Science

WTF Fun Fact 12820 – Do We Only Use 10% of Our Brains? No.

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For some reason, Hollywood writers and purveyors of pseudoscience really love to say humans only use 10% of their brains. Why? Well, because it opens the door to making us think there’s a wealth of unlocked potential if only we could [insert Hollywood storyline] or buy some junk supplement to unlock the rest.

But it’s just not true. What an evolutionary waste that would be if it had any basis in fact!

Myth becomes “fact”

According to Britannica (and many, many scientific sources and fact-checking websites): “It’s one of Hollywood’s favorite bits of pseudoscience: human beings use only 10 percent of their brain, and awakening the remaining 90 percent—supposedly dormant—allows otherwise ordinary human beings to display extraordinary mental abilities. In Phenomenon (1996), John Travolta gains the ability to predict earthquakes and instantly learns foreign languages. Scarlett Johansson becomes a superpowered martial-arts master in Lucy (2014). And in Limitless (2011) Bradley Cooper writes a novel overnight.”

We don’t blame Hollywood – they make stuff up to sell movies all the time. It’s the fact that we started believing the plots of films that’s truly disturbing. In fact, Britannica reports that “65 percent of respondents agreed with the statement, ‘People only use 10 percent of their brain on a daily basis.'”

Yikes.

Why do we believe we only use 10% of our brains?

Let’s not look to place blame on anyone but ourselves. Most of us repeat interesting things we hear without ever investigating whether or not they’re true.

But next time you hear someone spout off this garbage “fun fact,” you can hit back with some actual science.

For starters:

  • If only 10% of our brains were functional, why does nearly every brain injury affect our lives in some way? If we only used 10%, we could damage the rest with no repercussions.
  • Why would humans have evolved our most unique characteristic – the very thing that makes us human – to be 90% useless? It makes no evolutionary sense. That space could be used for more useful things if it were just empty grey matter.
  • Positron emission tomography (PET) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) brain scans show that there is activity in far more than 10% of our brain. In fact, there is no part of the brain that lacks some sort of electrical activity (even if we don’t yet know precisely what it does).

The origins of the 10% myth

So, the 10% myth is just complete bull. But It likely has its origins in the American self-help industry.

People like to blame 19th-century psychologist William James (or even Albert Einstein) for implying that there is unlocked potential in the human brain. And while they may be true, that doesn’t indicate inactive brain matter. It just means we could think harder if we really tried.

Britannica also states that one early claim that the self-help industry glommed onto appeared in the preface to Dale Carnegie’s 1936 book, How to Win Friends and Influence People. Since then, “The idea that we have harnessed only a fraction of our brain’s full potential has been a staple for motivational gurus, New Age hucksters, and uninspired screenwriters ever since.”

But it’s a load of bologna. – WTF fun facts

Source: “Do We Really Use Only 10 Percent of Our Brain?” — Britannica

WTF Fun Fact 12818 – Does Viagra Make Flowers Last Longer?

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It might not be the most cost-efficient use of the medication, but the answer to “does viagra make flowers last longer?” is yes. It also makes the stand up straight.

How does viagra make flowers last longer?

According to a study in the British Medical Journal (cited below): “Viagra (sildenafil citrate) is good not only for treating male impotence. Israeli and Australian researchers have discovered that small concentrations of the drug dissolved in a vase of water can also double the shelf life of cut flowers, making them stand up straight for as long as a week beyond their natural life span.”

In fact, “1 mg of the drug (compared with 50 mg in one pill taken by impotent men) in a solution was enough to prevent two vases of cut flowers from wilting for as much as a week longer than might be expected.”

How does it work? Well, according to the study “Viagra increases the vase life of flowers by retarding the breakdown of cyclic guanosine monophosphate (cGMP) (the production of which is mediated by nitric oxide).”

Basically, that means flower wilting and erectile dysfunction involve the same enzyme, and Viagra helps slow down the breakdown of that enzyme. In men, this allows blood vessels to stay open longer, and in plants, it does the same to their vascular tissues.

No more flaccid flowers

Of course, you may not want to go through the trouble of getting a Viagra prescription (or raid anyone’s medicine cabinet) for the sake of your centerpieces. There are other ways of getting some flowers to spring to attention. For example, putting a few old pennies (that still have some copper component) in a vase of tulips will also make them stand up straight.

While all of this news came out in 1999, the Viagra method of flower preservation started trending again on TikTok in 2021. – WTF fun facts

Source: “Viagra makes flowers stand up straight” — BMJ

WTF Fun Fact 12813 – Heartbreaks Hurt

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Breaking up hurts – and sometimes that pain is physical in addition to emotional. Research has found that people who have experienced a painful breakup actually show brain activity similar to those who are in physical pain.

Why do heartbreaks hurt?

Researchers have compared the brain activity of those going through the emotional pain od a breakup alongside people who are in physical pain. The results showed that emotional and physical pain are processed in the same part of the brain.

Of course, pain is subjective, so pain research is hard to quantify, but it does explain why breakups can hurt so bad.

We’ve long known about the mind-body connection, but this is next-level.

