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Top 10 young killers
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A number of child killings have been recorded throughout the years. These often have involved disturbing acts one can hardly imagine a child suffering through. These cases are becoming more controversial as the number of child killings increases every year. However, what happens if that innocent and vulnerable-looking child is the one responsible for the abduction and murders in your neighborhood? Would you believe the accusations made of someone so young? Could a child really commit such crimes? These are not your typical childish crimes of stealing toys from a friend, or bullying a schoolmate. This is the list for the top 10 young killers. There is a small amount of overlap from the list of evil children, for the sake of including people that really do deserve to be on this list.
10
Eric Smith
January 22, 1980
“You may think I’m a threat to the well-being of society. And I can understand why you would feel that way. The fact is that I’m not. I’d be an asset to society.”
At 13, Eric Smith was bullied because of his thick glasses, freckles, long red hair and one other quality: He had protruding, elongated ears. These were believed to be a side effect of medicine his mother had taken for her epilepsy when she was pregnant. Police charged Smith with the murder of a four-year-old boy named Derrick Robie. The younger child had been strangled, had large rocks dropped on his head, and had been sodomized with a small stick. When asked why he did it, Smith cannot give a definite answer. A psychiatrist diagnosed Smith with intermittent explosive disorder, a condition in which a person cannot control inner rage. Smith was convicted and went to prison. As of today, he’s been in prison for six years and has been denied parole five times.
9
Joshua Phillips
March 17, 1984
“There should be a sensitivity to the fact that a 14-year-old is not a little adult.” – Florida Governor Jeb Bush
What started as a regular room cleaning ended with the conviction of a 14-year-old boy named Joshua Phillips. His mother went to clean up his room one morning after Phillips left for school. Mrs. Phillips noticed a wet spot under her son’s bed and thought it was a leak from his waterbed. As she was investigating the bed to see if it needed to be drained, she found electrical tape holding the frame together. She thought her son had known the about leak but didn’t want to get into trouble. She removed enough tape to discover her son’s sock underneath, but she was surprised to feel something cold. The beam of her flashlight showed her the dead body of Maddie Clifton, an 8-year-old neighbor who had been missing for seven days.
People in the community, especially the boy’s parents, could hardly believe he could have killed Clifton. Phillips was one of the neighbors who had volunteered to search for the missing girl. Because he was under 16, Phillips did not qualify for the death penalty. He was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment, with no possibility of being freed. To this day, Phillips has not stated his motives for killing Clifton. He said he accidentally hit her in the eye with a baseball bat, and then dragged her to his room where he hit and stabbed her, but the jury did not believe his story.
8
George Stinney
October 21, 1929–June 16, 1944
“only when asked to arise and be sentenced, did he appear nervous and slightly excited” (Rowe, p.1)
On June 16, 1944, the United States set a record when they executed George Stinney (14 years old), the youngest person to be legally executed in the US during the twentieth century. George was convicted of the murder of two girls named Betty June Binnicker (11) and Mary Emma Thames (8) who were both found in a muddy hole. The girls suffered severe fractures to their skulls, inflicted by a railroad spike found some distance from the town. George confessed to the crime and said that he wanted to have sex with Betty but ended up killing the girls. He was tried and sentenced to death in the electric chair; the case was not appealed because his family had no money to pay for a continuation.
7
Lionel Tate
January 30, 1987
“I was imitating the professional wrestlers”
What might be thought of as a regular TV wrestling match led to the death of a six-year-old girl named Tiffany Eunick. Kathleen Grossett-Tate was trusted to babysit Tiffany and brought her over to her house one evening. She left Tiffany with her son Lionel, age 14, to watch the television when she went upstairs. Around 10 p.m., she yelled at the children to be quiet, but didn’t check what the noise was about, thinking that they were just playing. Forty-five minutes later, Lionel called to his mother and told her that the girl was not breathing. He explained that they had been wrestling and he had her in a headlock as he slammed her on the table.
Authorities were called and a medical examiner reported that the cause of death was due to forceful stomping that lacerated Tiffany’s liver. Aside from that, experts testified that the girl suffered a fractured skull and rib, swelling in the brain from a beating that lasted from one to five minutes, and 35 other injuries. Tate changed his statement later and said that he jumped on her from the staircase. Tate was sentenced to a lifetime of imprisonment without parole in 2001, but his sentence was overturned on the basis that he was not given a mental competency hearing before, or during, the trial. He was released in 2004 with 10 years’ probation.
6
Barry Dale Loukaitis
“This sure beats algebra, doesn’t it?”
On February 2, 1996, the Frontier Middle School was devastated by a hostage-taking incident and shooting spree that occurred in an algebra class. It took the lives of three people (two students and a teacher) and resulted in the critical injury of one student. The person accused was a 14-year-old boy named Barry Dale Loukaitis, who was experiencing delusional and messianic thoughts before the shooting. Barry was dressed to look like a gunslinger from the Wild West in a black duster, and armed with a .30-30 caliber rifle, a .357 caliber pistol and a .25 caliber pistol that belonged to his father. The students were held hostage for 10 minutes before a gym coach tricked and outwitted the boy.
It was believed that, aside from a history of mental illness and dysfunctional issues in his family, Barry was influenced by Pearl Jam’s song and video “Jeremy.” The video shows a troubled youth committing suicide in front of his classmates and teacher. It was also reported that he said “This sure beats algebra, doesn’t it?” when he saw his classmates panic. This is a quote from a Stephen King novel, Rage, in which the protagonist kills two teachers and takes his algebra class hostage. Barry is currently serving two life sentences, with an additional 205 years in prison.
5
Craig Price
“As far as the girls go, it was my utmost intention to let them live.”
