Considering the amount of stuff you forget, you have to learn something new each day or else you’ll end up dumb as dirt. I don’t like it any more than you do.
That’s why I promise that by the time you finish this article you will have received your minimum daily requirement of new stuff learned for the day. Again, “minimum” daily requirement.
First of all, I recently read that Edgar Allan Poe published a book in 1838 entitled “The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket.” It didn’t sell many copies because of the boring title. Regardless, in Poe’s story, a guy by the name of Richard Parker got eaten by three other sailors on a boat that was lost at sea. You shouldn’t feel too sorry for Parker ‘cause he was the one who suggested one of ‘em get eaten.
As sad and interesting as that is, it’s not the most interesting thing about the story. In 1884 a yacht named “The Mignonette” sank, and the crew of four ended up adrift in a lifeboat in the Pacific a couple thousand miles from land. At one point, three of the marooned sailors decided that they would kill and the cabin boy. The boy’s name was Richard Parker.
That’s what you call a coincidence, one that I have thoroughly researched and found to be true… to my satisfaction. However, there’s another account of the Mignonette disaster that I have found to be untrue. It states that the three guys who ate Parker had actually read Poe’s book, and that, although they weren’t really all that hungry, they ate the kid just ‘cause it was too much of coincidence that he was with ‘em. Four guys lost at sea and one of ‘em is named Richard Parker? They felt obligated to eat ‘em. -- That part is not true. But, if I were making this up, I would add it just ‘cause it’s cool.
So now you’ve learned a little more about Edgar Allan Poe and his apparent skill as a prognosticator of cannibalistic occurrences. (I am so proud of that sentence.) What else can I tell you that you don’t know?
Did you know that the story about only using 10 percent of your brain is not true? You actually use all of your brain, just not at once. In fact, most of your brain is active practically all the time.
The “10 percent” story started back in 1870 when scientist experimented with dog brains. They’d kill a part of the dog’s brain and discover that the dog could no longer use his right leg. In fact, the poor thing forgot he even had a right leg.
They’d snip another part of its brain and then observe that he didn’t do anything but stare at them. They surmised that they must’ve snipped the part that keeps canines from rudely staring at people.
They kept cutting away the brain until they got no reaction from the dog whatsoever. Having only messed with 10 percent of dog’s brain, they came to the conclusion that 90 percent of a dog’s brain is just along for the ride. And, since humans are so much like dogs, we must be the same way.
The part of this “fact” that is so hard to grasp is that it was not until 2004 that the 1870 “fact” was debunked by a guy named Barry J. Beyerstein. Barry noted in his 2004 Scientific American article that you can’t remove any portion of a person’s brain without the person suffering some loss of function. I don’t know how many people he tested his theory on, but I hope they were paid well.
Why would scientists let us go on thinking for 134 years that we don’t use all of our brain? I saw an episode of “Outer Limits” where a guy managed to tap into 40 percent of his brain and found that he could walk through walls and shoot laser beams out of his eyeballs. In the meantime, I’ve been using all of my brain and I’m only able to bump into walls, and not only am I incapable of shooting laser beams out my eyeballs, I can’t even spit well.
So, if you remember nothing else, remember this: You’re using all the brain you’ve got. There’s nothing more to tap into. You can add some stuff like the new found knowledge of two Richard Parkers getting eaten, but you will never be able to spark a part of your brain that will allow you to magically read my article in Portuguese. Not happening.
Your last piece of new knowledge for the day involves armadillos. You probably guessed that. Twenty percent of all armadillos have leprosy. The connection between armadillos and leprosy happens to be true. It’s okay to touch the critters, just don’t eat ‘em, or inhale the ground where they relieve themselves. In fact, don’t smell the ground at all. It’s a sign of being dumb as dirt. – Next time.
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