16 Weird Brain Facts

Today, the average human brain weighs just under three pounds. However, the brain appears to have shrunk over the past 5,000 years. “We do know from archaeological data that pretty much everywhere we can measure — Europe, China, South Africa, Australia — that brains have shrunk about 150 cubic centimeters, off a mean of about 1,350. That’s roughly 10 percent,” said paleoanthropologist John Hawks at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. “As to why is it shrinking, perhaps in big societies, as opposed to hunter-gatherer lifestyles, we can rely on other people for more things, can specialize our behavior to a greater extent, and maybe not need our brains as much.”