75% of the plastic pollution on earth (including the ocean) is dust from car and truck tires wearing down. the particles are so small that they pass directly from any animals gills/lungs into its blood, and from there to the brain. (that includes us.)

your eyes always see your nose, but your brain ignores it using a process called unconscious selective attention.

contrary to what you probably learned in school, the stegosaurus only had 1 brain. 

human brains begin shrinking after age 35 or so. by age 90 - if you live that long - your brain will have shrunk by about 14%.

if you ask yourself a question about an action you want to take, it is more likely that you will take that action. for example, instead of mentally telling yourself, "i'll go for a walk after dinner," ask "will i go for a walk after dinner?"

wearing a necktie blocks 7.5% of the normal blood supply from reaching your brain.

if you live near a highway, your children are twice as likely to experience a delay in their ability to communicate.

one of the reasons that a good night's sleep is so important is that during the sleep cycle, more cerebrospinal fluid flushes through the brain to wash away harmful proteins and toxins that build up during the day.

1 in 3 children learn how to use a computer tablet before they can speak.

when you begin to believe something just because you've heard it multiple times, it is called 'the illusory tuth effect'.

if you give someone an 8-digit number to remember, that is literally all that they can think about.

that is how limited our brains are.

human beings are hard wired to believe the worst about anyone that they don't know personally, and to believe that the worst outcome is more likely than a neutral or positive outcome, even when they know that the odds are perfectly even. this phenomenon is called the negativity bias.

in 11 different studies, it was found that human beings would rather administer electric shocks to themselves than sit for 15 minutes and just think.

there is evidence to suggest that, for 15 to 20 minutes after chewing gum, the following brain functions show mild improvement: working memory, episodic memory, and speed of perception.

60% of your brain is fat. that's part of why so many carnivores eat it first.

religious adherents are not swayed by facts because their brains are hard-wired to cling to ideas that have emotional resonance as a result of their personal moral compass. in a nutshell, their brains are all about belief.

militant atheists see no value in religion because their brains are hard-wired to think analytically, and reject anything that is not analytical in nature. because of this, they often lack empathy.

interestingly, both groups shy away from facts and try to re-frame the debate in terms of untestable criteria when the facts contradict their beliefs.

receptive agnosia refers to an inability to understand or appreciate music. sufferers often compare the music they hear to noise, such as drills.

ragworms intentionally plant seeds and eat the plants when they sprout.

if you're like most people, you spend 47% of your waking hours daydreaming.

even if your brain is perfectly healthy, from about age 18 on, you lose about 5% of the cells in your hippocampus that are associated with memory each decade.