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The Human Brain Files

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The Human Brain Files

Inside the strangest organ you own — neurons, memory, perception, and the secrets your skull is hiding.

22 discoveries ~88 min

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01
Your brain creates fake phone vibrations out of nervous habits
If you have ever felt your phone buzz in your pocket only to find a blank screen, you aren't imagining things. Your brain is actually hallucinating.
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02
The Animal with Nine Semi-Independent Brains
Two-thirds of an octopus's neurons are in its arms, meaning its limbs can taste, touch, and think on their own.
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03
Your Brain is Hallucinating Most of What You See
Your eyes have a physical hole in their field of vision, but your brain lies to you about it.
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04
The Game That Rewires Your Sleeping Brain
Playing Tetris for too long causes your brain to keep playing the game even after you close your eyes.
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05
The Plant That Delivers a Year of Pain
The Gympie-Gympie tree produces a neurotoxin so potent that victims have been known to lose their minds from the agony.
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06
The Bird That Can See More Than It Can Think
An ostrich’s eye is larger than its brain, leaving very little room for complex thought while providing a panoramic view of potential predators.
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07
Your eyes decide what you hear
When your eyes see a mouth move one way but your ears hear a different sound, your brain invents a third sound to fix the conflict.
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08
Woodpeckers wrap their tongue around their brain like a seatbelt
A woodpecker hits a tree with enough force to liquefy most brains, yet it survives because its tongue wraps around its skull.
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09
The Color of Sound That Boosts Memory
Pink noise is the secret frequency that synchronizes your brain waves for a deeper, more restorative sleep.
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10
The Animal That Never Truly Goes to Sleep
Dolphins survive by shutting down only half of their brain at a time, keeping one eye open for sharks.
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11
The Nostalgic Highway Inside Your Brain
Your sense of smell is the only sense that bypasses the brain's main switchboard, hitting your emotions instantly.
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12
The Insect Sting That Mimics a Gunshot
The bullet ant delivers a neurotoxin that causes 24 hours of waves of pure, paralyzing agony.
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13
Your brain eats 20% of your energy doing basically nothing
Your brain weighs almost nothing but consumes 20 percent of every calorie you eat.
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14
The axolotl never grows up — and that's its superpower
It can regrow its brain. Yes, really.
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15
Your brain has 86 billion neurons. They're alien
And each one connects to thousands of others.
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16
Why you can't tickle yourself
Your brain literally subtracts your own touch from existence.
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17
A mantis shrimp sees colours your brain has no name for
16 photoreceptors vs. our 3. The world looks different.
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18
Octopuses have three hearts and blue blood
And maybe a different kind of consciousness.
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19
The colour that doesn't exist (but your brain sees)
Magenta is not on the rainbow. Your visual cortex invented it.
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20
Your memory rewrites itself every time you remember
The more you recall something, the less accurate it gets.
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21
The Animal Born With Two Faces
In 2012, a kitten was born in Oregon with two faces, four eyes, two noses, and one brain.
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22
Closing your eyes doesn't stop you from knowing where your hands are
You have a hidden sixth sense that maps your body in pitch darkness. Without it, you couldn't walk, eat, or even scratch an itch without looking.
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