All human beings are, in fact, born with dozens of mutations their parents lacked, and a few of those mutations could well be lethal if we didn’t have two copies of every gene, so one can pick up the slack if the other malfunctions. Sam Kean Read Quote
The hippocampus helps record both types of memories initially, and it helps retain them for the medium term. The hippocampus also helps us access old personal memories in long-term storage in other parts of the brain. Sam Kean Read Quote
There are a few elements – especially platinum and palladium – that have the amazing ability to absorb up to 900 times their own volume in hydrogen gas. To get a sense of the scale there, that’s roughly equivalent to a 250-pound man swallowing something the size of a dozen African bull elephants and not gaining an inch on his waistline. Sam Kean Read Quote
Most stars just fuse hydrogen into helium, but larger stars can fuse helium into other elements. Still larger stars, in turn, fuse those elements into slightly bigger ones, and so on. Sam Kean Read Quote
Even fictional characters sometimes receive unwarranted medical opinions. Doctors have diagnosed Ebenezer Scrooge with OCD, Sherlock Holmes with autism, and Darth Vader with borderline personality disorder. Sam Kean Read Quote
Lithium makes a fine battery because it’s a scarily reactive metal. Pure lithium ignites on contact if it touches water – a flake of it would sizzle and fry on the water-rich cells of your skin. Sam Kean Read Quote
The body tends to treat elements in the same column of the periodic table as equivalents. Sam Kean Read Quote
Without a functioning hippocampus, names, dates, and other information falls straight through the mind like a sieve. Sam Kean Read Quote
After about 1940, scientists generally stopped looking for elements in nature. Instead, they had to create them by smashing smaller atoms together. Sam Kean Read Quote