Joan Heaton (39), along with her two daughters, Jennifer (10) and Melissa (8), were found lifeless, blood-soaked and brutally murdered in their home on September 4, 1989. They were stabbed so fiercely that the knife broke off in Melissa’s neck. Police reported that Joan had approximately 60 stab wounds, while the young girls had approximately 30. The authorities believed that burglary was the suspect’s main motive; the knife used was from the Heaton’s kitchen and the women had possibly caught the suspect and fought against him. It was also believed that the burglar must have been someone from the Heaton’s neighborhood, who would have obtained a cut or wound in the hand, due to the force and number of times the victims were stabbed.
Craig was spotted by the police with a bandage on his hand, but said that he had smashed a car’s window. The police did not believe his story. They investigated him and charged him after finding the knife, gloves and other bloody items when they searched Craig’s room. He admitted to the crime and to another murder that had taken place in the neighborhood two years earlier. The authorities already suspected him as the murderer in that case, which was similar to Heaton’s and had started as burglary. Craig was tried and convicted before his 16th birthday, and is still in jail.
4
Graham Young
September 7, 1947 – August 22, 1990
“It grew on me like a drug habit, except it was not me who was taking the drugs.”
At an early age, Graham Young had been fascinated with chemistry, particularly types of poison and their effects on people. His other great interest was idolizing murderers such as Dr. Hawley Crippen, William Palmer, Adolf Hitler and others. Young started experimenting with poisons when he was 14. He usually lied about his age, and explained that a given poison was for a school experiment so he could buy the chemicals he needed. His family and friends were his victims. His father, upon becoming ill, originally thought he just had a virus of some sort. Then the apparent illness struck his wife and daughter. All suffered from continuous vomiting, diarrhea and stomach pains. In 1962, the mother of Young’s stepmother died from poisoning.
At 14, Young already had the expertise of a postgraduate chemistry student, all self-learned through library books. He sometimes became a victim of his own poisoning when he forgot on which foods he had placed his toxic chemicals. Young was caught when his teacher inspected his desk one evening after school, suspicious about the odd experiments Young was suggesting to the class. The teacher found poisons, essays about famous prisoners, and sketches of dying men. These revelations led him to call the police. Young was sent to a maximum security hospital, but this did not stop him from poisoning hospital staff and fellow inmates (one of whom died). His knowledge was so broad that he could extract cyanide from laurel bush leaves. Young was released when he was 23 and went to live with his sister. His poisoning spree continued—his victims most often were coworkers. Young was sent back to prison and eventually died there.
3
Jesse Pomeroy
November 29, 1859–September 29, 1932
“I might have done it.”
Jesse Pomeroy, born on November 29, 1959, in Charlestown, Massachusetts, was referred to as the youngest person convicted of murder, in the first degree, in the history of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Pomeroy started his cruel acts against other children when he was 11. He had taken and trapped seven children in a hidden spot where he would strip, tie and torture them, by using a knife or by poking pins into their flesh. He was caught and sent to a reform school, where he was supposed to stay until he was 21, but was released after a year and a half for good behavior.
After three years, he had changed from bad to worse. He kidnapped and killed a 10 year old girl, named Katie Curran, and was also accused of the murder of a four year old boy, whose mutilated body was found in Dorchester Bay. Although there is a lack of evidence that can conclusively link Pomeroy to the little boy’s death, he was convicted for the death of Katie when the police found her body in the basement of Pomeroy’s mother’s dress shop, where it was carelessly left in an ash heap. He was sentenced to life imprisonment, which he served in solitary confinement; he died of natural causes at the age of 72.
2
Jon Venables and Robert Thompson
August 13, 1982, August 23, 1982
“All little boys are nice until they get older.” – Robert Thompson
James Bulger’s mother left her two-year-old son at the butcher shop’s door thinking that it would not take her long to return, since there was no queue in the store. Little did she know that it would be her last time she would see her son alive.
Jon and Robert, who were at the same mall as the Bulgers, were participating in their usual activities: skipping class, browsing the stores, pocketing things when the salespeople turned their backs, and climbing chairs in the restaurants until they were chased out. The boys came up with an idea to have a little boy get lost outside so that he would get knocked over by a vehicle. It was reported that the boys had a similar previous attempt on a boy before James, which failed because the mother had become aware of her missing child and found him before they could take him outside.
During their two-mile walk, the 10-year-old boys had punched, kicked, picked up and dropped James on his head. Some of the acts were seen by passersby who ignored them, thinking that they were just two older brothers who didn’t know how to take care of their younger brother. Jon and Robert brought James onto the local railway, where they flung paint in his left eye, threw stones at him, beat him with bricks, and hit him with an iron bar. They also sexually assaulted him and laid his body on the railroad track, covering his bleeding head with bricks when they thought he was dead. It was reported that James died sometime before the train hit him.
1
Mary Bell
May 26, 1957
“Murder isn’t that bad; we all die sometime anyway.”
Brian Howe was found dead and covered with purple weeds and grass, days after the death of Martin Brown who died of asphyxiation. His hair was cut away, puncture marks were found on his thighs, and his genitals were partially skinned. Apart from these marks and injuries, a letter “M” had been imprinted on his stomach. This was originally an “N,” but Mary added a line to make it look like an “M.” The three-year-old boy had been strangled to death. When the investigation narrowed down to Mary Bell, she implicated herself by describing in detail a pair of broken scissors—which was confidential evidence—that had been played with by an 8-year-old boy whom Brian was allegedly with, according to Bell.
Mary’s family background may be responsible for her unusual behavior. She thought for a long time that her father was Billy Bell, a habitual criminal who had been arrested for armed robbery, but her biological father is unknown to this day. Mary claimed that her mother, Betty, who was a prostitute, had forced her to engage in sexual acts with men—particularly her mother’s clients—at the age of four. Mary ended up at an all-boys facility after her trial; she was too young to be held in prison and too dangerous to be kept in an unequipped mental hospital or an institution that housed troubled children. Her mother repeatedly sold Mary’s story to the press at the time of her daughter’s conviction. Mary was only 11 at that time. She was released after 23 years and fought and won the case for both her own anonymity and that of her daughter. This order is consequently known as a Mary Bell Order.
