actual scientific consensus on yawning. A more popular theory than the brain-cooling suggestion – and the only one that takes into account the fact that we yawn most when we are sleepy – is that yawning helps keep us awake when we would otherwise have nodded off during boring or passive activities. It stimulates the carotid artery in the neck, increases both heart rate and blood flow to the brain and releases hormones that keep us awake. It also dampens our eyes, which stimulates us to wipe them. Because we rarely yawn when on the move, this suggests yawning is only necessary when we are passive. However, other researchers have noted that we will yawn before undertaking strenuous exercise or before an exam, when blood flow to the brain is equally desirable. Lastly, yawning helps reduce pressure and blockages in the Eustachian tubes in our ears. But this might just be an unintended consequence, because swallowing is a more effective means of doing this.

Why is yawning contagious?

There seems to be more agreement on this. In primitive societies, where it made sense for most people in groups to sleep at the same time and disturbances were kept to a minimum, yawning indicates that sleep time is approaching. This is backed up by the fact that we yawn if we see a family member or friend do it, but more rarely if we see a stranger yawn. The empathy of yawning draws social groups closer together and synchronises the collective mood. Other animals yawn too but contagious yawns are only found in more social animals, such as chimpanzees and lions, which gives weight to the empathy/synchronising theory. Even more interesting is that some animals, including dogs and elephants, are prone to catching yawns from humans. Chimpanzees will even yawn when they see a robot yawning. We are still figuring out why.

The wonderfully named Sprague-Dawley rat yawns about 20 times an hour, as opposed to only about twice an hour in other rat species. Studies show that the rat’s facial temperature falls every time it yawns, allowing it to cool its body in hot weather.

Why do we have eyebrows?

They serve a very practical function by stopping sweat running into our eyes and stinging them when we are exercising or on hot days. But eyebrows serve another purpose: we use them to express our emotions, and it’s why the hair of human eyebrows is usually noticeably different to our skin colour – to make them stand out. Surprise, annoyance, happiness, confusion, and so much more, can be displayed using our incredibly mobile eyebrows. For our ancestors, needing to know from a distance whether an individual or a group had hostile intentions or otherwise was an important evolutionary benefit. Anthropologists refer to the ‘eyebrow flash’ – a rapid up-and-down movement that also opens the eyes and conveys recognition and acceptance.

Tests in laboratory conditions during which speech is forbidden have shown that people with no eyebrows, or those whose eyebrows are immobilised, have greater difficulty conveying their emotions. Think twice before getting those Botox injections.

Why do we have fingerprints?

So the police can solve crimes. Well, it helps, of course, but obviously that was never their primary purpose. Fingerprints work much like the tread on a car tyre, helping us to grip things. Smooth surfaces are great for this in dry environments but are useless in wet ones. Our fingers have evolved to have raised and depressed areas that channel the water away from our finger ends, allowing us to hold onto things that might otherwise slip from our grasp.

Myth: Your fingerprints are unique.

It would appear that’s not the case, at least not between each person’s individual fingers. It’s long been believed that the prints on all ten of our fingers are as unique as they would be if each finger belonged to a different person. But recent research shows that might not be true. In 2023, Columbia University ran a study using artificial intelligence which, when presented with two fingerprints, correctly predicted whether they came from the same person or not 77% of the time. Fingerprints from different fingers of the same person shared strong similarities.

Toe prints are as unique as fingerprints.

Nipples also leave unique patterns in the way fingerprints do. However, most criminals fail to remove their shirts at crime scenes so this knowledge, while intriguing, is of little use to the police.

How many atoms are there in a human body?

An astonishing 7,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 or thereabouts (7 octillion).

Atoms contain a lot of space. If all this space was removed our bodies would fit into a cube about 1/500 of a centimetre on each side.

Every atom in your body is billions of years old. And we really are made of stardust. Some atoms, such as hydrogen, were created in the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago. Other, heavier, elements, such as oxygen, were created in early stars. When these stars exploded, they created even heavier elements, such as iron and magnesium. Because our body is composed of all of these and more, we are all pretty ancient.