Physiological connections

Research by author Meghan Laslocky (cited by Healthline, below) suggests that heartbreak hurts so much “because both the sympathetic and parasympathetic activation systems are triggered simultaneously.”

Healthline explains: “The parasympatheticsystem is the part of your nervous system that handles relaxed functions like digestion and saliva production. It slows the heart rate and breathing. The sympathetic nervous system, on the other hand, gets the body ready for action. It’s the “flight or fight” response that sends hormones rushing through the body to increase heart rate, and wake up your muscles. When both are turned on simultaneously, it stands to reason that the body would experience discomfort — possibly even chest pains.”

Don’t discount emotional pain

People have had heart attacks and have even died after experiencing heartbreak. But these are extreme cases.

Still, it would be unwise to discount the pain someone is going through after a breakup of the death of a loved one. Heartbreak can lead to changes in appetite, low motivation, weight loss gain, headaches, and stomach pain.

Even worse, unlike physical pain, medicine doesn’t help heartbreak. The only real remedy is time. – WTF fun facts

Source: “What Does Heartbreak Do to Your Health?” — Healthline

WTF Fun Fact 12802 – Nomophobia

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We’re addicted to our smartphones. And maybe you knew that, but did you know there’s a name for the fear of being without your phone? It’s called “nomophobia,” and 66% of U.S. adults suffer from it.

What is nomophobia?

According to Psychology Today (cited below), “The term is an abbreviation for ‘no-mobile-phone phobia,’ which was coined during a 2010 study by the UK Post Office.”

One of the first studies of nomophobia was commissioned by the UK Post Office and conducted by YouGov. At the time, 53% of UK mobile phone users confessed to being anxious when they “lose their mobile phone, run out of battery or credit, or have no network coverage.”

The study also found that nomophobia is actually more common in men – “58 percent of men and 47 percent of women suffer from the phobia, and an additional 9 percent feel stressed when their mobile phones are off.”

A worsening epidemic

Things are even worse in the U.S. Psychology Today reports that “Sixty-five percent, or about two in three people, sleep with or next to their smartphones. (Among college students, it’s even higher.) Thirty-four percent admitted to answering their cell phone during intimacy with their partner…One in five people would rather go without shoes for a week than take a break from their phones…More than half never switch off their phone. (I’d call that an addiction.) A full 66 percent of all adults suffer from ‘nomophobia.'”

Which stat are you most surprised by? For us, it’s the willingness to go without shoes just to spend more time on the phone – have you seen what people throw on the ground?!

Ways of coping

If you experience anxiety without your smartphone, there are a few things you can try, including:

  • Balancing screen time and in-person time with friends and family each week, if possible.
  • Doing a phone detox, during which you turn off your phone entirely for one day each month.
  • Sleeping as far away from your phone as possible.

– WTF fun facts

Source: “Nomophobia: A Rising Trend in Students” — Psychology Today

WTF Fun Fact 12797 – Fathers With Daughters Tend to Live Longer

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You may find it interesting to know that a few different studies conducted around the world have found that parents tend to have a longer life expectancy than non-parents. If you’re currently raising a small child, that may seem unlikely, but the statistics are in your favor! And if you’re a father with daughters, you’re double lucky.

Studying parental longevity

None of these studies can prove causation. That is, there is no way to prove that daughters directly cause their fathers to have longer lives. These are studies of correlation. And we all know that phrase correlation is not causation. So if you have ten sons or no children at all, have no fear.

Ok, so what do the studies say? Here’s a taste:

One of the most oft-cited studies is this one, which looked at rural families in Poland. The researchers stated that despite reproduction being such a physical and energic drain on people, dads with daughters tended to live longer (but moms don’t).

Fathers with daughters tend to live longer

They say:

“We show for the first time that number of daughters was positively related to a longer life span of their fathers, increasing their longevity on average by 74 weeks per daughter born, while number of sons did not have a significant effect on paternal longevity.”

In a separate study, the researchers posit that “Having a daughter has been shown to be associated with increased chances of regular social contact and with receiving help if needed, something that we hypothesize becomes more important later in life.”

Not all studies agree

However, the same researchers also point out that not all studies have found a correlation between child genre and parental longevity:

“The role of daughters versus sons for parental mortality has been the topic of a few previous studies, but the results are inconsistent. Some studies found no association with the gender of the child while other found that daughters are more favourable, sometimes for fathers only. In a study on Swedish data, the protective effect of having a daughter was detected only among one-child parents, but not for parents with several children, which is in line with a Norwegian study.”

In the end, it appears that longevity may have a lot to do with social ties and having a community around you, which parents are more likely to have in order to socialize their children. One of the reasons fathers with daughters may live longer is that “older childless individuals, particularly men, appear to have less social interactions than older parents and there is evidence that having a daughter is associated with increased chances of regular social contacts and with receiving help if needed.”

However, this same study “found some support for the difference between mothers and fathers, but no support for the hypothesis regarding a beneficial effect of a daughter.”

So the jury’s still out! – WTF fun facts

Source: “Daughters increase longevity of fathers, but daughters and sons equally reduce longevity of mothers” — American Journal of Human Biology

WTF Fun Fact 12783 – The Rotation of Venus

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The rotation of Venus on its axis is very slow.