Top 10 mythology about Brain
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The brain is one of the most amazing organs in the human body. It controls our central nervous system, keeping us walking, talking, breathing and thinking. The brain is also incredibly complex, comprising around 100 billion neurons. There's so much going on with the brain that there are several different fields of medicine and science devoted to treating and studying it, including neurology, which treats physical disorders of the brain; psychology, which includes the study of behavior and mental processes; and psychiatry, which treats mental illnesses and disorders. Some aspects of each tend to overlap, and other fields cross into study of the brain as well.
Top 10 Myths about The Brain
These disciplines have been around in some form since ancient times, so you'd think that by now we'd know all there is to know about the brain. Nothing could be further from the truth. After thousands of years of studying and treating every aspect of it, there are still many facets of the brain that remain mysterious. And because the brain is so complex, we tend to simplify information about how it works in order to make it more understandable.
Both of these things put together have resulted in many myths about the brain. Most aren't completely off -- we just haven't quite heard the whole story. Let's look at 10 myths that have been circulating about the brain, starting with, of all things, its color.
10: Your Brain Is Gray
Have you given any thought to the color of your brain? Maybe not, unless you work in the medical field. We have all colors of the rainbow in our bodies in the form of blood, tissue, bone and other fluids. But you may have seen preserved brains sitting in jars in a classroom or on TV. Most of the time, those brains are a uniform white, gray or even yellowish hue. In actuality, though, the living, pulsing brain currently residing in your skull isn't just a dull, bland gray; it's also white, black and red.
Like many myths about the brain, this one has a grain of truth, because much of the brain is gray. Sometimes the entire brain is referred to as gray matter. Mystery writer Agatha Christie's famous detective Hercule Poirot often spoke of using his "little gray cells." Gray matter exists all throughout the various parts of the brain (as well as in the spinal cord); it consists of different types of cells, such as neurons. However, the brain also contains white matter, which comprises nerve fibers that connect the gray matter.
The black component is called substantia nigra, which is Latin for (you guessed it) "black substance." It's black because of neuromelanin, a specialized type of the same pigment that colors skin and hair, and it's a part of the basal ganglia. Finally, we have red -- and that's thanks to the many blood vessels in the brain. So why are preserved brains chalky looking and dull instead of spongy and colorful? It's due to the fixatives, such as formaldehyde, that keep the brain preserved.
From color, to sound -- the next myth may have you rethinking your musical choices.
9: Listening to Mozart Makes You Smarter
Don't you just feel cultured when you tune in to a classical music station and take in an opera or a symphony by a great composer like Mozart? Baby Einstein, a company that makes DVDs, videos and other products for babies and toddlers incorporating classical art, music, and poetry, is a million-dollar franchise. Parents buy the products because they believe that exposure to great art (like Baby Mozart DVDs and CDs) can be good for their children's cognitive development. There are even classical music CDs designed to be played to developing fetuses. The idea that listening to classical music can increase your brainpower has become so popular that it's been dubbed "the Mozart effect." So how did this myth start?
In the 1950s, an ear, nose and throat doctor named Albert Tomatis began the trend, claiming success using Mozart's music to help people with speech and auditory disorders. In the 1990s, 36 students in a study at the University of California at Irvine listened to 10 minutes of a Mozart sonata before taking an IQ test. According to Dr. Gordon Shaw, the psychologist in charge of the study, the students' IQ scores went up by about 8 points. The "Mozart effect" was born.
A musician named Dan Campbell trademarked the phrase and created a line of books and CDs based on the concept, and states such as Georgia, Florida and Tennessee set aside money for classical music for babies and other young children. Campbell and others have gone on to assert that listening to Mozart can even improve your health.
However, the original University of California at Irvine study has been controversial in the scientific community. Dr. Frances Rauscher, a researcher involved in the study, stated that they never claimed it actually made anyone smarter; it just increased performance on certain spatial-temporal tasks. Other scientists have been unable to replicate the original results, and there is currently no scientific information to prove that listening to Mozart, or any other classical music, actually makes anyone smarter. Rauscher even said that the money spent by those states might be better spent on musical programs -- there's some evidence to show that learning an instrument improves concentration, self-confidence and coordination.
Mozart certainly can't hurt you, and you might even enjoy it if you give it a try, but you won't get any smarter.
8: You Get New Brain Wrinkles When You Learn Something
When you think about how your brain looks, you probably picture a roundish, two-lobed gray mass covered in "wrinkles." As humans evolved as a species, our brains grew larger to accommodate all of the higher functions that set us apart from other animals. But in order to keep the brain compact enough to fit into a skull that would actually be in proportion with the rest of our body size, the brain folded in on itself as it grew. If we unfolded all of those ridges and crevices, the brain would be the size of a pillowcase. The ridges are called gyri and the crevices are called sulci. Several of these ridges and crevices even have names, and there are variations in exactly how they look from person to person.
We don't start out with wrinkly brains, however; a fetus early in its development has a very smooth little brain. As the fetus grows, its neurons also grow and migrate to different areas of the brain, creating the sulci and gyri. By the time it reaches 40 weeks, its brain is as wrinkled as yours is (albeit smaller, of course). So we don't develop new wrinkles as we learn. The wrinkles we're born with are the wrinkles we have for life, assuming that our brains remain healthy.
Our brains do change when we learn -- it's just not in the form of additional sulci and gyri. This phenomenon is known as brain plasticity. By studying changes in the brains of animals like rats as they learn tasks, researchers have discovered that synapses (the connections between neurons) and the blood cells that support neurons grow and increase in number. Some believe that we get new neurons when we make new memories, but this hasn't yet been proven in mammalian brains like ours.
