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ΤΗΕ ΒΡΑΙΝ

Stimulate your knowledge of the human brain with an interactive look at its
different parts.

Making sense of the brain's mind-boggling complexity isn't easy. What we do know is
that it's the organ that makes us human, giving people the capacity for art, language,
moral judgments, and rational thought. It's also responsible for each individual's
personality, memories, movements, and how we sense the world.

All this comes from a jellylike mass of fat and protein weighing about 3 pounds (1.4
kilograms). It is, nevertheless, one of the body's biggest organs, consisting of some
100 billion nerve cells that not only put together thoughts and highly coordinated
physical actions but regulate our unconscious body processes, such as digestion and
breathing.

The brain's nerve cells are known as neurons, which make up the organ's so-called
"gray matter." The neurons transmit and gather electrochemical signals that are
communicated via a network of millions of nerve fibers called dendrites and axons.
These are the brain's "white matter."

The cerebrum is the largest part of the brain, accounting for 85 percent of the organ's
weight. The distinctive, deeply wrinkled outer surface is the cerebral cortex, which
consists of gray matter. Beneath this lies the white matter. It's the cerebrum that
makes the human brain—and therefore humans—so formidable. Whereas animals
such as elephants, dolphins, and whales have larger brains, humans have the most
developed cerebrum. It's packed to capacity inside our skulls, enveloping the rest of
the brain, with the deep folds cleverly maximizing the cortex area.

The cerebrum has two halves, or hemispheres. It is further divided into four regions,
or lobes, in each hemisphere. The frontal lobes, located behind the forehead, are
involved with speech, thought, learning, emotion, and movement. Behind them are the
parietal lobes, which process sensory information such as touch, temperature, and
pain. At the rear of the brain are the occipital lobes, dealing with vision. Lastly, there
are the temporal lobes, near the temples, which are involved with hearing and
memory.

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Movement and Balance

The second largest part of the brain is the cerebellum, which sits beneath the back of
the cerebrum. It is responsible for coordinating muscle movement and controlling our
balance. Consisting of both grey and white matter, the cerebellum transmits
information to the spinal cord and other parts of the brain.

The diencephalon is located in the core of the brain. A complex of structures roughly
the size of an apricot, the two major sections are the thalamus and hypothalamus.
The thalamus acts as a relay station for incoming nerve impulses from around the
body that are then forwarded to the appropriate brain region for processing. The
hypothalamus controls hormone secretions from the nearby pituitary gland. These
hormones govern growth and instinctual behavior such as eating, drinking, sex, anger,
and reproduction. The hypothalamus, for instance, controls when a new mother starts
to lactate.

The brain stem, at the organ's base, controls reflexes and crucial, basic life functions
such as heart rate, breathing, and blood pressure. It also regulates when you feel
sleepy or awake.

The brain is extremely sensitive and delicate, and so requires maximum protection.
This is provided by the surrounding skull and three tough membranes called
meninges. The spaces between these membranes are filled with fluid that cushions the
brain and keeps it from being damaged by contact with the inside of the skull.

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 2. ROCKS
They form within the Earth and make up a large part of our planet—literally. Rock your
world and get to know granite, see where sandstone comes from, and learn what
makes marble.

Rocks are so common that most of us take them for granted—cursing when we hit
them with the garden hoe or taking advantage of them to drive in tent pegs on summer
camping trips.

But what exactly is a rock?

To geologists, a rock is a natural substance composed of solid crystals of different

minerals that have been fused together into a solid lump. The minerals may or may
not have been formed at the same time. What matters is that natural processes glued
them all together.

There are three basic types of rock: igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic.

Extremely common in the Earth's crust, igneous rocks are volcanic and form from
molten material. They include not only lava spewed from volcanoes, but also rocks
like granite, which are formed by magma that solidifies far underground.

Typically, granite makes up large parts of all the continents. The seafloor is formed of
a dark lava called basalt, the most common volcanic rock. Basalt is also found in

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volcanic lava flows, such as those in Hawaii, Iceland, and large parts of the U.S.
Northwest.

Granite rocks can be very old. Some granite, in Australia, is believed to be more than
four billion years old, although when rocks get that old, they've been altered enough
by geological forces that it's hard to classify them.

Sedimentary rocks are formed from eroded fragments of other rocks or even from
the remains of plants or animals. The fragments accumulate in low-lying areas—
lakes, oceans, and deserts—and then are compressed back into rock by the weight of
overlying materials. Sandstone is formed from sand, mudstone from mud, and
limestone from seashells, diatoms, or bonelike minerals precipitating out of calcium-
rich water.

Fossils are most frequently found in sedimentary rock, which comes in layers, called
strata.

