Clips
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Interesting facts
• Your brain is the most complex organ in nature consisting of around 100 billion nerve cells.
• An average sized human brain comprises about 1.4 kg of jellylike fat and protein.
• Your brain uses about 300 kcal of energy per day. The equivalent of just a 15 watt light bulb.
• Dolphins, elephants and other species have larger brains than humans, but we have the most developed cerebrum, giving us the greatest power for thought.
• It’s not the size, it’s what you do with it: Einstein’s brain weighed less than average, but he had more neurons packed into his cerebral cortex than most of us.
• As your brain developed in the embryo, your neurons travelled like tiny inch-worms along glial cell scaffolding to their final destinations. Some of these journeys of several mm were the equivalent of a human walking across the USA.
• The brain of a newborn baby is only ¼ of its full size, while those of other Great Apes are already half grown at birth.
• Because of this, the 22 bones of your skull were not fused at birth and overlapped each other to fit through the birth canal. Your brain was only fully grown after about eight years.
• The cells you were born with will have virtually all been replaced many times over by the time you die. Only brain neuron cells and heart muscle cells last a lifetime. -
BBC TV blog
Find out what Origins Of Us presenter Dr Alice Roberts discovered when she studied wild chimpanzees in the Ugandan forest: “they were all around us in the forest, and would often pass by very close, sometimes a metre or two away - which was both terrifying and exciting”
Read Alice Roberts' full post on the BBC TV blog
Credits
- Series Producer
- Zoe Heron
- Presenter
- Alice Roberts
- Director
- Paul Olding
- Producer
- Paul Olding
- Executive Producer
- Sacha Baveystock