For those who need a refresher in astronomy, the planets in our solar system rotate in two ways 1) on their axis (spinning in place, basically – which makes one day), and 2) around the sun (which makes a year).

What’s unique about the rotation of Venus?

Planets rotate around the sun with regularity, but when it comes to spinning on their own axis, that’s a different story. And astrophysicists have long wondered why Venus’ rotation is so slow.

According to Space.com (cited below): “Venus orbits the sun at about two-thirds of the distance between our planet and the star. Shrouded in a dense and toxic atmosphere of carbon dioxide and sulfuric acid, the planet suffers from a runaway greenhouse effect that pushes temperatures on its surface to life-preventing 900 degrees Fahrenheit (475 degrees Celsius). And something else is odd about this world: While Venus completes its orbit around the sun in 225 Earth days, it takes 243 Earth days for the planet to spin around its axis.”

Why Venus take so long?

But that still doesn’t answer the question about why Venus is so slow to rotate on its axis. However, a study in Nature Astronomy by astrophysicist Stephen Kane at the University of California gives us some new insight. Kane believes that the planet’s thick, stormy atmosphere interferes with axial rotation. Venus’ atmosphere blocks the sun’s energy from leaving the planet.

Kane said in a statement: “We think of the atmosphere as a thin, almost separate layer on top of a planet that has minimal interaction with the solid planet. Venus’ powerful atmosphere teaches us that it’s a much more integrated part of the planet that affects absolutely everything, even how fast the planet rotates.”

Rethinking the role the atmosphere plays on a planet may eventually help us rethink the way we look at the solar system. In other words, we’ll have to acknowledge that not all planets can be viewed from the perspective of the way things work on Earth. Go figure.

– WTF fun facts

Source: “Why is a day on Venus longer than a year? The atmosphere may be to blame.” — Space.com

WTF Fun Fact 12780 – The Buck Moon

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Why is it called the buck moon? Because of bucks, of course.

The Super (Buck) Moon

On July 13, 2022, we’ll see our second supermoon of the year.

According to Science Focus (cited below):

“Supermoons are categorised when the Moon is at 360,000km (or less) away from Earth in its orbital path, and we’ll often see two or three full supermoons in a row. The June full Moon, the Strawberry Moon and the August full Moon, the Sturgeon Moon, are both supermoons.

A supermoon is around 7 per cent larger and 15 per cent brighter than a standard full Moon, or 14 per cent bigger and 30 per cent brighter than a micromoon. This effect is amplified further when the Moon is on the horizon, like it is this month, thanks to the Moon illusion.”

What is a buck moon?

Science Focus described the meaning behind the buck moon. And it really is all about bucks – as in male deer:

“Most species of male deer (bucks) shed and regrow their antlers every year. They shed their antlers in the early spring (or late winter), which then regrow and continue to develop during the summer months. As they grow, the antlers are protected by a thin, velvety layer which hardens, dries and falls away once they’re fully grown. This is why bucks’ antlers often look ‘tatty’ in the summer.

By July, it’s usual to see bucks with full-size antlers in preparation for the autumn breeding season. They’ll need to be in top fettle to compete with other bucks for the best females.

As such, the Algonquin tribe named it the Buck Moon.

Other names for the July full Moon include the Berry Moon, Raspberry Moon and Thunder Moon.”

– WTF fun facts

Source: “Buck Supermoon 2022: How to see July’s full Moon tonight” — Science Focus

WTF Fun Fact 12774 – A Tick Map for Public Health

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Scientists believe that releasing a “tick map” each year (or as often as needed) would be a great public health strategy to allow people to ward off tick-borne diseases. Now, researchers are trying to make it happen.

Why a tick map?

From hikers to vacationers, each summer and fall people head out to new locales without quite knowing the dangers that lurk in tall grasses and forests. These days, tick-borne diseases are spreading more rapidly than ever and it’s causing some big concerns for health professionals. Some of these diseases can be debilitating, and in many cases, a bit of Deet spray just isn’t enough to avoid the danger.

Enter the tick map. If a map of locations where ticks are common (and commonly associated with particular diseases) was available ahead of time, it would not only help raise awareness of the need to avoid ticks but help people take better precautions.

Knowledge is power, after all. But simply telling people there are risks out there does not lead to enough action to stop the spread of diseases that take major resources to treat.

How does a tick map work?

A tick map would involve some predictions, so researchers are still trying to come up with the ideal way of forecasting the locations. And it’s complicated.

According to Scientific American (cited below): “Many factors, not all of them well understood by scientists, shape where and when disease-carrying tick species will thrive—and if they are likely to carry a pathogen at all. Every year people are diagnosed with and treated for tick-borne illnesses such as Lyme disease, anaplasmosis, and Rocky Mountain spotted fever. For Lyme disease alone, the annual figure is nearly half a million, according to estimates from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And that number is expected to rise as many tick species continue to expand their ranges.”

The only system we have now is relying on people to know where ticks may be a problem so that they can use tick repellant, wear long sleeves, cover their ankles, and perform tick checks on themselves and their pets.