Metamorphic rocks are sedimentary or igneous rocks that have been transformed by
pressure, heat, or the intrusion of fluids. The heat may come from nearby magma or
hot water intruding via hot springs. It can also come from subduction, when tectonic
forces draw rocks deep beneath the Earth's surface.

Marble is metamorphosed limestone, quartzite is metamorphosed sandstone, and

gneiss, another common metamorphic rock, sometimes begins as granite.

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 3. MALARIA
Learn more about the deadly disease that starts with a mosquito bite.

Veiled in old bed nets, dormitory residents at the Kafue Boys Secondary School in
Kafue, Zambia, get a small measure of protection each night. But the mosquito barriers
are only as good as the fabric from which they're made. Holes in the nets, untreated
material, or an exposed hand or foot during sleep increase the odds that the malaria-
carrying insects will bite.

Photograph by John Stanmeyer

The disease chiefly affects lowland tropical regions, where conditions favor
Anopheles mosquitoes, which carry the malaria parasite plasmodium. It's the blood-
seeking females that inject these microscopic invaders, each bite acting like an
infected hypodermic needle.

Of the four kinds of plasmodia, Plasmodium falciparum is by far the most dangerous,
responsible for about half of all malaria cases and 95 percent of deaths.

The parasite has a complicated life cycle, which begins in the mosquito's gut before
moving to the salivary glands, where it awaits transfer to the next host. Once in a
human's bloodstream, the parasite lodges in the liver, burrowing into cells where it
feasts and multiplies. After a week or two the plasmodia burst out—around 40,000
replications for each parasite that entered the body. Next they target red blood cells,
this time repeatedly, until there are billions of parasites in circulation. If this cycle
isn't checked, the body starts to fail, because with so many oxygen-carrying red cells
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being destroyed there are too few left to sustain vital organs. Meanwhile, all it takes
for the parasite to pass on its grim legacy is for another mosquito to stop off for a
meal.

No Vaccine

Almost two-thirds of humans infected live in sub-Saharan Africa, which also bears
around 90 percent of the global malaria death toll. A child there dies from the disease
about every 30 seconds. Elsewhere, countries worst affected are in southern Asia and
Latin America.

Those most vulnerable are young children, who have yet to develop any resistance to
the disease, and pregnant women who have reduced immunity. Signs of infection
include flu-like symptoms such as fever, shivering, headache, and muscle ache. The
P. falciparum parasite can lead to life-threatening conditions such as brain damage
(cerebral malaria), severe anemia, and kidney failure. Survivors are often left with
permanent neurological damage.

For centuries the only widely known malaria remedy was quinine, which came from
the bark of the cinchona tree of Peru and Ecuador. Then, in the 1940s, a synthetic
drug was created using the compound chloroquine. Around the same time, the
insecticide known as DDT was developed. These twin weapons led to a worldwide
assault on malaria, eradicating the disease in many areas, including the United States
and southern Europe.

But malaria has made a major comeback since the 1970s, partly because DDT use
was severely restricted after it was found to be harmful to certain wildlife, and
because the plasmodium parasite started becoming resistant to anti-malaria drugs.

With more people now falling sick from malaria than ever before, the need to tackle it
has never been so urgent. The top priority, health experts say, is finding a vaccine—
seen as the only surefire way of beating the disease.

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 4.LUNGS
Our lungs fuel us with oxygen, the body's life-sustaining gas. They breathe in air, then
extract the oxygen and pass it into the bloodstream, where it's rushed off to the tissues
and organs that require it to function.

Oxygen drives the process of respiration, which provides our cells with energy. The
waste gas carbon dioxide is produced as a byproduct and disposed of when we exhale.
Without this vital exchange our cells would quickly die and leave the body to
suffocate.

Since the lungs process air, they are the only internal organs that are constantly
exposed to the external environment. Central to the human respiratory system, they
breathe in between 2,100 and 2,400 gallons (8,000 and 9,000 liters) of air each day—
the amount needed to oxygenate the 2,400 gallons (9,000 liters) or so of blood that is
pumped through the heart daily.

Intricate Construction

Our two lungs are made up of a complex latticework of tubes, which are suspended,
on either side of the heart, inside the chest cavity on a framework of elastic fibers. Air
is drawn in via the mouth and the nose, the latter acting as an air filter by trapping
dust particles on its hairs. The air is warmed up before passing down the windpipe,
where it's divided at the bottom between two airways called bronchi that lead to
either lung.

Within the lungs, the mucus-lined bronchi split like the branches of a tree into tens of
thousands of ever smaller tubes (bronchioles), which connect to tiny sacs called
alveoli. The average adult's lungs contain about 600 million of these spongy, air-filled
structures. There are enough alveoli in just one lung to cover an area roughly the size
of a tennis court.

