Located inside of our ears, a gel informs our brains whether we are going left or right, up or down. Our vestibular system is responsible for balance. The most efficient brains, he found, were those that could save a task quickly and then go into a kind of standby mode.” “An academic at the University of California at Irvine named Richard Haier used positron emission tomography scanners to find that the hardest-working brains are usually the least productive. Thinking more doesn’t result in a greater calorie burn. Whether you’re watching TV or doing complex math, your brain burns roughly 400 calories every day. Weighing just 2 percent of our body weight, it consumes 20 percent of our energy requirements. Bryson continues, “Almost three-quarters of the 40 million antibiotic prescriptions written each year in the United Stats are for conditions that cannot be cured with antibiotics.” For example, 20 percent of all antibiotic usage is for sinus problems, yet antibiotics do not help sinus problems. Overuse fattening up farmed animals, C-sections (in which the baby does not pass through the wash of microbes in the mother’s vagina), and our own misuse all seem to blame. Sadly, pharmaceutical companies would rather focus on drugs that people need to take for decades (like statins and SSRIs) than on low moneymakers that will be obsolete in a few years. every year now the number is one every other year. As Bryson writes, from the 1950s through the ’90s, three new antibiotics were introduced in the U.S.
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