Neuroscience For Kids

Treasure Trove of Brain Trivia

A collection of trivia about the brain and nervous system from the archives of the Neuroscience for Kids Newsletter. For more trivia about the brain, see brain facts and figures.

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January, 2025

A. Actor/comedian Jamie Foxx and NBA San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovic both revealed last month that they suffered from a stroke.

B. "Brain rot" is the 2024 Oxford Word of the Year (Source: https://corp.oup.com/news/brain-rot-named-oxford-word-of-the-year-2024/).

C. A mummified woolly mammoth brain, estimated to be 39,000 years old, was discovered in Northern Yakutia, Russia (Source: Kharlamova, A. et al., Preserved brain of the Woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius (Blumenbach 1799)) from the Yakutian permafrost, Quat. Intern., 406 (B): 86-93, 2016).

D. The fastest time to solve a Rubik's cube blindfolded is 12 seconds. This feat requires that people memorize the colors of the cube before they are blindfolded (Source: https://tinyurl.com/yunddhm2).

E. "Brain terrain" is the name scientists have given to areas on the surface of the planet Mars that look like the outside of the brain (Source: https://tinyurl.com/4jzazwnx).

February, 2025

A. Composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) likely had Tourette syndrome (Source: Chirchiglia, D., et al., When history meets neurology: Neurological diseases of famous people, Neuroscientist, 25:388-393, 2019.

B. Jazz musician Charles Mingus (1922-1979) was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's Disease) in 1977 (Source: Pearl, P.L., Neurological problems of jazz legends. J Child Neurol. 24:1037-1042, 2009).

C. The earliest known drawing of an insect (bee) brain was created by Johannes Swammerdam, a Dutch scientist, in the mid-1670s (Source: Strazzoni, A., The first illustration of an insect brain: Swammerdam on the honeybee (with an unedited autograph), Notes Rec. [2025], https://doi.org/10.1098/rsnr.2024.0028.

D. British playwright Nick Payne wrote a play titled "Incognito" with three main characters: H.M., the patient with anterograde amnesia; Thomas Harvey, the pathologist who removed Albert Einstein's brain; a neuropsychologist.

E. "Oneirology" is the word for the scientific study of dreams.

March, 2025

A. Anechoic Chamber at The Orfield Laboratories, Inc. in Minneapolis, MN, has been called the "Quietest Place on Earth" (Source: https://www.orfieldlabs.com/labs/anechoic-chamber).

B. Snakes that hunt during the day have eyes that block ultraviolet light while snakes that hunt during the night have eyes that allow passage of ultraviolet light (Source: https://tinyurl.com/2s4j9nm9).

C. Drawing things you want to remember can be an effective memory aid (Source: Meade, et al., Drawing as an encoding tool: Memorial benefits in younger and older adults, Experimental Aging Research, 44:369–396, 2018).

D. Increased blood flow to the temporoparietal junction area of the brain may be related to a better ability to remember dreams (Source: Eichenlaub, J.B., et al., Resting brain activity varies with dream recall frequency between subjects, Neuropsychopharmacol., 39:1594–1602, 2014).

E. Ultraprocessed food may speed cognitive decline later in life (Source: Gomes Goncalves, N., et al., Association between consumption of ultraprocessed foods and cognitive decline, JAMA Neurol., 80:142–150, 2023).

More trivia from other years:

2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011 |
2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 | 2001 | 2000 | 1999 | 1998

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