Tuesday, 11 September 2007

FREAKY FACTS...Ticking time bombs

1) We all have our own ticking time bombs. Human cells contain telomeres, which hold the vital genetic information needed to continue cell activities. Our cells also produce telomerase, an enzyme that repairs damaged telomeres. But this stops in later life, killing most of us in our 70s and 80s.
2) You don’t have to be a born genius to become one. American educator Benjamin Bloom carried out a study of exceptional people in many fields, which led him “to see great talent as less an individual trait than a creation of environment and encouragement”. He continues: “We were looking for exceptional kids and what we found were exceptional conditions.”
3) Writing linear study notes using a black or blue pen uses much less than half the capacity of our cerebral cortex, where our long-term memory is stored.
4) Listening to a talking book uses 80% more of our creative intelligence than watching television.
5) Each of the 10 billion neurons in the human brain has a possibility of connections of 1 with 28 noughts after it. If that’s what a solo neuron can do, the capacity of connections our brain can make, if written out, would be 1 followed by 10.5 million kms of noughts.

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