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[ToonyMan]

Humans use their entire brains, not 20%.

Thank gog somebody else actually thinks this is true.  I thought I was all alone.

[scriver]

I don't know. From my, admittedly anecdotal, experience, it would seem that thinking most people actually still believes that we only use X% of our brains is the bigger myth.

[Leafsnail]

There's something I love about the endless "common fallacy" and "counter common fallacy" chains.  Last I heard is that the X% of brain myth was true in that you can't (or don't?) fire more than X% of your neurons at once or something, but all areas are in constant use overall.

[woose1]

Guys, there's a reason whales have brains the size of a small smart-car, but are functionally retarded when doing algebra.

[alway]

There's something I love about the endless "common fallacy" and "counter common fallacy" chains.  Last I heard is that the X% of brain myth was true in that you can't (or don't?) fire more than X% of your neurons at once or something, but all areas are in constant use overall.

Well you can fire them all at once... It just results in a nasty seizure. Possibly followed by death.

[malimbar04]

There's something I love about the endless "common fallacy" and "counter common fallacy" chains.  Last I heard is that the X% of brain myth was true in that you can't (or don't?) fire more than X% of your neurons at once or something, but all areas are in constant use overall.

exactly right, we don't use the entire brain at the same time. If someone does do that, it's called a brain damage, and it's full of lots of really bad symptoms. However, it's popular in sci-fi/fantasy circles to justify things by using higher percentage of the brain, which is nonsense.

Guys, there's a reason whales have brains the size of a small smart-car, but are functionally retarded when doing algebra.

yeah, lots of reasons. Our frontal lobe (the mostly-thinking and logical part) is full of neurons whose sole purpose is to depress other neurons. Intelligence isn't neurons firing so much as stopping other neurons from firing.

[woose1]

Guys, there's a reason whales have brains the size of a small smart-car, but are functionally retarded when doing algebra.

yeah, lots of reasons. Our frontal lobe (the mostly-thinking and logical part) is full of neurons whose sole purpose is to depress other neurons. Intelligence isn't neurons firing so much as stopping other neurons from firing.

What I was getting at was that a lot of our brainpower goes towards co-ordination and motor skills, and you can't really pin down the brain as a single entity when parts of it do all sorts of different things.

But yeah; I'd like to get a calculator integrated into my brain USB-style in the future. 

EDIT: Oh, and according to an extremely liberal survey done by some sort of anonymous group for which I have little to no reference of, only 55% of Americans know that the sun is a star.

[Mysteriousbluepuppet]

Apple seeds contains arsenic. Letting your dog too much apples can result in death

[Leafsnail]

Apple seeds contains arsenic. Letting your dog too much apples can result in death

...Damn!  What am I not supposed to let my dog do with apples??

[Mysteriousbluepuppet]

Apple seeds contains arsenic. Letting your dog too much apples can result in death

Not eat too much

Little note, if you hate something like 2 kg of appleseed you would too be poisoned. Just to show that dose is important in dangerosity.

[GlyphGryph]

Less than one percent of one percent of your computers hard drive is in use at any given time.

As late as the 1950s, the vast majority of scientists did not believe in plate tectonics. There was a huge controversy, most textbooks treated the idea as laughable. Instead, they thought the earth was like a giant baked apple, and the surface had simply crinkled as it cooled- something that had been proven scientifically impossible over a hundred years earlier.

[Interus]

Apple seeds contains arsenic. Letting your dog too much apples can result in death

On a similar note, I remember reading that grapes(and also raisins) contain a poison that is removed from the human body regularly, but not from dogs.  So if they eat too many, even if it isn't all at once, that poison builds up over time and can make them sick and eventually kill them.

Not 100% sure if that's true, but aren't grapes related to nightshade?

[breadbocks]

Apple seeds contains arsenic. Letting your dog too much apples can result in death

Cyanide, too. Those things are death traps.

Tomatoes are in the same family as a large number of deadly plants, and as such, were thought to be inedible in the middle ages.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Not 100% sure if that's true, but aren't grapes related to nightshade?

Lots of stuff is, but not grapes, apparently.

Also, I think the old tale about not letting dogs eat chocolate is wrong. I know this because one of my dogs has previously stolen and eaten multiple bags worth of chocolate (both over the years and in a short time frame), and she's reached old age in spite of it.

I do know that if you eat too much fish in a short time frame you risk mercury poisoning.

[breadbocks]

Yeah, well. Thanks to all the pollution going on, eating too much fish can give you all sorts of bad stuff.