Saturday, March 31, 2007

The human head contains 22 bones

The human head contains 22 bones, consisting the cranium and the facial bones. The cranium is formed by 8 bones: the frontal bone, two parietal bones, two temporal bones, the occipital bone in the back, the ethmoid bone behind the nose, and the sphenoid bone. The face consists of 14 bones including the maxilla (upper jaw) and mandible (lower jaw). (The skull has many little holes in its base which allow the cranial nerves to travel to their destinations.)

The cranium protects the brain, which, for an average adult male weighs about 1400 gram (49oz). The brain of Russian novelist Turgenev, weighed 2021g (71oz), Bismarck's brain weighed 1807g (64oz), while that of famous French statesman Gambetta was only 1294g (46oz). Female average brain mass is slightly less than that of males. The largest woman's brain recorded weighed 1742g (6oz). Einstein's brain was of average size.

An elephant's brain weighs 5000g (176oz or 11 lb), a whale's 10000g (352oz or 22lb). In proportion to the body, the whale has a much smaller brain than man. This seem to give man the edge, until it was discovered that the dwarf monkey has 1g of brain per 27g ( 0.95oz) of body, and the capuchin monkey has 1g of brain per 17,5g body, whereas man has 1 gram of brain to 44g of body.

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