1. Your brain is the most energy-consuming part of your body. The brain represents only 2% of the body weight, but it uses up to 20 percent of the body’s energy production. The energy is used for cell-health maintenance and to fuel electrical impulses that neurons employ to communicate with one another.
2. Your brain contains about 100 billion neurons which is about 16 times the number of people on Earth. Each of them links to as many as 10,000 other neurons. This huge number of connections opens the way to massive parallel processing within the brain.
3. The neocortex (a section of the brain involved with language and consciousness) accounts for about 76% of the mass of the human brain. Human neocortex is much larger than any animals. It gives humans unique mental capacities although its brain architecture is similar to that of more primitive species.
4. Humans do not use only 10% or less of their brain. This is a common misconception. Even though many mysteries of brain function persist, every part of the brain has a known function.
5. Neurons multiply at a rate 250,000 neurons per minute during early pregnancy.
6. 750ml of blood pumps through your brain every minute which is 15-20% of blood flow from the heart.
7. The human brain is about 75% water.
8. Your brain consumes 25 watts of power while you’re awake. This amount of energy is enough to illuminate a lightbulb.
9. It is estimated that the human brain has a raw computational power between 1013 and 1016 operations per second. It is far more that 1 million times the number of people on Earth.
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Fun Facts About the Thunder God, Zeus!
1. Zeus obtained his rule in the heavens and Mount Olympus by conquering his father Cronus/Kronos. Zeus's father was a greedy man who loved being a supreme god. Because of this lust for power he would eat his own children birthed by Rhea - Zeus's mother.
2. It is said that when confronting Cronus, Zeus collaborated with his siblings who had been freed from the belly of their father. In the end Hades was the one to silently surprise Cronus by wearing an invisibility helmet, followed by Poseidon who immobilized his body. Zeus swiftly took advantage of the situation and destroyed his father by striking him with a deadly thunderbolt.
3. Zeus, although husband to his wife Hera, was often known for disguising himself in various forms to visit earth and seduce appealing maidens. Because of this, Zeus had many children - you may recall one of his most famous offspring from other Greek Mythological tales; Hercules.
4. Many of Zeus's other children go by the names of: Athena, Apollo, Artemis, Hermes, Persephone, Dionysus, Perseus, Helen, Minos, Muses. Also included in some tales are Ares, Hephaestus , and Hebe
5. This Greek God is also known by such aliases as "the Rain God" and "the Cloud Gatherer". He is said to wield and control fierce thunderbolts.
6. Zeus's famous symbols are the oak, eagle, thunderbolt, and bull.
7. The name "Zeus" means sky or bright.
8. Zeus is also known as the god of weather and fertility.
9. He was a god of morality (although some beg to differ due to his many affairs with human women!). Zeus would punish those who would commit evil deeds and reward those who were righteous and good of heart
10.Another name for this god is Jupiter which was used by the Romans.
11. Zeus's wife Hera was also his sister. He also had an affair with another sister by the name of Demeter; birthing a child - Persephone. is a name rarely unknown by individuals; from fables to mythical tales of triumph, adultery, justice and destruction. Most are familiar with this powerful Greek God. Below are fun facts and information about this legendary ruler of the heavens (sky).
2. It is said that when confronting Cronus, Zeus collaborated with his siblings who had been freed from the belly of their father. In the end Hades was the one to silently surprise Cronus by wearing an invisibility helmet, followed by Poseidon who immobilized his body. Zeus swiftly took advantage of the situation and destroyed his father by striking him with a deadly thunderbolt.
3. Zeus, although husband to his wife Hera, was often known for disguising himself in various forms to visit earth and seduce appealing maidens. Because of this, Zeus had many children - you may recall one of his most famous offspring from other Greek Mythological tales; Hercules.
4. Many of Zeus's other children go by the names of: Athena, Apollo, Artemis, Hermes, Persephone, Dionysus, Perseus, Helen, Minos, Muses. Also included in some tales are Ares, Hephaestus , and Hebe
5. This Greek God is also known by such aliases as "the Rain God" and "the Cloud Gatherer". He is said to wield and control fierce thunderbolts.
6. Zeus's famous symbols are the oak, eagle, thunderbolt, and bull.
7. The name "Zeus" means sky or bright.
8. Zeus is also known as the god of weather and fertility.
9. He was a god of morality (although some beg to differ due to his many affairs with human women!). Zeus would punish those who would commit evil deeds and reward those who were righteous and good of heart
10.Another name for this god is Jupiter which was used by the Romans.
11. Zeus's wife Hera was also his sister. He also had an affair with another sister by the name of Demeter; birthing a child - Persephone. is a name rarely unknown by individuals; from fables to mythical tales of triumph, adultery, justice and destruction. Most are familiar with this powerful Greek God. Below are fun facts and information about this legendary ruler of the heavens (sky).
The True History of Valentine's Day
The history of Valentine's Day is not actually clear cut.
One point of note is that there was an old Roman pagan fertility celebration that occurred annually on February the 15th.This day was recast as a Christian feast day, just one day earlier on the 14th of February sometime around 496 A.D.
The Catholic church has 3 st Valentine's on it's books, notably all three were martyred on the same date - February 14th.
According to the Catholic Encyclopedia,.one was a priest in Rome, another a bishop in Terni, and of a third St. Valentine who met his end in Africa, little else is known.
The St. Valentine associated with Valentine's Day was a priest who attracted the disfavor of Roman emperor Claudius II around 270 A.D.
From here the story is unclear.
According to the most popular legend, Emperor Claudius II had prohibited marriage for young men, claiming that bachelors made better soldiers. Valentine, who disagreed with this, began secretly performing marriage ceremonies but in due course was eventually caught out by the Romans and subsequently put to death.
Another version says that Valentine, imprisoned by Claudius, fell in love with the daughter of his jailer. Before he was executed, he allegedly sent her a letter signed "from your Valentine."
In 1969, the Catholic Church revised its calendar, removing the feast days of saints whose historical origins were questionable. St. Valentine was one of those culled from the celebratory days.
However, February the 14th was still not widely associated with the idea of love and romance.
In 1381 it was Chaucer who first linked St. Valentine's Day with romance.
He had composed a poem in honor of the engagement between England's Richard II and Anne of Bohemia. Chaucer associated the occasion with a feast day in his work "The Parliament of Fowls".
"For this was on St. Valentine's Day,
When every fowl cometh there to choose his mate."
The royal engagement, the mating season of birds, and St. Valentine's Day thus became linked.
Through time the holiday began to re-evolve, and by the 18th century, gift-giving and exchanging hand-made cards on Valentine's Day had become common in England.
Valentine's day card were made of ribbons and lace featuring cupids and heart.
The idea of Valentine's Day cards did not takeoff in the United States until the 1850's when an enterprising woman decided to start mass producing them. Up until now, all valentine's day cards had been handmade.
Nowadays of course, along with most things these days, Valentine's day has become highly commercialised for many people. It has been said that 25% of all cards sent each year are actually Valentine's Day cards..
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