But if we had a tick map, things might be different: “If hikers, for example, have a forecast indicating that the woods they are passing through are likely to have dangerous ticks, they can take extra steps to protect themselves with bug repellent, long sleeves and tight pant cuffs. Local health care providers can make sure they are looking out for symptoms of tick-borne illnesses. Local officials can advise citizens on how to take care outside during the danger season. But making accurate predictions is complicated. Many factors, not all of them well understood by scientists, shape where and when disease-carrying tick species will thrive—and if they are likely to carry a pathogen at all.”

The other cool thing about having a tick map is that it would show when risks are low, allowing people to relax some of those protocols when they aren’t necessary.

Why is it so hard to build the map?

Risk levels can be hard to gauge, however. Ticks need humid summers, enough animal hosts, and the right habitat, for starters. They don’t like cold winters and hot, dry summers. But there’s way more that goes into creating a predictive model that’s actually useful to people, including specific tick species that carry different diseases or thrive in slightly different environments.

To add to the complexity, we’re still learning about the other kinds of flora and fauna that are abundant in tick-heavy areas, such as a specific type of acorn that one type of tiny mouse feeds on – they’re common when ticks are abundant and they’re a reservoir for Lyme disease. All of those elements need to go into the model. And to top it off, we don’t entirely understand how Lyme disease works.

At the moment, the best data we have is only for one tiny area of the country. Other areas may need different predictive models. According to SciAm, “Data collection is one piece of that puzzle, but another is a better understanding of how ticks interact with host species, both human and nonhuman, and how the arthropods act as conduits for disease.”

So, in the meantime, cover up and check for ticks after a walk in the woods!

– WTF fun facts

Source: “The Quest for a ‘Tick Map’” — Scientific American

WTF Fun Fact 12772 – Real-Life Paw Patrol

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Remember McGruff the Crime Dog? Ever watch Paw Patrol with your kids? Well, it turns out dogs really do take a bite out of crime – just not in the way we expected.

The Pros of a Paw Patrol

Recent research in the journal Social Forces has found that neighborhoods that contain more dogs have lower levels of crime. But the paper, titled “Paws on the Street: Neighborhood-Level Concentration of Households with Dogs and Urban Crime,” found that it wasn’t the dogs themselves that deterred criminals.

Based on the work of Jane Jacobs, this research adds to the idea that “eyes on the street” can (but don’t always) help deter bad actors. That’s a plus for communities where people get out of their houses and are seen by neighbors. (But it’s obviously not that straightforward, and Jacobs failed to take into account race and class in much of her research.)

Eyes on the street

Nevertheless, the new research suggests that in many neighborhoods, the presence of community members makes a neighborhood less likely to seem like a target for crimes such as theft. Not only do neighbors get to know each other better and establish trust, but more eyes mean more potential reporters when people who see something wrong.

Of course, we’ve seen reporting of “something wrong” go sideways in many cases, especially when it comes to situations that involve race and class differences. We’ve also seen that a police response isn’t the best way to keep crime down. So this research just provides a general sense of how things might work for some neighborhoods.

So what’s the deal with dogs?

Dogs come into play because people need to walk them – and people do this at all hours of the day. Neighborhoods with dogs tend to have a lot more human activity out on the sidewalks. In general, the evidence showed that this was largely a good thing when it came to deterring crime.

The researchers found that neighborhoods with higher concentrations of dogs tended to report less robbery, homicide, and aggravated assault rates (as long as “eyes on the street” came with an increased level of trust).

As always, it’s important to note that the researchers found a correlation between dog ownership and less crime. This is not the same is causation – meaning we can’t say that owning dogs leads to less crime until there’s far more evidence. –WTF fun facts

Source: “Dogs Could Be Lowering Crime Levels in Your Neighborhood. Seriously” — ScienceAlert

WTF Fun Fact 12771 – The Saraha Desert Forest Mystery

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Ok, trigger warning: There’s a high chance of getting Toto’s “Africa” stuck in your head by reading this post. But, the truth is, there used to be plenty of rains down in Africa. Enough to have made the Saraha Desert a rainforest.

It’s not a huge shock, since we know the Earth has gone through different climatic periods, but this was one far more recent and accounts for a more radical change than scientists ever could have imagined. In other words, it really takes a lot to turn a vibrant forest into a bone-dry desert, and this happened a mere 6000ish years ago! It’s pretty interesting.

How did the Sahara go from forest to desert?

So, what’s the deal here? Well, since we don’t have a time machine, we can’t know for certain. It could have to do with the tilt of the Earth’s orbital axis changing, it could also be part of a longer, larger pattern of transition.

African Humid Periods in the distant past meant….you guessed it…more rains down in Africa. In particular, northern Africa (which is where the Sahara is, in case you don’t have a map handy). But at some point, those rains went away.

As Smithsonian Magazine (cited below) explains:

“With more rain, the region gets more greenery and rivers and lakes. All this has been known for decades. But between 8,000 and 4,500 years ago, something strange happened: The transition from humid to dry happened far more rapidly in some areas than could be explained by the orbital precession alone, resulting in the Sahara Desert as we know it today.”