7: You Can Learn Through Subliminal Messages
The concept of subliminal messages feeds into our suspicions about what the government, big corporations and media are really trying to tell us. A subliminal message (meaning, below "limen," or our conscious perception threshold) is a message embedded into images or sound meant to penetrate into our subconscious and influence our behavior. The first person to coin the term was James Vicary, a market researcher. In 1957, Vicary stated that he inserted messages into a showing of a movie in New Jersey. The messages, which flashed for 1/3000th of a second, told moviegoers to drink Coca-Cola and eat popcorn.
According to Vicary, Coke sales in the theater increased by more than 18 percent and popcorn sales by more than 57 percent, proving that his subliminal messages worked. Books published in the late 1950s and early 1970s outlined how advertisers could use techniques like Vicary's to convince consumers to buy their products. Some radio and TV commercials included subliminal messages, but many networks and professional associations banned them. In 1974, the FCC banned the use of subliminal advertising.
But did the messages work? Turns out, Vicary actually lied about the results of his study. Subsequent studies, including one which flashed the message "Call now" during a broadcast on a Canadian TV station, had no effect on viewers. The infamous 1990s Judas Priest trial, in which the families of two boys who committed suicide claimed that a song told the boys to do it, ended with the judge stating that there was no scientific evidence in their favor. Yet some people still claim that music, as well as advertisements, contains hidden messages.
So listening to those self-help tapes while you sleep probably can't hurt you, but they aren't likely to help you quit smoking, either.
6: The Human Brain Is the Biggest Brain
Many animals can use their brains to do some of the things that humans can do, such as finding creative ways to solve problems, exhibiting self-awareness, showing empathy toward others and learning how to use tools. But although scientists can't agree on a single definition of what makes a person intelligent, they do generally agree that humans are the most intelligent creatures on Earth. In our "bigger is better" society, then, it might stand to reason that humans should have the biggest brains of all animals, because we're the smartest. Well, not exactly.
The average adult human brain weighs about 3 pounds (1,361 grams). The dolphin -- a very intelligent animal -- also has a brain that weighs about 3 pounds on average. But a sperm whale, not generally considered to be as intelligent as a dolphin, has a brain that weighs about 17 pounds (7,800 grams). On the small end of the scale, a beagle's brain is about 2.5 ounces (72 grams), and an orangutan's brain is about 13 ounces (370 grams). Both dogs and orangutans are pretty smart animals, but they have small brains. A bird like a sparrow has a brain that weighs less than half an ounce (1 gram).
You may notice something important in all of those comparisons. An average dolphin's body weighs about 350 pounds (158.8 kilograms), while a sperm whale can weigh as much as 13 tons. In general, the larger the animal, the larger the skull, and therefore, the larger the brain. Beagles are fairly small dogs, at about 25 pounds (11.3 kg) maximum, so it stands to reason that their brains would also be smaller. The relationship between brain size and intelligence isn't really about the actual weight of the brain; it's about the ratio of brain weight to the entire body weight. For humans, that ratio is about 1-to-50. For most other mammals, it's 1-to-180, and for birds, it's 1-to-220. The brain takes up more weight in a human than it does in other animals.
Intelligence also has to do with the different components of the brain. Mammals have very large cerebral cortexes, unlike birds, fish or reptiles. The cerebellum in mammals houses the cerebral hemispheres, which are responsible for higher functions like memory, communication and thinking. Humans have the largest cerebral cortex of all mammals, relative to the size of their brains.
5: Your Brain Stays Active After You Get Decapitated
At one time in history, decapitation was one of the preferred methods of execution, in part thanks to the guillotine. Although many countries that execute criminals have dispatched with the method, it's still performed by certain governments, terrorists and others. There's nothing more final than the severing of one's head. The guillotine came about because of the desire for a quick, relatively humane death. But how quick is it? If your head were cut off, would you still be able to see or otherwise move it, even for just a few seconds?
This concept perhaps first appeared during the French Revolution, the very time period in which the guillotine was created. On July 17, 1793, a woman named Charlotte Corday was executed by guillotine for the assassination of Jean-Paul Marat, a radical journalist, politician and revolutionary. Marat was well-liked for his ideas and the mob awaiting the guillotine was eager to see Corday pay. After the blade dropped and Corday's head fell, one of the executioner's assistants picked it up and slapped its cheek. According to witnesses, Corday's eyes turned to look at the man and her face changed to an expression of indignation. Following this incident, people executed by guillotine during the Revolution were asked to blink afterward, and witnesses claim that the blinking occurred for up to 30 seconds.
Another often-told tale of demonstrated consciousness following beheading dates to 1905. French physician Dr. Gabriel Beaurieux witnessed the beheading of a man named Languille. He wrote that immediately afterward, "the eyelids and lips ... worked in irregularly rhythmic contractions for about five or six seconds." Dr. Beaurieux called out his name and said that Languille's eyelids "slowly lifted up, without any spasmodic contraction" and that "his pupils focused themselves" [source: Kershaw]. This happened a second time, but the third time Beaurieux spoke, he got no response.
These stories seem to give credence to the idea that it's possible for someone to remain conscious, even for just a few seconds, after being beheaded. However, most modern physicians believe that the reactions described above are actually reflexive twitching of muscles, rather than conscious, deliberate movement. Cut off from the heart (and therefore, from oxygen), the brain immediately goes into a coma and begins to die. According to Dr. Harold Hillman, consciousness is "probably lost within 2-3 seconds, due to a rapid fall of intracranial perfusion of blood" [source: New Scientist].
So while it's not entirely impossible for someone to still be conscious after being decapitated, it's not likely. Hillman also goes on to point out that the so-called painless guillotine is likely anything but. He states that "death occurs due to separation of the brain and spinal cord, after transection of the surrounding tissues. This must cause acute and possibly severe pain." This is one of the reasons why the guillotine, and beheading in general, is no longer an accepted method of execution in many countries with capital punishment.
4: Brain Damage Is Always Permanent
Brain damage is an extremely scary thing. For something so mysterious and amazing, the brain can actually be quite fragile and susceptible to a multitude of injuries. Brain damage can be caused by anything from an infection to a car accident, and it essentially means the death of brain cells. To many people, the mere idea of brain damage conjures images of people in persistent vegetative states, or at the very least, permanent physical or mental disability.
