Author

I'm kind of a sucker for the retro-diagnoses.

Our evolution could have gone in different directions a lot of times. We could have gone extinct at some points. We might not have gotten our big brains, or Neanderthals might have made it while we did not.

From Sam Kean

As a child in the early 1980s, I tended to talk with things in my mouth - food, dentist's tubes, balloons that would fly away, whatever - and if no one else was around, I'd talk anyway.

From Sam Kean

When first presented with the jumble of the periodic table, I scanned for mercury and couldn't find it. It is there - between gold, which is also dense and soft, and thallium, which is also poisonous. But the symbol for mercury, Hg, consists of two letters that don't even appear in its name.

From Sam Kean

In a vague way, I always knew neurosurgery was different - more delicate, more difficult, more demanding. After all, we say things like, 'I'm no brain surgeon,' for a reason.

From Sam Kean

Although it's the hub of the nervous system and the ultimate terminus of every nerve, the brain itself lacks enervation and therefore cannot feel pain.

From Sam Kean

Brains, you see, vary a lot from person to person - they vary as much as faces do.

From Sam Kean

X-rays revealed that some people were born without a corpus callosum, and they seemed just fine.

From Sam Kean

No one knows quite the reason, but surgically severing the corpus callosum can reduce the rate and intensity of seizures. So in the early 1960s, a few patients with severe epilepsy had their corpus callosums cut, turning them into split-brain people.

From Sam Kean

The brain, which is plastic when young, must be exposed to certain sights early in life, or it will remain blind to those sights forever.

From Sam Kean

Sam Kean

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