THE saying goes, the Lord works in mysterious ways, but He (She, It or whatever you want) hasn’t got anything on the brain.
In “The Odd Brain,” Dr. Stephen Juan trolls heavy-duty scientific literature on man’s most powerful organ and distills it into hundreds of fascinating, frequently amusing fun facts. Among the highlights:
* While hockey great Wayne Gretzky is obviously a singular athlete, he may owe part of his success to his brain: Gretzky has the fastest reflexes ever registered by neurologists.
* For those who aren’t pro sports players, however, too much brain isn’t necessarily a good thing. Researchers have found that actual ability doesn’t produce success as much as belief in ability – i.e., a dumb confident guy is better off than a smart insecure guy. Which goes a long way toward explaining Paris Hilton.
* Some good news: Subliminal messages don’t work. Try as they might, advertisers will affect us with their hidden images for a mere one-tenth of a second. Presumably, that goes for heavy metal music, too.
* Oh, and let’s get one last thing straight: Although it’s known as gray matter, under a microscope your brain is really the color of pink cotton candy. We can only guess it’s sticky, too.