But that's not always the case. There are many different types of brain damage, and exactly how it will affect someone depends largely on its location and how severe it is. A mild brain injury, such as a concussion, usually occurs when the brain bounces around inside the skull, resulting in bleeding and tearing. The brain can recover from minor injuries remarkably well; the vast majority of people who experience a mild brain injury don't experience permanent disability.
On the other end of the spectrum, a severe brain injury means that the brain has suffered extensive damage. It sometimes requires surgery to remove built-up blood or relieve pressure. For nearly all patients who live through a severe brain injury, permanent, irreversible damage results.
So what about those in between? Some people with brain damage experience permanent disability but can recover partially from their injury. If neurons are damaged or lost, they can't grow back -- but the synapses, or connections between neurons, can. Essentially, the brain creates new pathways between neurons. In addition, areas of the brain not originally associated with some functions can take over and allow the patient to relearn how to do things. Remember the phenomenon of brain plasticity mentioned in the myth about brain wrinkles? That's how stroke patients, for example, can regain speech and motor skills through therapy.
The important thing to remember is that there are still a lot of unknowns about the brain. When a person is diagnosed with a brain injury, it's not always possible for doctors to know exactly how well someone will be able to recover from the damage. Patients surprise doctors all the time and exceed expectations of what they're able to do days, months and even years later. Not all brain damage is permanent.
3: You Can Get Holes in Your Brain Through Drug Use
Exactly how different drugs affect your brain is a pretty controversial subject. Some people claim that only the most severe drug use can have any lasting effects, while others believe that the first time you use a drug, you're causing long-term damage. One recent study states that using drugs like marijuana only cause minor memory loss, while another claims that heavy marijuana use can permanently shrink parts of your brain. When it comes to using drugs like cocaine or Ecstasy, some people even believe that you can actually get holes in your brain.
In truth, the only thing that can actually put a hole in your brain is physical trauma to it. Researchers do claim that drugs can cause short-term and long-term changes in the brain. For example, drug use can lower the impact of neurotransmitters (chemicals used to communicate signals in the brain) like dopamine, which is why addicts need more and more of the drug to achieve the same feeling. In addition, changes in the levels of neurotransmitters can result in problems with neuron function. Whether this is reversible or not is also up for debate.
On the other hand, a study in New Scientist from August 2008 states that long-term use of some drugs actually causes certain structures in the brain to grow, resulting in a permanent change. They claim that this is which is why it's so difficult to change the behaviors of addicts.
But although the jury's still out on exactly how different drugs can affect your brain for the long term, we can be reasonably sure of one thing: No drug actually puts holes in your brain.
2: Alcohol Kills Brain Cells
Just one observation of a drunken person is enough to convince you that alcohol directly affects the brain. People who drink enough to get drunk often end up with slurred speech and impaired motor skills and judgment, among other side effects. Many of them suffer from headaches, nausea and other unpleasant side effects afterward -- in other words, a hangover. But are a few drinks on the weekend, or even the occasional long drinking session, enough to kill brain cells? What about binge drinking or the frequent, sustained drinking of alcoholics?
Not so much. Even in alcoholics, alcohol use doesn't actually result in the death of brain cells. It can, however, damage the ends of neurons, which are called dendrites. This results in problems conveying messages between the neurons. The cell itself isn't damaged, but the way that it communicates with others is altered. According to researchers such as Roberta J. Pentney, professor of anatomy and cell biology at the University at Buffalo, this damage is mostly reversible.
Alcoholics can develop a neurological disorder called Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome, which can result in a loss of neurons in some parts of the brain. This syndrome also causes memory problems, confusion, paralysis of the eyes, lack of muscle coordination and amnesia. It can lead to death. However, the disorder isn't caused by the alcohol itself. It's the result of a deficiency of thiamine, an essential B vitamin. Not only are severe alcoholics often malnourished, extreme alcohol consumption can interfere with the body's absorption of thiamine.
So while alcohol doesn't actually kill brain cells, it can still damage your brain if you drink in mass quantities.
1: You Only Use 10 Percent of Your Brain
We've often been told that we only use about 10 percent of our brains. Famous people such as Albert Einstein and Margaret Mead have been quoted as stating a variation of it. This myth is probably one of the most well-known myths about the brain, in part because it's been publicized in the media for what seems like forever. Where did it come from? Many sources point to an American psychologist of the early 1900s named William James, who said that "the average person rarely achieves but a small portion of his or her potential" [source: AARP]. Somehow, that was converted into only using 10 percent of our brain.
This seems really puzzling at first glance. Why would we have the biggest brain in proportion to our bodies of any animal (as discussed in the sixth myth in our list) if we didn't actually use all of it? Many people have jumped on the idea, writing books and selling products that claim to harness the power of the other 90 percent. Believers in psychic abilities such as ESP point to it as proof, saying that people with these abilities have tapped into the rest of their brains.
Here's the thing, though; it's not really true. In addition to those 100 billion neurons, the brain is also full of other types of cells that are continually in use. We can become disabled from damage to just small areas of the brain depending on where it's located, so there's no way that we could function with only 10 percent of our brain in use.
Brain scans have shown that no matter what we're doing, our brains are always active. Some areas are more active at any one time than others, but unless we have brain damage, there is no one part of the brain that is absolutely not functioning. Here's an example. If you're sitting at a table and eating a sandwich, you're not actively using your feet. You're concentrating on bringing the sandwich to your mouth, chewing and swallowing it. But that doesn't mean that your feet aren't working -- there's still activity in them, such as blood flow, even when you're not actually moving them.
So there's no hidden, extra potential you can tap into, in terms of actual brain space. But there's still so much to learn about the brain.