Cool use of archaeological data

We can see from archaeological data (which is not perfect, but is overwhelmingly in favor of showing past water and trees in certain areas) that the area was once forest, and even rainforest. But what’s also interesting – and seals the deal for most people – is that in this period there is also evidence of pastoralists. That means people were raising and herding animals. And you definitely can’t do that in a desert.

Are humans to blame?

If it wasn’t solely an axial issue (regarding the Earth’s tilt), some scientists believe that humans could have played a big role in changing the climate due to overgrazing.

There have been suggestions that the end of the humid period in northern Africa could have been brought about by humans letting domesticated animals eat up all the moisture-loving plants. They would have probably had to use fire as a land management tool as well. And that may have been enough to trigger the big change that turned the forest into a desert.

It’s not that easy, of course, but that’s the general idea. There are also hypotheses that humans had nothing at all to do with it. And neither one of those would be related to whether or not humans are affecting the climate currently, so it’s not a political discussion (thankfully). – WTF fun facts

Source: “What Really Turned the Sahara Desert From a Green Oasis Into a Wasteland?” — Smithsonian Magazine

WTF Fun Fact 12764 – Mindfulness Meditation Changes the Brain

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We need more large-scale studies to make definitive claims, but mindfulness meditation seems to have some cool cognitive benefits. In fact, we can see on brain scans that people who practice mindfulness meditation experience changes in their brains.

Minding your thoughts

Mindfulness practice encourages people to stop and spend time noticing their thoughts and then letting go of the ones that are negative, disorganized, or aren’t serving a positive purpose. It’s designed to help us notice and control our thinking. (As opposed to most meditation practices, which center around emptying the mind of thoughts.)

The part of the brain affected by mindfulness practice is called the amygdala. This is also called the “fight or flight” center because it is linked to fear and emotional responses. Brain scans have shown that mindfulness practice helps shrink the amygdala. While that may sound like a bad thing, an overactive amygdala can be bad for concentration, mood, and emotional regulation.

Regulating the amygdala

However, mindfulness has been shown to help increase the connections between the amygdala and prefrontal cortex. That’s a good thing because those connections help us regulate our emotional responses.

We need our amygdala, we just don’t want it to be hyperactive. And when we practice mindfulness, our bodies get better at regulating those emotional responses.

While some of the effects of mindfulness have been overstated in the press, there is evidence that it can modestly increase physical health and compassion and even reduce bias in addition to negative thought patterns.

The popularity of mindfulness meditation

A U.S. survey found that the percentage of adults practicing some type of mantra-based meditation,mindfulness meditation, or spiritual meditation in the previous year tripled between 2012 and 2017 (from 4.1% to 14.2%). Even among children (4 to 17 years of age), the percentage increased from less than 1% to over 5%. These emotional regulation techniques continue to grow in popularity.

Of course, there’s a lot we still don’t know about mindfulness and meditation in general, and they’re not always the best practices for everyone.

There are also different types of mindfulness meditation to practice, each with slightly different outcomes. For example, body scanning can help reduce negative thoughts. But practices in which participants are asked to observe their thoughts can sometimes lead to more negative thinking, especially among those who have just started practicing the skill and can’t let go of those thoughts easily.

In the end, it may be best for those who are new to mindfulness and observing their thoughts to do so with guidance from a teacher or tool so that they can stay on the right track and get the most out of their mindfulness practices. –WTF fun facts

Source: “10 Things We Know About the Science of Meditation” — Mindful

WTF Fun Fact 12753 – The Rarity of Green Eyes

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We knew green eyes were rare, but they seem even more special knowing that only 2% of people in the world have them.

Green-eyed people are everywhere

But if your friend tells you their newborn has green eyes, they’re clearly seeing something different. All babies are born with some shade of brown or blue eyes. As their eyes are exposed to more light over time, their eye color begins to change into what their own unique genetics dictates. But this can take up to three years!

It may be no surprise that most people with green eyes can be found in Ireland, Scotland, and Northern Europe (or they’re descendants of people from that area). The red hair-green eye combo is pretty classic. However, anyone can technically have green eyes, including people who are Black, Arabic, Hispanic/Latino, etc.

If you were to guess the country with the most green-eyed people, would you choose Ireland? We would have. But, in fact, Iceland is the country with the largest population of green-eyed people. in fact, over 80% of Icelanders have blue or green eyes.

The myth of the Punnett square

Another interesting thing about eye color is that it’s not as simple as we learned in high school biology (remember Punnett squares?!). Genetics plays a role, but the contribution of different genes to our melanin cells (the cells that give our skin and eyes their pigment) is more complicated than we were taught. So don’t break out the paternity test as soon as you see an unexpected eye color. Even two parents with blue eyes can have a brown-eyed child!

Eye color is actually a polygenic trait (whereas Punnett squares would have had us believe it just took two genes and no more).

People with blue eyes have genes that produce the fewest melanin cells. Green-eyed people have more melanin in their eyes than blue-eyed people. But it’s the combination of that along with the presence of a yellow pigment called lipochrome that makes eyes appear green. – WTF fun facts

Source: “12 Mind-Blowing Facts About Your Body” — Newsweek

WTF Fun Fact 12749 – The Invention of Kidney Dialysis

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The development of kidney dialysis started centuries ago. Even doctors in the ancient world understood the kidneys played an important role in filtering bodily fluids. Galen’s treatise On the Natural Faculties mentioned doctors prior to his time investigating the organ and its function.