There are around 20 elements that make up our bodies – of these 12 weigh in total more than four grams each. In the average human male, they are broken down like this:

Oxygen 52 kilograms

Carbon 14.4 kilograms

Hydrogen 8 kilograms*

Nitrogen 2.4 kilograms

Calcium 1.12 kilograms

Phosphorus 880 grams

Sulphur 200 grams

Potassium 200 grams

Chlorine 120 grams

Sodium 120 grams

Magnesium 40 grams

Iron 4.8 grams

(*Most of our body’s atoms are hydrogen, but hydrogen is very light, which is why it’s only third on the list.)

Why do we cry?

It’s not just to clog up your nose, cause your make-up to run and embarrass you in public. It seems there are a number of reasons why humans cry and one of the most important, counterintuitively, is to make us feel better. Crying releases oxytocin (sometimes known as the love hormone, which plays a role in social bonding) and endorphins, the feel-good chemical messenger, which help to relieve emotional anguish, along with physical pain. That’s why we cry when sad or distressed too. There are also social reasons why we cry. It indicates we require help or support, and showing vulnerability elicits sympathy and compassion. Similarly, we also cry to express our own sympathy. If a friend has suffered a bereavement, we may find ourselves crying alongside them. Look at how many people cry at funerals, not all of them closely related to the deceased. Of course, not all crying is a response to pain or distress. We can cry when we are happy or in love or by watching a child achieve a goal. Researchers believe that crying helps us process and categorise our emotions, whatever they may be.

Why do we laugh?

Because it’s preferable to crying? Well, often it is, but neither seem to be a choice. We actually start laughing (and crying) before we can talk, so it obviously has a social function. Laughter signals to others that we are connecting with them. We are far more likely to laugh when we are in a group, especially during activities like watching comedy on TV, but less likely to do so alone. Interestingly, people speaking in social situations laugh more than those listening to them, hoping, apparently, that by doing so the listener will warm to them. Not only that, but in tests listeners could discern a difference between the laughter generated between strangers and that generated between friends. This shows that some laughter is forced in order to make a new person like you or to show you are no threat. It exhibits an offer of friendship. There are also physical benefits to laughter. It increases our oxygen intake and affects our heart rate and blood pressure (both up and down, which simulates exercise). Perhaps significantly, it releases endorphins – those feel-good chemicals again.

Why do we smile?

Much like laughter, smiling is a social signal, which communicates to people around us that our intentions are positive and unthreatening, and we are in good spirits. However, research has shown that sometimes smiling can be used as an attempt to cover up fear. Martial arts exponents who smile before a contest are more likely to lose. Other research has shown that genuine smiling involves wrinkling around the eyes which tends to be absent with feigned smiles. So don’t forget to wrinkle next time the boss makes another terrible joke.

Why do we have goosebumps?

Goosebumps, or goosepimples, are a remnant from our evolutionary predecessors. They occur when tiny muscles around the base of each hair tense, pulling the hair more erect. This would have helped to keep us warm if we were still covered in fur, fluffing up our coats, making them better insulators.

We get a similar response when we are scared. This is because lots of mammals fluff up their fur when threatened, to look bigger and more menacing. Early, hairier humans used to have a similar defensive reaction. Unfortunately today we still get the sensation of hairs standing on end, but instead of looking aggressive we just look bumpy.

Why is hair different colours?

It’s down to your genes, although a lot more research is required. However, more than ten genes seem to be involved, with one called MC1R being prominent. If this gene is active, your body will produce more melanin. Essentially, the more melanin that is present in the pigment cells of your hair follicles, the darker your hair will be. However, two particular types of melanin seem to influence hair colour – eumelanin gives people black or brown hair (or an almost total lack of it gives blond hair) while pheomelanin gives people red hair. It’s the proportions that lead to differing hair types.

Some of us, your author included, have grey hair. Grey is actually the base colour of all hair. As humans age and cells die, these include the pigment cells in your follicles. As they die, the pigment is lost, and hair turns grey.

