#brain
Questions about “brain”.
15 articles
How many times a day do we blink?
You have almost certainly closed your eyelids at least once while reading this sentence. Have you ever stopped to count how often?
Why do we get hiccups?
That stubborn “hic” you just can’t stop. Everyone gets them, yet what they’re actually for remains surprisingly unclear.
Why are yawns contagious?
See someone yawn, and before you know it, you’re yawning too. How many times will you yawn before you finish reading this?
Why do we have a dominant hand?
The hand that holds a pen, the hand that throws a ball. Our dominant hand seems settled before we notice—so when, and how, does it take shape?
Why does eating ice cream give you a brain freeze?
You gulp down shaved ice, and a sharp pain stabs behind your forehead. The cold is in your mouth, so why does your head hurt?
Why do we get goosebumps?
A cold morning, a piece of music that moves you. What mechanism in the body raises those tiny bumps across your arm?
Is it true that starfish have no brain?
A star-shaped body gliding slowly over the seafloor. Where is its head? Which way is forward? The more you think about starfish, the stranger they get.
Why do we dream?
Flying through the sky, meeting someone you’ve missed. What purpose could these strange stories screened while we sleep possibly serve?
Why does time seem to speed up as we get older?
Childhood summers seemed to last forever; an adult year is gone in a blink. Psychologists have been puzzling over this almost universal feeling for more than a century.
Why does the Moon look bigger near the horizon?
A full Moon just rising over the hills can look astonishingly large. Yet in a photo, it somehow shrinks. It’s a puzzle that has baffled people for more than 2,000 years.
How did Beethoven compose when he couldn’t hear?
For a musician, the ears are everything. So how did Beethoven, who lost his hearing little by little, manage to write huge works like the Ninth Symphony?
Do all shaved ice syrups taste the same?
Strawberry, melon, lemon: the syrups lined up at a summer festival stall. That moment of agonizing over which one to choose is said to hide a little trick.
Can a cockroach live without its head?
Cockroaches are practically a byword for toughness. Is the rumor that they keep living after losing their heads just an exaggeration?
Do we really use only 10 percent of our brains?
Wake up the other 90 percent and you’ll become a genius. It’s a favorite of movies and self-help books, but what do the scientists who study the brain make of it?
Why don’t woodpeckers get headaches?
Day after day, woodpeckers slam their beaks into trees. It would leave any of us seeing stars. So how do their heads cope?