But figuring out how to replicate the filtering function of the kidneys didn’t happen until the 1800s when a Scottish chemist named Thomas Graham realized he could create a membrane to act as a filter to “clean” some bodily fluids (though he wasn’t exactly spot on about what he was filtering out).

Despite sometimes being referred to as the “Father of Dialysis,” his discoveries weren’t kidney-related. In fact, for decades, scientists were more concerned with trying to filter blood for trauma patients during surgery. That’s because they didn’t have blood banks, so when someone lost blood, they needed to preserve it for the patient but also needed a way of cleaning it up first.

Blood dialysis was performed on animals in the early 20th century, and the use of blood thinners was already in use to keep it from clotting (which is necessary if you want to put it back in the body!).

In 1924, a German doctor named Georg Haas realized the possibilities of dialysis for kidney patients. Since our kidneys are responsible for filtering out impurities, those in kidney failure need some extra help.

Haas seems to have had around six patients that used his dialysis machine, but it wasn’t quite ready for prime time yet. All of those patients died of kidney failure (possibly as a result of the dialysis not filtering adequately).

The “drum kidney” was introduced in 1945 by a Dutch doctor Willem Kolff, and because materials science was more advanced, the plastics and other materials he had at his disposal made the machine more effective for cleaning bodily fluids (and didn’t leach its own materials into patients either).

Before we get to today’s modern-day dialysis machines, there were many more people involved in the invention of dialysis – including chemists and physicians that improved upon past technology:

– Swedish chemist Nils Alwall designed a machine to both clean and drain blood
– American scientist Belding Scribner had the dialysis process uninterrupted so the body would not be severely lacking in blood during the dialysis treatment
– Michael Brescia and James Cimino found a way to make Scribner’s invention work with needles so patients didn’t need to maintain an open wound that might be prone to infection

And these are just the preliminary steps we took on our way to modern kidney dialysis!

– WTF fun facts

Source: “History of the kidney disease treatment” — St. George’s Kidney Patients Association

WTF Fun Fact 12748 – Koala Bears Have Fingerprints

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Koala bears have fingerprints just like apes and humans. This is surprising since our last common ancestor lived over 100 million years ago.

Nevertheless, koalas have retained their unique fingerprints.

We tend to think of fingerprints as solely a product of our criminal justice system. And yet, those little lines on our fingers actually serve a purpose besides putting us at a crime scene.

The purpose of fingerprints

Our fingerprints help us grab and feel objects, and researchers believe they help our sense of touch. This isn’t so important to us anymore, but it is helpful to animals who can use touch sensations to judge whether leaves, for example, belong to the right tree.

Our fingerprints actually cause little vibrations when we run them over objects. And since koalas really only eat eucalyptus, they like to be sure they’re in the midst of the right kind of buffet before they start chowing down.

Fingerprints are unique

Since you can’t really tell a koala’s fingerprint from a human’s, at least in terms of patterns, they may be the perfect sidekick for a crime scene. There’s no koala bear fingerprint database, so you can pretty much just let them touch everything to upend an investigation (just kidding – don’t try this at home – or anywhere else for that matter).

However, if a koala at a zoo has committed a crime, theoretically, you could fingerprint the residents to figure out whodunnit. We don’t think that’s ever been a necessity, but it sounds like a good premise for a children’s crime novel (if those existed).

Koalas bears have fingerprints and other animals have…

While koala bears have human-like fingerprints, other animals have identifying marks on their paw pads as well.

According to New Scientist (cited below):

Individual cats and dogs, for example, have unique whisker patterns. Zebras have distinct stripe arrangements and individual leopards and spotted dolphins have their own spot patterns. Humpback whales also have unique markings on the underside of their tails.”

Who knew? – WTF fun facts

Source: “Do other animals have fingerprints? And what purpose do they serve?” — New Scientist

WTF Fun Fact 12747 – Flamingos Eat Upside Down

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Because of the way their heads and beaks are built, flamingos eat upside down. Well, at least that’s how their heads are positioned.

Flamingo beaks scoop up water in the areas where they feed. Then, that water is processed through a structure called the lamellae, which acts as a filter. It ensures that water, sand, and other less tasty things are then expelled back into the water while the marine creatures (such as shrimp and brine flies) that flamingos eat are trapped inside. (Another fun fact: this food is also what makes flamingos pink!)

Flamingo anatomy

A flamingo’s tongue is designed to push the water back out through these filtration mechanisms.

According to the San Diego Zoo, “Greater and Chilean flamingos are larger and feed mostly on invertebrates such as brine flies, shrimps, and mollusks. They get these food items from the bottom mud by wading in shallow water. Sometimes they swim to get their food and sometimes by ‘upending’ (tail feathers in the air, head underwater) like ducks.”

It all happens quite fast, but if you take a look at how a flamingo is built, you’ll see that eating upside down is really the only way.