Myth: Your author has grey hair.

His wife has corrected him. Apparently, he has no hair.

Myth: You can go grey overnight.

Although there are many unsubstantiated cases of hair turning grey very suddenly, possibly due to stress (including, reputedly, the locks of Queen Marie Antoinette, following her capture during the French Revolution), research has shown that, in theory, it should be impossible. Hairs take longer than 24 hours to grow out and the process of a whole head of hair turning grey usually takes anything up to 20 years.

Why do we dream?

It’s complex. Stuff like this always is. So we are going to try to make it simple. We do know the emotional centres of the brain seem to trigger dreams, rather than those centres involved with logic or reasoning. Dreams also seem to be somewhat autobiographical and are based on recent conversations you have had or things you have just done or thought about while awake. But while researchers can’t agree definitively on the purpose of dreams, there are a few key theories. Dreaming may be a form of therapy, acting out emotional drama that you would otherwise suppress if you were awake. It may help you to sort through complicated thoughts and feelings. The lack of a logic filter also leads some researchers to conclude that dreaming releases our creative tendencies – artists often credit dreams with inspiring great works. How many times have you awoken with a great idea, or a solution to a problem? But numerous studies have shown that perhaps the most likely reason we dream is to help us store memories. Without sleep, memories can be lost very quickly and it’s believed that dreaming about things helps to ensure those memories are stored more permanently with the unimportant ones discarded. As we said: complex stuff. In fact, it seems the whole field of dream research is a bit of a nightmare.

The oldest known study of dreams is The Egyptian Dream Book, a papyrus dating back to the reign of Ramesses II (1303–1213 BC). At that time it was believed dreams were prophecies. Any reported bad dreams were recorded in the book in red ink. And while we are talking colours, it seems that 12% of people dream only in black and white.

Myth: All our bones interlock as part of our skeletons.

Not so. The human neck has a bone that is totally separate from all the others, called the hyoid, or tongue-bone. It makes constructing skeletons for medical students very tricky because it always gets lost. Sing along now: ‘The tongue-bone’s not connected to the knee-bone…’

QUICK-FIRE FACTS

If laid out end to end, the blood vessels of one adult human would circle the Earth’s equator four times (that’s about 160,000 kilometres).

We blink on average about 518 million times in a lifetime. That works out to about 15 times a minute.

A blink lasts between 100 and 150 milliseconds.

We call muscles ‘muscles’ because the Romans thought flexed biceps looked like a little mouse sitting on your arm. ‘Muscle’ derives from the Latin for ‘little mouse’.

Your body produces enough heat in 30 minutes to boil a litre of water.

Although the speed varies, human nerves can transfer information at about 400 kilometres an hour.

Your left lung is about 10% smaller than your right one.

And the reason your left lung is smaller is in order to accommodate your heart.

Humans breathe in about six litres of air per minute.

When you breathe in, you inhale around 25 sextillion molecules of gas (mainly oxygen and nitrogen). That’s 25 with 21 zeroes behind it.

Your body uses only about a quarter of the oxygen you breathe in. You exhale the rest.

Your blood makes up about 8% of your body weight.

More than half of your bones (106 out of the 206 an adult possesses) are located in your hands, wrists, feet and ankles.

Only 2% of humans have green eyes. The largest concentrations are in Scotland and Ireland.

Eyes remain approximately the same size throughout your lifetime, which is why babies’ eyes seem big and cute – they are disproportionately large.

The left testicle usually hangs lower than the right in right-handed men. The reverse is true for left-handers.

Statistically, a woman’s left breast is larger than her right (65% to 35%).

Your small intestine is about seven metres long (or around four times your height).

The largest muscles in the human body are found in your bum. Your two buttocks are more properly known as your gluteus maximus.

About 70% of the dust in your home is dead human skin cells.

Our brains have no pain receptors.

The brain loses on average one gram of mass for each year of ageing.

20% of people have a bigger second toe than their so-called big toe.