Top 10 Myths about The Brain
These disciplines have been around in some form since ancient times, so you'd think that by now we'd know all there is to know about the brain. Nothing could be further from the truth. After thousands of years of studying and treating every aspect of it, there are still many facets of the brain that remain mysterious. And because the brain is so complex, we tend to simplify information about how it works in order to make it more understandable.
Both of these things put together have resulted in many myths about the brain. Most aren't completely off -- we just haven't quite heard the whole story. Let's look at 10 myths that have been circulating about the brain, starting with, of all things, its color.
10: Your Brain Is Gray
Have you given any thought to the color of your brain? Maybe not, unless you work in the medical field. We have all colors of the rainbow in our bodies in the form of blood, tissue, bone and other fluids. But you may have seen preserved brains sitting in jars in a classroom or on TV. Most of the time, those brains are a uniform white, gray or even yellowish hue. In actuality, though, the living, pulsing brain currently residing in your skull isn't just a dull, bland gray; it's also white, black and red.
Like many myths about the brain, this one has a grain of truth, because much of the brain is gray. Sometimes the entire brain is referred to as gray matter. Mystery writer Agatha Christie's famous detective Hercule Poirot often spoke of using his "little gray cells." Gray matter exists all throughout the various parts of the brain (as well as in the spinal cord); it consists of different types of cells, such as neurons. However, the brain also contains white matter, which comprises nerve fibers that connect the gray matter.
The black component is called substantia nigra, which is Latin for (you guessed it) "black substance." It's black because of neuromelanin, a specialized type of the same pigment that colors skin and hair, and it's a part of the basal ganglia. Finally, we have red -- and that's thanks to the many blood vessels in the brain. So why are preserved brains chalky looking and dull instead of spongy and colorful? It's due to the fixatives, such as formaldehyde, that keep the brain preserved.
From color, to sound -- the next myth may have you rethinking your musical choices.
9: Listening to Mozart Makes You Smarter
Don't you just feel cultured when you tune in to a classical music station and take in an opera or a symphony by a great composer like Mozart? Baby Einstein, a company that makes DVDs, videos and other products for babies and toddlers incorporating classical art, music, and poetry, is a million-dollar franchise. Parents buy the products because they believe that exposure to great art (like Baby Mozart DVDs and CDs) can be good for their children's cognitive development. There are even classical music CDs designed to be played to developing fetuses. The idea that listening to classical music can increase your brainpower has become so popular that it's been dubbed "the Mozart effect." So how did this myth start?
In the 1950s, an ear, nose and throat doctor named Albert Tomatis began the trend, claiming success using Mozart's music to help people with speech and auditory disorders. In the 1990s, 36 students in a study at the University of California at Irvine listened to 10 minutes of a Mozart sonata before taking an IQ test. According to Dr. Gordon Shaw, the psychologist in charge of the study, the students' IQ scores went up by about 8 points. The "Mozart effect" was born.
A musician named Dan Campbell trademarked the phrase and created a line of books and CDs based on the concept, and states such as Georgia, Florida and Tennessee set aside money for classical music for babies and other young children. Campbell and others have gone on to assert that listening to Mozart can even improve your health.
However, the original University of California at Irvine study has been controversial in the scientific community. Dr. Frances Rauscher, a researcher involved in the study, stated that they never claimed it actually made anyone smarter; it just increased performance on certain spatial-temporal tasks. Other scientists have been unable to replicate the original results, and there is currently no scientific information to prove that listening to Mozart, or any other classical music, actually makes anyone smarter. Rauscher even said that the money spent by those states might be better spent on musical programs -- there's some evidence to show that learning an instrument improves concentration, self-confidence and coordination.
Mozart certainly can't hurt you, and you might even enjoy it if you give it a try, but you won't get any smarter.
8: You Get New Brain Wrinkles When You Learn Something
When you think about how your brain looks, you probably picture a roundish, two-lobed gray mass covered in "wrinkles." As humans evolved as a species, our brains grew larger to accommodate all of the higher functions that set us apart from other animals. But in order to keep the brain compact enough to fit into a skull that would actually be in proportion with the rest of our body size, the brain folded in on itself as it grew. If we unfolded all of those ridges and crevices, the brain would be the size of a pillowcase. The ridges are called gyri and the crevices are called sulci. Several of these ridges and crevices even have names, and there are variations in exactly how they look from person to person.
We don't start out with wrinkly brains, however; a fetus early in its development has a very smooth little brain. As the fetus grows, its neurons also grow and migrate to different areas of the brain, creating the sulci and gyri. By the time it reaches 40 weeks, its brain is as wrinkled as yours is (albeit smaller, of course). So we don't develop new wrinkles as we learn. The wrinkles we're born with are the wrinkles we have for life, assuming that our brains remain healthy.
Our brains do change when we learn -- it's just not in the form of additional sulci and gyri. This phenomenon is known as brain plasticity. By studying changes in the brains of animals like rats as they learn tasks, researchers have discovered that synapses (the connections between neurons) and the blood cells that support neurons grow and increase in number. Some believe that we get new neurons when we make new memories, but this hasn't yet been proven in mammalian brains like ours.
7: You Can Learn Through Subliminal Messages
The concept of subliminal messages feeds into our suspicions about what the government, big corporations and media are really trying to tell us. A subliminal message (meaning, below "limen," or our conscious perception threshold) is a message embedded into images or sound meant to penetrate into our subconscious and influence our behavior. The first person to coin the term was James Vicary, a market researcher. In 1957, Vicary stated that he inserted messages into a showing of a movie in New Jersey. The messages, which flashed for 1/3000th of a second, told moviegoers to drink Coca-Cola and eat popcorn.
According to Vicary, Coke sales in the theater increased by more than 18 percent and popcorn sales by more than 57 percent, proving that his subliminal messages worked. Books published in the late 1950s and early 1970s outlined how advertisers could use techniques like Vicary's to convince consumers to buy their products. Some radio and TV commercials included subliminal messages, but many networks and professional associations banned them. In 1974, the FCC banned the use of subliminal advertising.