Of course, flamingos breathe air, which means that while they’re attempting to feed, they need to hold their breath – something they can do for up to a few minutes at a time. They need to poke their heads up every now and then to get more oxygen.

Flamingos eat upside down even on a zoo diet

According to the zoo, their flamingos get a special diet with all the nutrients they need. But even in these cases, they still use the same upside down stature to take in their food:

“At the San Diego Zoo and the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, the flamingos are fed a special pellet diet that is made for zoo flamingos. This food has all the nutrients the flamingos need and a pigment that helps keep them “in the pink.” To allow the flamingos to eat in their normal way (taking in water and then pumping it back out), a water source just for feeding is near their food so they can get a “beakful” of water and then food—just like they would in the wild.”

Flamingo mysteries

Flamingos are interesting creatures and there are still some habits we can’t explain – such as why they sometimes stand on one foot. No one has definitively explained that behavior yet. – WTF fun facts

Source: “Flamingo” – The San Diego Zoo

WTF Fun Fact 12743 – Laughter is the Best Medicine

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We’ve always had lots of anecdotal evidence that “laughter is the best medicine” and studies have shown correlations between laughter and happiness and laughter and better life satisfaction. But in 2005, the first study showed some of the physiological effects laughter has on the body’s cardiovascular system.

So when you say “laughter is the best medicine” to someone and they roll their eyes, you can now hit them with some facts (unless you’re at a funeral or something, then wait a few weeks, please).

The first study

The results of the study were first presented at the Scientific Session of the American College of Cardiology, on March 7, 2005 by researchers from the University of Maryland. It kicked off a whole slew of studies backing up the evidence and providing yet more clues that you can laugh your way into old age.

But first, let’s see how this works. The first study used movies to look at the immediate effects of laughter on subjects’ endothelium – the tissue that forms the inner lining of blood vessels and that dilates or expands during blood flow. (And if it’s been a while since you’ve had a biology class, the better blood flows around your body – and to your heart – the more oxygen and other vital molecules get where they need to be.)

The approach

There were two groups of subjects – one watched a movie clip known to cause mental distress (for example, scenes from Saving Private Ryan – a great film, but not exactly a “cinematic joy ride,” aka it’s sad). The other group watched scenes from funny movies (one example was King Pin, which we have never seen, but we’ll trust that the researchers found a good clip).

Ok, so the goal was really just to make one group laugh and the other get kind of mired in sadness and then measure their blood flow. And you can probably see where this is going.

The results

The distressed group’s blood vessels showed an unhealthy physiological response of the blood vessels called vasoconstriction (a narrowing of the vessels that impedes blood flow). That had been suggested by many other studies before – when we’re stressed, our blood vessels constrict. Not good.

On the other hand, those who laughed showed great blood flow. That’s good. But it’s not just good in the moment, it’s good in the long term because the endothelium helps tone our blood vessels, adjust coagulation rates, and secretes chemicals that help heal wounds and respond to infections.

The researcher’s commentary

In an interview about the study, the lead investigator Michael Miller, M.D., director of preventive cardiology at the University of Maryland Medical Center said: “The endothelium is the first line in the development of atherosclerosis or hardening of the arteries, so, given the results of our study, it is conceivable that laughing may be important to maintain a healthy endothelium, and reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. At the very least, laughter offsets the impact of mental stress, which is harmful to the endothelium.”

The impact of laughter was so strong that they compared it to the benefits one may get from exercise (thought warned against trying to replace exercise with laughter).

“The magnitude of change we saw in the endothelium is similar to the benefit we might see with aerobic activity, but without the aches, pains and muscle tension associated with exercise,” Miller said. “We don’t recommend that you laugh and not exercise, but we do recommend that you try to laugh on a regular basis. Thirty minutes of exercise three times a week, and 15 minutes of laughter on a daily basis is probably good for the vascular system.”

Further evidence

Since 2005, there have been many studies that show laughter is good for health, including:

  • A study of older Japanese people which found that those who laughed more had fewer heart attacks and stroked.
  • A 2020 study showing that overall mortality, as well as cardiovascular disease, were significantly higher among subjects with a low frequency of laughter.
  • A review essay noting that “many kinds of studies, using different methods, conclude that happiness has a positive causal effect on longevity and physiological health.”

So, ask your doctor today about what a funny movie or a night out with fun friends can do for you. And if they look at you funny, just tell them you read that laughter is the best medicine on the internet. They love hearing that. – WTF fun facts

Source: “Laughter Helps Blood Vessels Function Better” — Science Daily

WTF Fun Fact 12740 – The Master Switch of Life

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The Master Switch of Life is a phrase coined by Swedish researcher Per Scholander in the 1960s.

His research took place in the U.S. the United States where he studied just how being underwater would affect humans. He had already studied Weddell seals and found that the creatures seemed to gain more oxygen the longer they were underwater.

The water tank trials

To see if the effect might be the same in humans, he put volunteers in a water tank and monitored their heart rates as they dove to the bottom of the tank. Immediately, the volunteers’ heart rates decreased.

Then he asked them to do some exercise at the bottom of the tank to try and raise their heart rates but to no avail. Being underwater continued to lower everyone’s heart rate, meaning they also needed less oxygen (the opposite of what happens on land when we exercise). In addition, when the volunteers were underwater, their blood began flowing away from limbs and towards vital organs (which also happens in seals).

