QUICK THINKING

[BOOKWORMS] Xin chào mọi người,chúng ta tiếp tục đến với bài đọc thứ 2 trong cuốn sách The Human Body cùng anhvanyds nhé! Còn gì hơn là cuối tuần ngồi thư thả bên tách cafe và đọc một cuốn sách nhẹ nhàng…

QUICK THINKING (SUY NGHĨ NHANH)

1. A few years ago,Stephen Wiltshire flew over New York City and looked down at the streets below.He didn’t take any photos,and he was in the air for only twenty minutes.But amazingly,Stephen remembered everything.For the next few days,he sat on a chair,listened to music,and drew for hours and hours.Stephen was making a 5.5-metre picture of Manhattan from the air – with hundreds of streets and thousands of buildings.Central Park,the Empire State Building,Brooklyn Bridge,the boats in the Hudson River – it’s all there in his picture,and everything is in the right place.

2. Stephen Wiltshire has got an amazing brain,but your brain isn’t very different.It is a 1.3-kilogram living computer,and it processes 100 trillion pieces of information every second.To do this,it uses 20 per cent of your blood and produces as much heat as a small light.Right now,your brain is working very hard – just to help you to stay alive,think,and understand these words.

3. Your brain is made of cells called neurons.They look a lot like trees,with ‘branches’.Short branches get chemical signals from other neurons,and one long branch carries signals to other places in your brain or body.There are about 100 billion neurons in your brain,and each one is connected to thousands of other neurons.These connections make you who you are.Nobody understands how this works,but when signals travel between millions of neurons,you feel,think,and remember things.

4. The brain has many parts,and they each do different jobs.For example,the hippocampus helps you to remember things,and the cerebellum moves your muscles in the right way – so you don’t fall over when you walk! The brainstem sits below the cerebellum,and it controls automatic things like the working of your heart and lungs.It also connects the brain to the spinal cord.The outside of your brain – about 85 per cent of it – is called the cerebrum.You use your cerebrum to think and feel,and also when you decide to move your body.The cerebrum has two halves,and each half controls the opposite side of your body.For example,the left half of your cerebrum feels and moves your right hand.Both sides are connected,so you always know what all of your body is doing!

5. Signals travel to and from the brain along the spinal cord, and nerves (groups of neurons)connect the spinal cord with every part of your body. When you move your legs,signals from your brain travel down the spinal cord and then along nerves to your leg muscles.When you touch something, signals travel up the nerves to your spinal cord,and then go up to your brain. Nerves are made of lots of neurons,but each neuron is only one cell.They are too thin for the human eye to see,but they can be very long.

   Some neurons start in your foot and end in your spinal cord – about a metre away!Every time you do something,the neurons in your brain make new connections.This is how you learn to do things.These new connections can break easily,but the good news is that thinking about or doing the same things again makes them stronger.This is why it helps to play the guitar every day if you want to be good at it.

6. The brain doesn’t stop working when you are asleep – and your senses don’t stop either.Your ears can still hear sounds,but a part of the brain called the thalamus processes this information before it gets to the cerebrum.How important is it? Should you wake up?You don’t need to hear the traffic outside the window when you are sleeping,so you don’t wake up.But you wake up immediately when the telephone rings – it could be important.

7. In the same way,everything that you taste,smell,see,or touch is processed by the brain before you know about it.Your brain takes information from both eyes and turns them into one picture.Because the brain does this many times every second,you see movement.

   It takes the brain time to process signals from the eyes,but when you are in danger,your brain can do this faster than normal.Because of this,everything around you seems to slow down.It can give you time to think,and even save your life!

8. In February 2012,Canadian firefighters were inside a burning hotel when big pieces of the roof began to fall around them.The heat was terrible and they couldn’t see much through the thick smoke,but they needed to think clearly.Where were the stairs? What was the best way out? Which way was the fire moving?As the men fought their way through the burning building,everything around them seemed to happen very,very slowly.Seconds seemed like minutes.Their brains were giving them time to think – and all of the firefighters got out alive.