Human head hair grows about 950 kilometres over the average lifetime.

A human eats about 32 tonnes of food over a lifetime and spends just over three and a half years eating it.

One in 18 people have a third nipple. It’s called polythelia.

CHAPTER 2.

LIFE ON EARTH

(or Why is bird poo white?)

Why is bird poo white?

It’s because birds poo and pee in the same package. This means the uric acid from their urine bleaches everything that is being excreted, hence their droppings being white. You’ll have seen the bleaching effect of uric acid on your clothing if you’ve ever been hit by bird poo, although this fascinating chemical observation might not have been your first reaction as you got splattered.

How do dogs find their way home?

The longest journey a dog has made to find its way home is about 5000 kilometres. Bobbie was with his human family on holiday in Indiana in 1923 when he went missing. Six months later – the following year – he turned up at the family home in Oregon. Yup, that’s 5000 kilometres. Bobbie was exceptional, but in 1973 a German shepherd dog called Barry got lost on holiday in Italy. Six months later, he turned up at his home in Solingen in Germany, nearly 2000 kilometres away. Biologists aren’t entirely sure how dogs can navigate such distances but it’s believed they can detect the Earth’s magnetic field. In 2013, researchers in the Czech Republic and Germany had already concluded that dogs aligned their spines with the Earth’s magnetic field when defecating. Who knows, maybe they just follow the, er, trail of evidence…

Even stranger than the stories of Bobbie and Barry, is that of Prince. In 1914, Private James Brown was serving on the Western Front in France during the First World War. Prince went missing from his West London home… and two months later turned up in Brown’s trench. Nobody understands how he did it, but he was adopted as the regimental mascot and, like his owner, survived the war.

Magnetite is an iron-rich mineral, which will align with magnetic fields. And in 2023 it was found in the beaks of homing pigeons and migratory birds, leading researchers to believe that it is somehow used to direct the birds over long distances.

Snails also have a homing instinct. This was first noticed by British amateur gardener Ruth Brooks, who found that the snails she removed from her garden to protect her plants kept coming back. Researchers at Exeter University studied the phenomenon and discovered that snails would return to where they were removed from, unless they were taken more than ten metres away (or perhaps it just took them longer and nobody was there to see them arrive home).

Interestingly, when a group of Cornish snails (from the western tip of England) were taken to a garden in Hertfordshire in central England, they all lined up and headed west.

Which species is most at risk of extinction?

According to earth.org the Amur leopard, native to southeast Russia and north China, is the most at-risk species on the planet. There are probably fewer than 80 left. Poaching, killing for traditional medicine and climate change are all factors leading to their seemingly imminent demise.

It’s not a rare animal but it is a rare event. In spring 2024 in the eastern United States, two species of cicada – one that emerges only once every 13 years and another that emerges only once every 17 years – surfaced from the soil where they spend most of their lives and began mating simultaneously. That’s more than a trillion mating at once. It is the first time both species have appeared simultaneously since 1803 and it will not happen again until 2245.

What is the most abundant mammal in the world?

Humans. There are more than eight billion of us scuttling around the planet and that is increasing. We even beat rats into second place (there are around seven billion of those). Whether this is a good or a bad thing we’ll let you decide. In a lowly third place are sheep, of which there are a mere 1.2 billion.

What is the most abundant animal in the world?

Nematode worms. There are 57 billion of them for every human and they make up 80% of all living animal species on Earth. They have a total biomass of about 275 million tonnes and are usually microscopic, although some rare parasitic types can grow to about one metre in length. They can live pretty much anywhere, including inside you.

What is the most abundant fish in the world?

The genus Cyclothone (or the bristlemouth). They are bioluminescent and inhabit waters deeper than 300 metres. It’s believed there are a million billion of them and they are also the most abundant vertebrates on the planet.

Why are there freshwater fish and saltwater fish and why do they die if they swap environments?

It’s all to do with osmosis. Osmosis is the process by which liquids cross semi-permeable membranes, such as the cells