More on Brains - The Woodpecker Factor

Question: How is it possible for woodpeckers to peck so hard without getting brain damage?

Answer: This has been the subject of neurological research more than 20 years ago (The Lancet, 28 February 1976, p 454, Archives of Neurology, 1979, vol 36, p 370).

Shock waves are transmitted less readily in the woodpecker's head than in a human's because the former has a narrow space between the skull and the brain, with very little fluid, and the woodpecker's brain is packed tightly by dense yet spongy bone which buffers the force to the brain. Additionally, some of the muscles in the woodpecker's head contract, which helps to absorb and distribute the shock. Structures from the base of the tongue extend round the brain and may also absorb shocks.

Source: New Scientist

Newsflash: Humans are NOT the brainiest mammals!

Really. The human brain occupies only 1.93% of the total body weight, but the brain of the marmoset monkey occupies 5.55% of it's total body weight. That makes the marmoset three times as brainy as a human!

Who said that humans evolved from monkeys....?

If the earth were the size of a marble...

Did you know....
If the Earth were the size of a marble then:
The Moon would be a tiny pebble grazing the surface of the marble;
The Sun would be 200 meters away (the length of two football pitches);
and.....
The nearest star would be 86,000 km away, or one-fifth the distance between the real earth and the real moon!

A pretty big flag!

The biggest flag ever made is an American flag measuring 78 meters by 154 meters, and weighs 1.38 tonnes.

Opening shop again

Okay, this time it's for real. I have decided to scrap thebigbyte for now and work solely on useless facts (as well as davids-pics of course.) I should be able to get more regular posts up now. I'd really like some feedback on what sort of topics people want covered, so fire away with your comments. Send your feedback to davids-pics@temporaryforwarding.com

Now the first useless fact for you: This blog has had 14 visits in the past month - the average visit length is .01 seconds.

Welcome Back!

Hi all,

I have decided to temporarily re-open this site, due to a few visitors who have come here lately. Expect to see more useless facts soon! If you have any suggestions or requests, just leave a comment and I'll get back to you.

Dave

Going, going, going......

Hi All,

I'm sorry to say this, but I am planning to shut down this site soon. Believe it or not, I have only had 1 visit to this site in it's whole life! I simply don't think that it is worth spending time on this site if no one is visiting it!

If you want to see this site continue, please leave a comment on this post or email me to tell me. Otherwise, I'll be shutting down this site sometime in the next few weeks.

David

P.S. You might want to visit my new blog: http://thebigbyte.blogspot.com

Snippet

There are estimated to be 3,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 living things on earth (give or take the odd 100 billion!)
Source

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More than 50% of the world's population has never received a phone call.
Source

Snippet

Over ten billion scales of skin fall off your body each day.
Source

WOW!

Did you know that a 1 cent piece is 1.5mm high? That means that you would need 666.66666666666666666666666666667 of them all stacked on top of each other to make a pile 1 metre high. A pile of 554,000 coins would be as high as the empire state building, and would be worth $5,540.

Bill Gates is reported to have about $70 billion in the bank. If he withdrew that whole amount in 1 cent pieces and made one pile of them, that pile would be a total height of 10,500,000km high!!!!! That would be able to reach to the moon and back more than 13 times!!!

Even if that $70 billion was taken out in $1 coins, the pile made would still be 210,000km high and weigh 630,000,000 kg!!!

That's certainly a lot to think about. Imagine one person having enough money to build a bridge to the moon with it!
-------------------------------------
P.S. One cent coins went out of circulation in Australia in 1992, so withdrawing that currency would not be possible now.

Welcome!

Hi, and welcome to my Useless facts blog!

First off, you're all probably wondering: what is the length of a fleas back leg? Well, a flea's back leg is usually about half the length of it's body, which makes it about 1/24th of an inch, or approximately 1 millimetre. That's pretty small!

Anyway, now that that's over and done with, welcome again! I hope you will enjoy reading all the useless facts I post here, from the length of a flea's back leg to the average colour of the universe (which is beige by the way!).

See you soon, when I post my next useless fact!

David

P.S. You may want to look at my other blog: David's "Images of Nature" Gallery