The alveoli are where the crucial gas exchange takes place. The air sacs are
surrounded by a dense network of minute blood vessels, or capillaries, which connect
to the heart. Those that link to the pulmonary arteries carry deoxygenated blood that
needs to be refreshed. Oxygen passes through the incredibly thin walls of the alveoli
into the capillaries and is then carried back to the heart via the pulmonary veins. At
the same time, carbon dioxide is removed from the blood through the same process of
diffusion. This waste gas is expelled as we breathe out.

The rate at which we breathe is controlled by the brain, which is quick to sense
changes in gas concentrations. This is certainly in the brain's interests—it's the body's
biggest user of oxygen and the first organ to suffer if there's a shortage.

In and Out

The actual job of breathing is done mainly by the diaphragm, the sheet of muscles
between the chest and abdomen. These muscles contract when we breathe in,
expanding the lungs and drawing in air. We breathe out simply by relaxing the
diaphragm; the lungs deflate like balloons.

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Lungs are delicate organs and vulnerable to a range of illnesses. The most common of
these in Western countries are bronchitis and emphysema, which are often caused by
smoking. Tubes inside the lung become chronically inflamed, producing excess
mucus. Smoking can also lead to lung cancer, the world's major cancer, which is
diagnosed in 1.4 million people a year.

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 5. BLACK HOLES

Astronomers think the object shown in this Chandra X-ray Observatory image (in box)
may be an elusive intermediate-mass black hole. Located about 32 million light-years
from Earth in the Messier 74 galaxy (M74), this object emits periodic bursts of x-rays at
a rate that suggests it is much larger than a stellar-mass black hole but significantly
smaller than the supermassive black holes found at the centers of galaxies. Few such
middling black holes have been discovered, and scientists aren't sure how they form.

Photograph courtesy NASA/CXC/U. of Michigan/J. Liu et al./ NOAO/AURA/NSF/T. Boroson

Black holes are the cold remnants of former stars, so dense that no matter—not even
light—is able to escape their powerful gravitational pull.

While most stars end up as white dwarfs or neutron stars, black holes are the last
evolutionary stage in the lifetimes of enormous stars that had been at least 10 or 15
times as massive as our own sun.

When giant stars reach the final stages of their lives they often detonate in cataclysms
known as supernovae. Such an explosion scatters most of a star into the void of space
but leaves behind a large "cold" remnant on which fusion no longer takes place.

In younger stars, nuclear fusion creates energy and a constant outward pressure that
exists in balance with the inward pull of gravity caused by the star's own mass. But in
the dead remnants of a massive supernova, no force opposes gravity—so the star
begins to collapse in upon itself.

With no force to check gravity, a budding black hole shrinks to zero volume—at
which point it is infinitely dense. Even the light from such a star is unable to escape

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its immense gravitational pull. The star's own light becomes trapped in orbit, and the
dark star becomes known as a black hole.

Black holes pull matter and even energy into themselves—but no more so than other
stars or cosmic objects of similar mass. That means that a black hole with the mass of
our own sun would not "suck" objects into it any more than our own sun does with its
own gravitational pull.

Planets, light, and other matter must pass close to a black hole in order to be pulled
into its grasp. When they reach a point of no return they are said to have entered the
event horizon—the point from which any escape is impossible because it requires
moving faster than the speed of light.

Small But Powerful

Black holes are small in size. A million-solar-mass hole, like that believed to be at the
center of some galaxies, would have a radius of just about two million miles (three
million kilometers)—only about four times the size of the sun. A black hole with a
mass equal to that of the sun would have a two-mile (three-kilometer) radius.

Because they are so small, distant, and dark, black holes cannot be directly observed.
Yet scientists have confirmed their long-held suspicions that they exist. This is
typically done by measuring mass in a region of the sky and looking for areas of
large, dark mass.

Many black holes exist in binary star systems. These holes may continually pull
mass from their neighboring star, growing the black hole and shrinking the other star,
until the black hole is large and the companion star has completely vanished.

Extremely large black holes may exist at the center of some galaxies—including our
own Milky Way. These massive features may have the mass of 10 to 100 billion suns.
They are similar to smaller black holes but grow to enormous size because there is so
much matter in the center of the galaxy for them to add. Black holes can accrue
limitless amounts of matter; they simply become even denser as their mass increases.

Black holes capture the public's imagination and feature prominently in extremely
theoretical concepts like wormholes. These "tunnels" could allow rapid travel
through space and time—but there is no evidence that they exist.

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 6. CANCER

A young woman exhales cigarette smoke in Shanghai, China. The People's Republic of
China is both the world's largest producer and largest consumer of tobacco, which has
led to an impending cancer epidemic in the most populous country on Earth.

