Humodour Posted July 22, 2009 Share Posted July 22, 2009 This girl only has half a brain. Her left hemisphere didn't grow when was was in the womb. She functions normally (intelligent, charming, witty) except she sees both her fields of vision out of only one eye (instead of only one field of vision out of only one eye like people whose brain hemispheres are separated). http://www.physorg.com/news167324813.html It's pretty amazing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gorth Posted July 22, 2009 Share Posted July 22, 2009 So, "You've only got half a brain" isn't even a real insult anymore Amazing indeed. Makes you wonder how much of our potential remains undiscovered because we normally don't consciously use quite a bit of our brains capacity. “He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would surely suffice.” - Albert Einstein Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LadyCrimson Posted July 22, 2009 Share Posted July 22, 2009 (edited) I still remember a show about this girl, who as she got to be late teens or early adulthood or something, started getting very bad headaches. They finally got around to looking inside her head, and it turns out her brain consisted of a very skinny "thread" that went from back to front, with the rest of her skull filled up with that cushioning brain-fluid. Yet she had been functioning normally for years. The brain is very mysterious. Edited July 22, 2009 by LadyCrimson “Things are as they are. Looking out into the universe at night, we make no comparisons between right and wrong stars, nor between well and badly arranged constellations.” – Alan Watts Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GreasyDogMeat Posted July 22, 2009 Share Posted July 22, 2009 Amazing! Not only do we use 10% of our brains, apparently we only need 10% of them to function. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Walsingham Posted July 22, 2009 Share Posted July 22, 2009 The only possible conclusion is that we have been carefully bred to have excessive brain size in order to optimise our profitability as a food crop by a race of brain-eating aliens. "It wasn't lies. It was just... bull****"." -Elwood Blues tarna's dead; processing... complete. Disappointed by Universe. RIP Hades/Sand/etc. Here's hoping your next alt has a harp. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gorth Posted July 22, 2009 Share Posted July 22, 2009 Humans were once bred as zombie food, but then they rebelled against their masters and tried to remove all traces of their former overlords. Now they are just a vague racial memory that haunts us a primal instinctive fear of darkness and cemetaries “He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would surely suffice.” - Albert Einstein Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Walsingham Posted July 22, 2009 Share Posted July 22, 2009 And our racial phobia of having our living brains exposed and eaten while our lower limbs thrash about and sad wailing escapes our frothing mouths. "It wasn't lies. It was just... bull****"." -Elwood Blues tarna's dead; processing... complete. Disappointed by Universe. RIP Hades/Sand/etc. Here's hoping your next alt has a harp. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Humodour Posted July 22, 2009 Author Share Posted July 22, 2009 OK guys, the zombie apocalypse was NOT where I was going when I made this thread. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Morgoth Posted July 22, 2009 Share Posted July 22, 2009 It's not like girls ever use more than half their brain. Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Ohhhh *runs away* Rain makes everything better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oner Posted July 22, 2009 Share Posted July 22, 2009 Somebody gonna get a hurt real bad. Somebody. I'm not gonna say who. Giveaway list: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1DgyQFpOJvyNASt8A12ipyV_iwpLXg_yltGG5mffvSwo/edit?usp=sharing What is glass but tortured sand?Never forget! '12.01.13. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
taks Posted July 22, 2009 Share Posted July 22, 2009 there are cases of brain-ectomies, actually. not a whole brain-ectomy, of course, because then the patient would be no more intelligent than the average message board poster, but a right half/left half removal to cure severe seizures (and other maladies, i'm sure). taks comrade taks... just because. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
213374U Posted July 22, 2009 Share Posted July 22, 2009 there are cases of brain-ectomies, actually. not a whole brain-ectomy, of course, because then the patient would be no more intelligent than the average message board poster, but a right half/left half removal to cure severe seizures (and other maladies, i'm sure). taks That's actually mentioned in the article. They even use the technical term:In other cases, where patients have half of the brain removed (hemispherectomy)...Diagonal reading is bad for you... you might need a hemispherectomy if you can't control it! - When he is best, he is a little worse than a man, and when he is worst, he is little better than a beast. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aram Posted July 22, 2009 Share Posted July 22, 2009 I read about an experiment performed on someone whose bridge between the two hemispheres of his brain had been severed. They had him look at a word with a sheet of paper held in front of his nose such that each eye could only see one half of the word. They then asked him to write the whole word with his right hand, and he wrote one half of the word. They asked him to write the same word with his left hand and he wrote the other half. Unless tested this way, it was almost impossible to tell there was anything strange about him. That's two identical but wholly separated consciousnesses. That's weird. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LadyCrimson Posted July 22, 2009 Share Posted July 22, 2009 Yeah, split-brain patients. They do that (rarely) for extreme epilepsy cases. It obviously has some...weird effects re: visual interpretation/correlation of information and also provided interesting evidence of the general "jobs" of the left and right hemispheres. Example, the left brain, by default, is much more geometrically incompetent. “Things are as they are. Looking out into the universe at night, we make no comparisons between right and wrong stars, nor between well and badly arranged constellations.” – Alan Watts Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GreasyDogMeat Posted July 23, 2009 Share Posted July 23, 2009 I read about an experiment performed on someone whose bridge between the two hemispheres of his brain had been severed. They had him look at a word with a sheet of paper held in front of his nose such that each eye could only see one half of the word. They then asked him to write the whole word with his right hand, and he wrote one half of the word. They asked him to write the same word with his left hand and he wrote the other half. Unless tested this way, it was almost impossible to tell there was anything strange about him. That's two identical but wholly separated consciousnesses. That's weird. The brain is truly amazing. Sometimes it seems like there is nothing new to learn or discover, but every day something new. It may sound cheesy, but it just makes me very very happy that this girl with only half a brain sounds like she is living and will continue to live a normal life. My first thought reading the title was someone drooling in a wheel chair unable to control their own bodily functions. Not a lively girl rollerskating and chatting it up with the rest of the kids. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Humodour Posted July 23, 2009 Author Share Posted July 23, 2009 I read about an experiment performed on someone whose bridge between the two hemispheres of his brain had been severed. They had him look at a word with a sheet of paper held in front of his nose such that each eye could only see one half of the word. They then asked him to write the whole word with his right hand, and he wrote one half of the word. They asked him to write the same word with his left hand and he wrote the other half. Unless tested this way, it was almost impossible to tell there was anything strange about him. That's two identical but wholly separated consciousnesses. That's weird. The two hemispheres also process differently, and hence make decisions different in those types of patients. It's quirky stuff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Humodour Posted July 23, 2009 Author Share Posted July 23, 2009 Some professional cognitive scientists think an artificial brain is about 10 years away. I don't know whether they're talking about simulating it on a supercomputer, or simulating it with organic tissue, but if it's the first one, IBM tends to agree. http://science.slashdot.org/story/09/07/23...-Away?art_pos=4 Predictably, the Slashdot discussion devolved into talk of a zombie apocalypse within the first few posts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WILL THE ALMIGHTY Posted July 23, 2009 Share Posted July 23, 2009 Somebody gonna get a hurt real bad. Somebody. I'm not gonna say who. Cookies for Russell Peters reference. ... this is weird. We need more brain research. That'd be fun. "Alright, I've been thinking. When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade - make life take the lemons back! Get mad! I don't want your damn lemons, what am I supposed to do with these? Demand to see life's manager. Make life rue the day it thought it could give Cave Johnson lemons. Do you know who I am? I'm the man who's gonna burn your house down! With the lemons. I'm going to to get my engineers to invent a combustible lemon that burns your house down!" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Killian Kalthorne Posted July 28, 2009 Share Posted July 28, 2009 The only possible conclusion is that we have been carefully bred to have excessive brain size in order to optimise our profitability as a food crop by a race of brain-eating aliens. Its the Illithds, friend. We'll free your mind and then we swallow! "Your Job is not to die for your country, but set a man on fire, and take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Walsingham Posted July 28, 2009 Share Posted July 28, 2009 I ****ing hate illithids. "It wasn't lies. It was just... bull****"." -Elwood Blues tarna's dead; processing... complete. Disappointed by Universe. RIP Hades/Sand/etc. Here's hoping your next alt has a harp. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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