When blood flows to the heart and brain, they stay oxygenated longer, meaning we need less overall oxygen for our bodies to continue to function.

The mystery of water

That’s when he wondered why water has such an unexpected effect on us.

It turns out that the more we dive, the more blood can penetrate the cell walls of our organs to counteract external pressure.

And here’s the really cool part, according to TED:

“Scholander found that a person need submerge only his face in water to activate these life-lengthening (and lifesaving) reflexes. Other researchers tried sticking a hand or a leg in the water in an attempt to trigger the reflex, but to no avail. One researcher even put volunteers into a compression chamber to see if pressure alone would trigger a similar diving reflex. No dice. Only water could trigger these reflexes, and the water had to be cooler than the surrounding air.”

A splash of cold water

All we need to do is splash some cold water on our faces to flip what he called this “Master Switch of Life.” Cool water basically makes us more amphibious and produces a physical change in our heart rates. That certainly explains why cold water feels so refreshing!

–WTF fun facts

Source: “Your body’s amazing reaction to water” — TED Ideas

WTF Fun Fact 12739 – The Dreams of Men

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Multiple studies have shown tend to have more male characters in their dreams.

We have very little control over what we dream about, even though many of us try to direct our dreams. (I know I do – if I could spend all night dreaming about being a wealthy villa owner on an abandoned tropical coast instead of reliving a made-up scenario about missing a vital exam and never graduating high school, I would!)

Studying dreams

Anyway, there are hundreds of studies on dreams. Most of them involve having people use dream journals where they write down the contents of their dreams any time they awaken. The journals are then processed by a researchers who looks for certain characteristics without knowing anything about the person the journals belong to (that’s why they’re called a “blind judge” in many research papers).

Researchers usually start with common themes and types of characters and count mentions of them. And a lot of the research has backed up the data we’ve collected over time. (However, there are some differences between cultures as to what we dream about.)

Demhoff’s dream research

For example, G. William Domhoff wrote one of the most widely-cited papers on the genders we dream about (nearly two decades ago, before talking about more than two genders was a cultural priority). It’s called “The Dreams of Men and Women: Patterns of Gender Similarity and Difference,” and it was published in 2005.

In the paper, Domhoff is very clear that “The study of gender similarities and differences in dream content has proven to be a dangerous mine field for dream researchers.” That’s because this kind of information has the “potential to stir up all the tensions that inevitably accompany any discussion of gender in a world where gender discrimination–and conflicts between men and women on many personal issues–are pervasive.”

Limited interpretations

In other words, it’s likely that a large number of people will dislike this “fun fact” because they somehow feel judged by it or don’t like whatever they think it implies (which is largely nothing).

Demhoff was also careful to not that variations across cultures and across genders make generalizations difficult. He’s just reporting on one characteristic that he found to be statistically significant – the gender of the characters in people’s dreams.

Demhoff concentrated on American subjects since he was most familiar with the cultural characteristics of Americans. But other researchers have studied other cultures and found some key differences.

To make sure everyone is categorizing things in a roughly similar way, Demhoff used a coding system developed in 1966 called the Hall/Van de Castle system, where most things fall into pretty simple categories like: men/women; indoor setting/outdoor setting, etc. But that system was created based on the dream journals of white, middle-class college students at Case Western in the 1950s and 60s. In general, other studies have found these categories useful too.

So, on to the results (because results don’t mean much without some context first!).

What men dream of

Demhoff asked what percentage of dreams had a negative element “such as aggressions, misfortunes, failures, and negative emotions (anger, apprehension, confusion, and sadness)…” And the results were that “men and women are similar in that 80% of men’s dreams and 77% of women’s have at least one of these negative elements.”

When it comes to positive aspects, “such as friendly interactions, good fortune, success, and happiness, 53% of dreams for both men and women have at least one of those elements. Men and women also have an equal number of dreams in which food or eating is mentioned–about 17%.”

In addition, “Both men and women are more often victims than aggressors in the aggressive interactions in their dreams, and they face the same attackers, namely, men who are not known to them (“male strangers”) and animals. On a more positive note, both men and women are equally likely to befriend another character in their dreams.”

But we started with the most reported-on finding, which is that “men dream twice as often about other men as they do about women (67% vs. 33%), and women dream equally about both sexes (48% men, 52% women).”

What’s implied by the dreams of men? Not much

And here’s where people get offended. No one is implying that men fantasize about other men. They can be someone you fight on the street, your 5th grade math teacher, your dad…whatever.

Women may also have more of a character gender balance because their dreams tend to have more characters overall. This may be a result of women’s dreams being longer overall than men’s.

But Demhoff points out that this in not universal. Even among Black Americans, men and women tended to have an equal gender breakdown in dreams. Studies of Mexican and Peruvian teens as well as German college students also showed more of a gender balance. However, in each case there were slightly more men than women in everyone’s dreams.

–WTF fun facts

Source: “The Dreams of Men and Women: Patterns of Gender Similarity and Difference” — G. William Domhoff