Photograph by Justin Guariglia

Cancer is a disease that begins as a renegade human cell over which the body has lost
control. In order for the body and its organs to function properly, cell growth needs to
be strictly regulated. Cancer cells, however, continue to divide and multiply at their
own speed, forming abnormal lumps, or tumors. An estimated 6.7 million people
currently die from cancer every year.

Not all cancers are natural-born killers. Some tumors are referred to as benign
because they don't spread elsewhere in the body. But cells of malignant tumors do
invade other tissues and will continue to spread if left untreated, often leading to
secondary cancers.

Cancers can start in almost any body cell, due to damage or defects in genes involved
in cell division. Mutations build up over time, which is why people tend to develop
cancer later in life. What actually triggers these cell changes remains unclear, but diet,
lifestyle, viral infections, exposure to radiation or harmful chemicals, and inherited
genes are among factors thought to affect a person's risk of cancer.

Lung cancer is the world's most killing cancer. It claims about 1.2 million victims a
year. Most of those victims are smokers, who inhale cancer-causing substances called
carcinogens with every puff. Experts say around 90 percent of lung cancer cases are
due to tobacco smoking.

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Breast cancer now accounts for almost one in four cancers diagnosed in women.
Studies suggest the genes you inherit can affect the chances of developing the illness.
A woman with an affected mother or sister is about twice as likely to develop breast
cancer as a woman with no family history of the disease. Lifestyle may also have an
influence, particularly in Western countries where many women are having children
later. Women who first give birth after the age of 30 are thought to have a three times
greater risk of breast cancer than those who became mothers in their teens.

Geographical Distinctions

There are also stark geographic differences, with incidence rates varying by as much
as thirtyfold between regions. In much of Asia and South and Central America, for
example, cervix cancer is the most deadly in females. However, in North America
and Europe another kind of gynecological cancer, ovarian cancer, is a more serious
threat.

Among males, southern and eastern Africa record the second and third highest rates of
oesophageal, or gullet, cancer after China, but western and central regions of Africa
have the lowest incidence in the world. Differences in diet may explain this.

Nevertheless, the reasons why many cancers develop remain elusive. Brain cancer,
leukemia (blood cancer), and lymphoma (cancer of the lymph glands) are among
types that still mystify scientists.

Treatments

Yet ever more people are surviving diagnosis thanks to earlier detection, better
screening, and improved treatments. The three main treatment options are surgery,
radiotherapy and chemotherapy. Radiotherapy, also called radiation therapy,
involves blasting tumors with high-energy x-rays to shrink them and destroy
cancerous cells. Chemotherapy employs cancer-killing drugs.

Even so, future cancer cases are predicted to climb, since the world's population is
aging. The proportion of people over age 60 is expected to more than double by 2050,
rising from 10 percent to 22 percent. This will add an estimated 4.7 million to the
cancer death toll by 2030.

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 7. CANYONS

Bound by cliffs and cut by erosion, canyons are deep, narrow

valleys in the Earth's crust that evoke superlatives and a sense of wonder. Layers of
rock outline stories of regional geology like the table of contents to a scientific text.

The landforms commonly break parched terrain where rivers are the major force to
sculpt the land. They are also found on ocean floors where the torrents of currents dig
underwater graves.

"Grand" is the word used to describe one of the most famous canyons of all. Cut by
the Colorado River over the last few million years, the Grand Canyon is 277 miles
(446 kilometers) long, more than 5,000 feet (1,500 meters) deep, but only 18 miles
(29 kilometers) across at its widest yawn.

Layers of rock in the Grand Canyon tell much about the Colorado Plateau's formative
years: a mountain range built with two-billion-year-old rock and then eroded away;
sediments deposited from an ancient sea; more mountains; more erosion; another sea;
a burst of volcanic activity; and the birth of a river that has since carved the chasm by
washing the layers away.

Each layer erodes differently. Some crumble into slopes, others sheer cliffs. They
stack together like a drunken staircase that leads to the river's edge. A mixture of
minerals gives each layer a distinctive hue of yellow, green, or red.

Canyon Types

Other canyons start where a spring sprouts from the base of a cliff as if out of
nowhere. Such cliffs are composed of permeable, or porous, rock. Instead of flowing
off the cliff, water seeps down into the rock until it hits an impermeable layer beneath
and is forced to leak sideways. Where the water emerges, the cliff wall is weakened
and eventually collapses. A box canyon forms as sections of wall collapse further and
further back into the land. The heads of these canyons are marked by cliffs on at least
three sides.

Slot canyons are narrow corridors sliced into eroding plateaus by periodic bursts of
rushing water. Some measure less than a few feet across but drop several hundred feet
to the floor.

Submarine canyons are similar to those on land in shape and form, but are cut by
currents on the ocean floor. Many are the mere extension of a river canyon as it
dumps into the ocean and flows across the continental shelf. Others are gouged from
turbid currents that occasionally plunge to the ocean floor.

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