But did the messages work? Turns out, Vicary actually lied about the results of his study. Subsequent studies, including one which flashed the message "Call now" during a broadcast on a Canadian TV station, had no effect on viewers. The infamous 1990s Judas Priest trial, in which the families of two boys who committed suicide claimed that a song told the boys to do it, ended with the judge stating that there was no scientific evidence in their favor. Yet some people still claim that music, as well as advertisements, contains hidden messages.
So listening to those self-help tapes while you sleep probably can't hurt you, but they aren't likely to help you quit smoking, either.
6: The Human Brain Is the Biggest Brain
Many animals can use their brains to do some of the things that humans can do, such as finding creative ways to solve problems, exhibiting self-awareness, showing empathy toward others and learning how to use tools. But although scientists can't agree on a single definition of what makes a person intelligent, they do generally agree that humans are the most intelligent creatures on Earth. In our "bigger is better" society, then, it might stand to reason that humans should have the biggest brains of all animals, because we're the smartest. Well, not exactly.
The average adult human brain weighs about 3 pounds (1,361 grams). The dolphin -- a very intelligent animal -- also has a brain that weighs about 3 pounds on average. But a sperm whale, not generally considered to be as intelligent as a dolphin, has a brain that weighs about 17 pounds (7,800 grams). On the small end of the scale, a beagle's brain is about 2.5 ounces (72 grams), and an orangutan's brain is about 13 ounces (370 grams). Both dogs and orangutans are pretty smart animals, but they have small brains. A bird like a sparrow has a brain that weighs less than half an ounce (1 gram).
You may notice something important in all of those comparisons. An average dolphin's body weighs about 350 pounds (158.8 kilograms), while a sperm whale can weigh as much as 13 tons. In general, the larger the animal, the larger the skull, and therefore, the larger the brain. Beagles are fairly small dogs, at about 25 pounds (11.3 kg) maximum, so it stands to reason that their brains would also be smaller. The relationship between brain size and intelligence isn't really about the actual weight of the brain; it's about the ratio of brain weight to the entire body weight. For humans, that ratio is about 1-to-50. For most other mammals, it's 1-to-180, and for birds, it's 1-to-220. The brain takes up more weight in a human than it does in other animals.
Intelligence also has to do with the different components of the brain. Mammals have very large cerebral cortexes, unlike birds, fish or reptiles. The cerebellum in mammals houses the cerebral hemispheres, which are responsible for higher functions like memory, communication and thinking. Humans have the largest cerebral cortex of all mammals, relative to the size of their brains.
5: Your Brain Stays Active After You Get Decapitated
At one time in history, decapitation was one of the preferred methods of execution, in part thanks to the guillotine. Although many countries that execute criminals have dispatched with the method, it's still performed by certain governments, terrorists and others. There's nothing more final than the severing of one's head. The guillotine came about because of the desire for a quick, relatively humane death. But how quick is it? If your head were cut off, would you still be able to see or otherwise move it, even for just a few seconds?
This concept perhaps first appeared during the French Revolution, the very time period in which the guillotine was created. On July 17, 1793, a woman named Charlotte Corday was executed by guillotine for the assassination of Jean-Paul Marat, a radical journalist, politician and revolutionary. Marat was well-liked for his ideas and the mob awaiting the guillotine was eager to see Corday pay. After the blade dropped and Corday's head fell, one of the executioner's assistants picked it up and slapped its cheek. According to witnesses, Corday's eyes turned to look at the man and her face changed to an expression of indignation. Following this incident, people executed by guillotine during the Revolution were asked to blink afterward, and witnesses claim that the blinking occurred for up to 30 seconds.
Another often-told tale of demonstrated consciousness following beheading dates to 1905. French physician Dr. Gabriel Beaurieux witnessed the beheading of a man named Languille. He wrote that immediately afterward, "the eyelids and lips ... worked in irregularly rhythmic contractions for about five or six seconds." Dr. Beaurieux called out his name and said that Languille's eyelids "slowly lifted up, without any spasmodic contraction" and that "his pupils focused themselves" [source: Kershaw]. This happened a second time, but the third time Beaurieux spoke, he got no response.
These stories seem to give credence to the idea that it's possible for someone to remain conscious, even for just a few seconds, after being beheaded. However, most modern physicians believe that the reactions described above are actually reflexive twitching of muscles, rather than conscious, deliberate movement. Cut off from the heart (and therefore, from oxygen), the brain immediately goes into a coma and begins to die. According to Dr. Harold Hillman, consciousness is "probably lost within 2-3 seconds, due to a rapid fall of intracranial perfusion of blood" [source: New Scientist].
So while it's not entirely impossible for someone to still be conscious after being decapitated, it's not likely. Hillman also goes on to point out that the so-called painless guillotine is likely anything but. He states that "death occurs due to separation of the brain and spinal cord, after transection of the surrounding tissues. This must cause acute and possibly severe pain." This is one of the reasons why the guillotine, and beheading in general, is no longer an accepted method of execution in many countries with capital punishment.
4: Brain Damage Is Always Permanent
Brain damage is an extremely scary thing. For something so mysterious and amazing, the brain can actually be quite fragile and susceptible to a multitude of injuries. Brain damage can be caused by anything from an infection to a car accident, and it essentially means the death of brain cells. To many people, the mere idea of brain damage conjures images of people in persistent vegetative states, or at the very least, permanent physical or mental disability.
But that's not always the case. There are many different types of brain damage, and exactly how it will affect someone depends largely on its location and how severe it is. A mild brain injury, such as a concussion, usually occurs when the brain bounces around inside the skull, resulting in bleeding and tearing. The brain can recover from minor injuries remarkably well; the vast majority of people who experience a mild brain injury don't experience permanent disability.
On the other end of the spectrum, a severe brain injury means that the brain has suffered extensive damage. It sometimes requires surgery to remove built-up blood or relieve pressure. For nearly all patients who live through a severe brain injury, permanent, irreversible damage results.
So what about those in between? Some people with brain damage experience permanent disability but can recover partially from their injury. If neurons are damaged or lost, they can't grow back -- but the synapses, or connections between neurons, can. Essentially, the brain creates new pathways between neurons. In addition, areas of the brain not originally associated with some functions can take over and allow the patient to relearn how to do things. Remember the phenomenon of brain plasticity mentioned in the myth about brain wrinkles? That's how stroke patients, for example, can regain speech and motor skills through therapy.
The important thing to remember is that there are still a lot of unknowns about the brain. When a person is diagnosed with a brain injury, it's not always possible for doctors to know exactly how well someone will be able to recover from the damage. Patients surprise doctors all the time and exceed expectations of what they're able to do days, months and even years later. Not all brain damage is permanent.
3: You Can Get Holes in Your Brain Through Drug Use
Exactly how different drugs affect your brain is a pretty controversial subject. Some people claim that only the most severe drug use can have any lasting effects, while others believe that the first time you use a drug, you're causing long-term damage. One recent study states that using drugs like marijuana only cause minor memory loss, while another claims that heavy marijuana use can permanently shrink parts of your brain. When it comes to using drugs like cocaine or Ecstasy, some people even believe that you can actually get holes in your brain.
In truth, the only thing that can actually put a hole in your brain is physical trauma to it. Researchers do claim that drugs can cause short-term and long-term changes in the brain. For example, drug use can lower the impact of neurotransmitters (chemicals used to communicate signals in the brain) like dopamine, which is why addicts need more and more of the drug to achieve the same feeling. In addition, changes in the levels of neurotransmitters can result in problems with neuron function. Whether this is reversible or not is also up for debate.
On the other hand, a study in New Scientist from August 2008 states that long-term use of some drugs actually causes certain structures in the brain to grow, resulting in a permanent change. They claim that this is which is why it's so difficult to change the behaviors of addicts.
But although the jury's still out on exactly how different drugs can affect your brain for the long term, we can be reasonably sure of one thing: No drug actually puts holes in your brain.
2: Alcohol Kills Brain Cells
Just one observation of a drunken person is enough to convince you that alcohol directly affects the brain. People who drink enough to get drunk often end up with slurred speech and impaired motor skills and judgment, among other side effects. Many of them suffer from headaches, nausea and other unpleasant side effects afterward -- in other words, a hangover. But are a few drinks on the weekend, or even the occasional long drinking session, enough to kill brain cells? What about binge drinking or the frequent, sustained drinking of alcoholics?
Not so much. Even in alcoholics, alcohol use doesn't actually result in the death of brain cells. It can, however, damage the ends of neurons, which are called dendrites. This results in problems conveying messages between the neurons. The cell itself isn't damaged, but the way that it communicates with others is altered. According to researchers such as Roberta J. Pentney, professor of anatomy and cell biology at the University at Buffalo, this damage is mostly reversible.
Alcoholics can develop a neurological disorder called Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome, which can result in a loss of neurons in some parts of the brain. This syndrome also causes memory problems, confusion, paralysis of the eyes, lack of muscle coordination and amnesia. It can lead to death. However, the disorder isn't caused by the alcohol itself. It's the result of a deficiency of thiamine, an essential B vitamin. Not only are severe alcoholics often malnourished, extreme alcohol consumption can interfere with the body's absorption of thiamine.
So while alcohol doesn't actually kill brain cells, it can still damage your brain if you drink in mass quantities.
1: You Only Use 10 Percent of Your Brain
We've often been told that we only use about 10 percent of our brains. Famous people such as Albert Einstein and Margaret Mead have been quoted as stating a variation of it. This myth is probably one of the most well-known myths about the brain, in part because it's been publicized in the media for what seems like forever. Where did it come from? Many sources point to an American psychologist of the early 1900s named William James, who said that "the average person rarely achieves but a small portion of his or her potential" [source: AARP]. Somehow, that was converted into only using 10 percent of our brain.
This seems really puzzling at first glance. Why would we have the biggest brain in proportion to our bodies of any animal (as discussed in the sixth myth in our list) if we didn't actually use all of it? Many people have jumped on the idea, writing books and selling products that claim to harness the power of the other 90 percent. Believers in psychic abilities such as ESP point to it as proof, saying that people with these abilities have tapped into the rest of their brains.
Here's the thing, though; it's not really true. In addition to those 100 billion neurons, the brain is also full of other types of cells that are continually in use. We can become disabled from damage to just small areas of the brain depending on where it's located, so there's no way that we could function with only 10 percent of our brain in use.
Brain scans have shown that no matter what we're doing, our brains are always active. Some areas are more active at any one time than others, but unless we have brain damage, there is no one part of the brain that is absolutely not functioning. Here's an example. If you're sitting at a table and eating a sandwich, you're not actively using your feet. You're concentrating on bringing the sandwich to your mouth, chewing and swallowing it. But that doesn't mean that your feet aren't working -- there's still activity in them, such as blood flow, even when you're not actually moving them.
So there's no hidden, extra potential you can tap into, in terms of actual brain space. But there's still so much to learn about the brain.
26 Januari 2012
The Spanish Teacher
Unknown
Glee ep 12 season 3 "The Spanish Teacher" song spoiler
Here are the spoiler lists of episode 12 songs instead of michael jakson episode.
Check this out
See if you ever heard one of these songs
Lists :
La Cucaracha
LMFAO’s “Sexy and I Know It"
Gloria Estefan’s “Don’t Wanna Lose You
Enrique Iglesias’ “Hero”
Gypsy Kings’ “Bamboleo”
Here are the spoiler lists of episode 12 songs instead of michael jakson episode.
Check this out
See if you ever heard one of these songs
Lists :
La Cucaracha
LMFAO’s “Sexy and I Know It"
Gloria Estefan’s “Don’t Wanna Lose You
Enrique Iglesias’ “Hero”
Gypsy Kings’ “Bamboleo”
